Deep remorse, please help

Well, hello again. I thought 2016 would be the year I put this all behind me and begin anew and I guess I was wrong. I know that since I'm 16, this might sound silly and exaggerated.

No matter how much valid points I bring up to myself such as - I was young and stupid; these mistakes made me a better person; nobody will care about what I did when I was 14/15; people make mistakes all the time; it's time I forgive myself and move on, etc. and start feeling happy and hopeful, I relapse into a period of guilt and despair and all that I had mentally done to feel better and forgive myself is null and void.

I'm a disgusting person, not because of who I am now, but because of what I've done. And it's impossible to change that. Today I've had the strongest suicidal thoughts, and I'm starting to accept what I have to do. I love my family, friends and pets so, so goddamn much and I don't want to cause any harm and sadness to them, but for now I see suicide as the valid option. Better to just end it all now than live a life of remorse, despair and deppression. It will never get better. I am not worthy of having the awesome people I have as friends and if I get my dream job (surgeon) and make my family proud of me, it will all be fake, because of what I've done. It tarnished me as a person, made me a degenerate in my eyes, due to my ideas of what's right and what's not, and they'll never change. I don't deserve to have a girlfriend I love, never had one too.

I'm still scared of death, and I am very, very saddened by the fact that I'll never get to save people's lives and make a difference in the world, that I'll cause so much sadness to my parents and grandparents, that my pets will wonder where have I went, and that I will hurt other people with what I have to do.

My idea was to spend some more time with family, friends and pets before I do it. But I'll probably be a coward and never do it, and go on to live a miserable life of regret.

guiltyperson wrote:Today I've had the strongest suicidal thoughts, and I'm starting to accept what I have to do. I love my family, friends and pets so, so goddamn much and I don't want to cause any harm and sadness to them, but for now I see suicide as the valid option. Better to just end it all now than live a life of remorse, despair and deppression. It will never get better

I will reply to this in greater detail tomorrow but **first of all** if you love your family, friends and pets and don't want to cause them harm or sadness, then suicide can't be your only valid option. Because even though you obviously wouldn't do doing it to hurt them... it would. There is no way of escaping that. What you did caused so little harm compared to the serious harm that your death would cause. You know that so you need to hang on.

Also, you don't **know** it will never get better. For one thing, you are still technically a child. As such you have your whole adult life ahead of you. Turning 18 is a great opportunity to turn over a new leaf. There is a reason why in many places a criminal record is expunged when a child turns 18. As recognised by the law you are a different person. So at least hold on until then.

Finally, youa re thinking in a black & white way that does not reflect reality. However much you may not want it to or feel you deserve it, light *will* get it.

I've spent the last 5 years feeling guilty and monstrous and despairing every day... but I'd be lying if I said this was true of every minute. I know that within those 5 years I have had moments where my complete love for the world or individuals completely overwhelmed my sense of self-loathing; moments where voluntary work I was doing seemed to produce such beautiful results that I was distracted for a short while; times when I have gotten caught up in a book or a film or a piece of music for sometimes minutes at a time. And yes, there are just moments. But they count. They exist.

sprock wrote:

guiltyperson wrote:Today I've had the strongest suicidal thoughts, and I'm starting to accept what I have to do. I love my family, friends and pets so, so goddamn much and I don't want to cause any harm and sadness to them, but for now I see suicide as the valid option. Better to just end it all now than live a life of remorse, despair and deppression. It will never get better

I will reply to this in greater detail tomorrow but **first of all** if you love your family, friends and pets and don't want to cause them harm or sadness, then suicide can't be your only valid option. Because even though you obviously wouldn't do doing it to hurt them... it would. There is no way of escaping that. What you did caused so little harm compared to the serious harm that your death would cause. You know that so you need to hang on.

Also, you don't **know** it will never get better. For one thing, you are still technically a child. As such you have your whole adult life ahead of you. Turning 18 is a great opportunity to turn over a new leaf. There is a reason why in many places a criminal record is expunged when a child turns 18. As recognised by the law you are a different person. So at least hold on until then.

Finally, youa re thinking in a black & white way that does not reflect reality. However much you may not want it to or feel you deserve it, light *will* get it.

I've spent the last 5 years feeling guilty and monstrous and despairing every day... but I'd be lying if I said this was true of every minute. I know that within those 5 years I have had moments where my complete love for the world or individuals completely overwhelmed my sense of self-loathing; moments where voluntary work I was doing seemed to produce such beautiful results that I was distracted for a short while; times when I have gotten caught up in a book or a film or a piece of music for sometimes minutes at a time. And yes, there are just moments. But they count. They exist.

I don't know man... I've tried the whole "new, different person" and so far while it did offer temporary relief, I just still come back to the conclusion that I've done that and there's no changing it.

