struggling to find purpose in life

i'm tired of this question. have been obsessed since 2013. i keep on blaming that if my childhood were different... i wouldnt have nervous breakdown.
cause of nervous breakdown: made gay pass on a friend

i've been making excusing for my action ever since 2013. that i blame it on my past, childhood n etc...

how do i accept it for what it was... i dont know how to get over it n be happy with life...

jaus tail wrote:i keep on blaming that if my childhood were different... i wouldnt have nervous breakdown.

I've often thought this too Jaus. I can't change it though. No matter how much I want to.

The pass at your friend- was this maybe just the last thing that finally pushed you over that edge?

I have trouble accepting things too. I do find I cope better when I am focusing on things in the here and now. I find it hard to stay in the here and now, but giving myself less time to get caught up in the past seems to help. Not really at a point of accepting and moving on- I suppose that will come at some point, but it's not just yet. For now it's just one day at a time.

Hugs if you'd like some.

Yeah, the gay pass was what put me on edge. It was in 2013. I had done similar acts before but no one knew about them. But the pass was on a friend, so it was like now they all know of it. Though no one said a word, I couldn't let it go then. Life was so easy before. Sure there were struggles but they were goal-oriented.

I've made some comments to people before that seem to have stuck with me forever as a reminder of what I got wrong. If I think about them, the feeling that comes with them is totally overwhelming.

I know it sounds ridiculously simplified, but I've had to shut them out. There's a lot of times when that thought and feeling is triggered, and it is horrible to try to sit with. Sometimes I'll allow it for a bit, and then try to distract, because I'll just endlessly beat myself up over it otherwise. As yet I'm not sure how else to deal with it. It's not something I've really brought up with my therapist. I haven't been dealing with this new guy very long though.

I've had a lot of people insist that apologising to people is my only way forward- not necessarily this particular event I get stuck on, but in general. My last therapist wasn't insistent on this, but he did say if that was important to me, and would give me closure then working towards that could be a good thing to do. I'm not really sure where I sit with that though.

Sending hugs.

i have apologized umpteen times n given forgiveness. but later the friend slapped me on my head, knowing fully well i wont be able to retaliate as i have depression. the slap was a sign of 'i can hit u now n u wont react.'

i felt helpless. now i live away from home n when i see my past from 3rd person's perspective, i realize how horrible my caretaker was.

over here being gay is a very big taboo. i feel ashamed of it. i think even if i'd lost a leg, that would be acceptable and ok to live with than making a gay pass.

i cant free myself of the thought of 'what if..' n thus i'm unable to live in the present, i move around like a zombie. anything else i would've gotten over a few days after the incident... loss of a leg, 2 legs... but not the stigma of having made a gay pass... i hope to die of this coronavirus...

I'm sorry it went badly for you. It's hard enough to take that step as is. I've not actually managed to apologise to that person I wronged. It happened more than 20 years ago. I think it would be odd now if I reached out to apologise. And I've not had contact with them for at least 10 years- only reason being because our lives went down different paths.

I only now realise how warped things in my upbringing were. It's hard to look back at it and understand it was wrong to be treated that way. I do a lot of blocking stuff out. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. Sometimes dissociation just takes over.

We all make mistakes Jaus. And having anxiety issues means you play them over and over in your head on repeat, and it sucks. That "what if" is overwhelming- I know it seems near impossible to switch it off.

You don't deserve to die of coronavirus. Or to just be hurting so much. Yes, in that moment it was maybe the wrong reaction, but you can't keep hurting yourself more over it. Hugs.

Do you have a therapist you're working with at all?

Take good care of yourself. Hugs.

yes i have a therapist. she says you acted how you knew. you didnt know better.

thing is we all wear masks and say:
'i've never cried in life'.

mask of hypocrisy that we've never made a mistake. mask that we're alpha males. mask that we're never depressed or that depression is for whiners.

when i made the gay pass at a friend, it felt like my mask had fallen off.

if none of my friends knew of this i wouldnt exaggerate this issue so much. but they found out of the gay pass (i told them as the guilt was insane). they didnt say bad to me, but it felt embarrassing. of course i was 23 then. m 30 now.

there are some stuff we dont want anyone to find out. this was my secret that i never wanted to reveal.

n now when i look back at the 7 years (it happened in 2013), i see the time wasted. opportunities wasted.
my colleagues of that time have moved light years ahead of me in terms of career, while i'm still stuck on that day.