Hello, I'm a 20-year-old male. I've been feeling intense shame and anxiety the last couple of days because I've been remembering some really depraved, sadomasochistic sexual fantasies I had some years ago (I'm not really sure when I started having them and when I stopped, it was sometime in my teens). The memory of these fantasies has been bothering me periodically for more than a year. I've just been trying to repress it whenever it comes because I don't know how to deal with it, but it always comes back sooner or later.
I know having fantasies is not immoral in itself but I still feel extremely disgusted with myself whenever I remember these fantasies. I really don't feel that I'm either a sadist or a masochist since these fantasies were just temporary and I never wanted to act them out, but then why did I ever have them in the first place? Where did they come from? How can fantasies that disgust me have been arousing to me in the past (they repulsed me even back then, paradoxical as it may seem)? I just can't get it to add up. I don't know how to reconcile myself with this.
The shame and anxiety keeps distracting me from studies and other things in life and has lead to me developing an inferiority complex towards other people in general; I can't be around other people without thinking that they've surely never had any such fantasies and fearing what they would think of me if they knew about this. I feel worthless compared to other people.