Yes, there are the moments where I just forget about that and in those moments I am truly happy. But honestly, I don't wish to live my life in anticipation of those moments.

I wanted to become a surgeon and help other people, to have a good life and die happily, with a clean soul, knowing that my existence saved lives.

Now I feel like a lowlife scum. Anything good I do won't change the fact that I am not normal. If only there was a way to die without bringing harm to those around me. I'm sorry if I'm making you feel bad, 5 years of remorse sounds like living hell.

I realize that I can continue on, become what I wanted to be, and deep inside, I think I wish to do that. But, honestly, what I've done would still haunt me 'till my final days. I haven't caused harm to anyone but myself with what I have done, and if it was someone else, they'd probably feel guilty about it for some time, forgive themselves and forget about it and live like it has never happened.

This is not who I wanted to be. I'm trying to make peace with what I am and what I must do. I'm pretty unhappy that I ###$ it all up so hard, as I had potential to be a good, functioning member of society. I could've had another, say, 70 years of a great life filled with a good struggle, work that I enjoy, talking with patients and doing my best to help them, seeing my children grow up and all of that stuff. But I ###$ it up. All of it.

-- Wed Jan 20, 2016 11:59 pm --

And in my selfish ramblings, I forgot to thank you sprock, as you're offering me so much support.

Hi guiltyperson. I have to keep going back through your posts to double check what it is you feel so bad about, because reading through them I would have guessed you've done something one hundred times worse.

I bet what you did is more common than you think among boys (and men for that matter). It's just nobody admits it! Now, I know that just because something might be common, doesn't necessarily make it right, but the absolute truth is that we can't be held accountable for our thoughts.

Anyone who claims they have complete control over the authorship of their thoughts and impulses is either lying, misguided or they have some super-human power, like Descartes' "ghost in the machine". If you just watch your thoughts for a minute, you'll see they simply arise out of a darkness. You think you create them and are therefore wilfully thinking these things into existence, but that's an illusion.

You don't intentionally create thoughts, you experience thoughts as awareness. If thoughts/impulses become potentially harmful (e.g. alcoholics, drug addicts, paedophiles), then the solution lies in re-programming the mind or changing one's relationship with thought so that it has less power over your actions. Therapy is a major option here. But also meditation can help to cut through the noise of mind.

Secondly, what harm has been done by privately taking care of an erection, whatever the thought fuelling it was?

I believe you are doing what many do - confusing merely "yucky" feelings with immoral actions.

Thought can only be amoral. Morals come into play when things move within the physical space outside the brain. Of course, we can ponder the nature of morality before our actions manifest in the world, but that's different, and you say you had no desire to act out on your fantasies, hence there are no moral implications to consider.

So in summary I would first take some time to really look at the relationship between thought and morality. Perhaps read up on some moral philosophy (ethics). This may help you to realise that what YOU think is immoral/wrong, and even what the law deems right/wrong, is perhaps not so clear cut.

It's easy to get caught up in your own thoughts (which are conditioned by many factors beyond your control) and therefore develop a very insular and ingrained sense of right and wrong. Explore these concepts outside of your mind, free of dogma, and open up the questions a bit more.

This is a great reply. I'd actually forgotten when I last wrote that you are remorseful about ***thoughts*** ~ such is your level of remorse that I felt it must be something worse. Which isn't to say that you don't feel absolutely awful and stricken about this - you clearly do. But please realise that you didn't hurt anyone and that everyone has weird, perverted thoughts sometimes - but they really are just that - thoughts. They absolutely don't define you as a person. You are a good human being and you have nothing to feel guilty about.

Which is to say... you can definitely still be a great surgeon and help others! It wouldn't even make you a hypocrite! Really, you did no harm out in the world! Promise.

Thank you so much for the wonderful posts, and sorry for not replying back fast, was busy with school.

It really, really helps reading what you guys say, but I still can't shake the dreadful feeling of guilt. It strangely went away after the last time I had posted here, and even thinking about what I have done didn't affect me, but I've been starting to feel it creep back in again. I still ponder a little about suicide, but I don't think I'll be putting an end to my life any time soon, thankfully.

I still feel like I don't deserve anything good, and that I have forever stained my life (so to say). I feel intense anxiety / fear whenever I think about somebody finding out what I've done, and I dread to think what that will do to me if it ever happens. You can't just say "ah, that was a long time ago, I'm not that person". If someone knows what I've done, they'll probably forever think of me as a disgusting person, which I am, to be honest.

