Shame over old fantasies...

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.

The brain is a confusing thing. But it is absolutely very much within anyone rights to think whatever they want (or even do not want) in the privacy of their own mind. You may feel odd about the thoughts you had, but they are *just thoughts* and don't define you whatsoever as a person. In fact, I suspect most people have depraved, obscene or violent thoughts from time to time, especially in one's teens. It doesn't make you abnormal or immoral. End of.

sprock wrote:The brain is a confusing thing. But it is absolutely very much within anyone rights to think whatever they want (or even do not want) in the privacy of their own mind.

I understand that thoughts cannot be wrong morally speaking, but I still feel disgusted by them and I just can't make sense of why I was aroused by fantasies that I feel don't reflect my true sexual desires at all.

sprock wrote:You may feel odd about the thoughts you had, but they are *just thoughts* and don't define you whatsoever as a person.

I'm not sure I can really grasp the concept of thoughts not defining who I am. I've heard it said before but it's just... what defines someone if not their thoughts?

sprock wrote:In fact, I suspect most people have depraved, obscene or violent thoughts from time to time, especially in one's teens. It doesn't make you abnormal or immoral. End of.

I don't know... I realize it's pretty normal to fantasize about things that are more taboo/kinky than what you would actually like to do, but I feel like the fantasies I had were just too extreme to be normal.

I feel like I must be some kind of sadist and/or masochist otherwise I can't understand why I was aroused by these fantasies, but at the same time I really don't feel like I am either of those.

The fact that your old fantasies make you feel disgusted with yourself implies (to me) that you see them as having some moral component... in terms of what you *are* I would honestly say that a person is defined by their actions.

As for more depraved than other people's, that is impossible to know (since most people aren't going to talk openly about their most depraved thoughts). Personally, I suspect that your thoughts are milder than those of many published authors, such as de Sade or J.G. Ballard or Carlton Mellick III or many others (if you - the reader - is under 18 don't read these authors! if you're over, knock yourselves out if you so want to! )

I can only repeat that you did nothing wrong and that you need to accept that just because you had depraved thoughts doesn't mean that you are perverted or weird. Fantasies are fantasy, they are not the truth.

I can relate with you OP I have fantasized over some real f*cked up sh*t i don't know how depraved yours were, but mine were pretty depraved. Those fantasies have gone now, so I have nothing to worry about. It was just my early teenage mind being f*cked i guess