In short, what I feel guilty about is - being attracted to and masturbating to - my mom, a girl that was exactly a year younger than me (god I feel so ######6 awful about these two things, makes me feel like the most disgusting pile of $#%^ ever), and drawn stuff that I had not realized were actually depicting girls younger than me (max 2 years gap). [note that these things had happened only once]

###$. Why did this had to happen? I feel like this devalues me as a person so much. I constantly ask myself, why did I do this? Right now (I am 16 years old), I am most certainly not attracted to girls that are younger than me and I am not attracted to my mother.

Now, whenever I get an urge to masturbate - for example, I find a hot model that is obviously a woman older than me (and older than 18 years), I absolutely must investigate when she was born, so I can confirm that she is older than me.

Whenever I see a girl outside that is most likely my age or older, and she looks good, I instantly just look away in fear and think to myself "ew, she's probably younger than me / what if she younger than me". I am so afraid of the idea of me being attracted to girls younger than me, it just scares me so much, even though I am not.

It helps venting about stuff like this, but I just don't know. I feel like the biggest, most disgusting degenerate.

You are absolutely not the biggest degenerate - not even remotely, remotely, remotely, remotely close!

You are not a degenerate at all.

As I said before, your thoughts did not hurt anyone (apart from, apparently, yourself) and **everyone** has the occasionally bizarre or profoundly messed up thoughts. Your brain is your own private universe - you didn't violate any laws, you didn't encroach on anyone else's personal liberty, you didn't hurt, abuse or otherwise perpetrate against anyone. End of. This is important. I absolutely refuse you agree with you that you are tainted or a bad person. :p And I'm not gonna budge on this one!

Sorry for not posting, but I was a bit busy these past days. Thanks sprock for the replies, I honestly feel much better reading them!

So, as always, I've been ruminating extensively on my issues, and for once I think this has paid off - I had forgotten that some time ago (around a year and a half, maybe more, but after I had done my first transgression) for apparently no reason I started being afraid of a random thought that became very invasive - "What if I am a pedophile?". I certainly was not and I still am not, but the thought was constantly intrusive and made me feel pretty bad for no reason. And after I had masturbated to that girl that was one year younger than me (I was 15 at the time, she actually has a boyfriend that's around a year and a half older than her), that fear just grew so, so much and since then has been screwing my life up additionaly. I was afraid to talk about this earlier, when I had posted this thread (so I focused on the other things I was remorseful about), and I am still pretty scared just talking about this. Right now I am scared to even just look at a girl that is younger than me, for reasons even I can't quite comprehend, it just feels better not to. I really want to move on with my life, stop feeling shame, stop hating myself and be a good person, but these things are holding me back.

I've noticed that my mental state is like a rollercoaster, there are periods where I feel utterly deppressed, I hate myself so much and want to kill myself, and periods where I feel like there is still hope and that perhaps I am not a bad person. The change between these periods is very rapid, in a matter of a few hours sometimes.

One thing that makes me very afraid, ashamed and suicidal, is the thought of people finding out what I've done, branding me a disgusting pedophile, pervert, etc. and completely alienating me. If that ever happens I am quite sure I'd be pushed to suicide, sadly. That's why I am very, very afraid of that happening, and that is perhaps one of my biggest problems that I have, because I feel that this is the thing that is holding me back from living a good life the most.

-- Wed Mar 16, 2016 3:39 pm --

Hello again. I've been feeling better these days and started to forget about what I've done, but recently those awful feelings have been crawling back up again, and I've been thinking about talking with my mom and asking for a therapist. I won't tell her what exactly I feel bad about, but only that I need a therapist. But I'm pretty damn scared, I feel uncomfortable when I think about asking to go to a therapist.

Anyways, there's one thing that's a huge problem that's even if I manage to wrestle with my guilt and forget about all of this, I'm pretty ######6 scared of someone finding about what I've done, one way or another. Whenever I play this "scenario" out in my head, I imagine everyone hating me and being disgusted with me, and to be honest I think that would be the most reasonable reaction from other people to me if they found out what I've done. It makes me so scared to think I can lose my friends and become a social outcast all because of some stupid $#%^ I did when I was 14-15. Jeez.

What are you guys' thoughts on this? It really helps to hear from other people.

May I answer your question with a question? [I know it's annoying. Sorry.]

Picking something I hope won't be triggering. Imagine that a friend of yours sends you this link- remorse/topic150950.html#p1555271 And says they wrote it and just want to be be honest with you about it. What would you reply to them? Would you still be friends?

Hi, I have a few thoughts. Firstly as others have said everything just happened in your head and hasn't infringed on anyone's rights. It seams to me the problem is EXCESSIVE quilt, I wonder if you agree about the excessive part? Also you say you felt better after posting and reading replies which means you have made a start at finding things that lesson your problems, I think it's possible that since talking about it online helps talking to therapist might help to so I'd recommend looking looking into that.

Good luck.