Deep remorse, please help

Hello again! I haven't posted here since more than one year ago, but here I am again. And it's about the same problem. Before I start, I am 16 years old. Anyways, around the end of 2013, for one (or two days) something went terribly wrong in my head and for some reason I found my mother attractive. I eventually gave in for some reason (biggest mistake of my life) and masturbated once to the thought of her. Immediately after I was finished I panicked, felt so much guilt and hoped and prayed that it was just a nightmare. Since then I have never seen her as nothing more than my mom and feel absolutely, positively ZERO attraction to her. I feel disgusted with myself every time I remember that, which happens quite often. I've been getting awful intrusive thoughts about it and sometimes they intensify so much that I feel trapped, cornered and in despair. Its really weird, I feel like I can't do absolutely nothing and that makes me feel very anxious, even panicked a few times. Whenever I kinda start forgiving myself I imagine how other people I know haven't done it, and that they are clean and normal and that I'll never be able to be a normal person once again, which just drives me into despair and helplessness. Since that happened I've gradually built up my morals, if you can say so, and I deem incest disgusting (even though last time I posted here I had a fetish about it, it contributes to the feeling of disgust towards myself). And there's the problem, that makes me disgusting according to my morals, yet I can't just make a special excuse for me or completely throw my morals away because I feel that will make me less of a good person. I just don't feel like I can ever redeem myself, and that I am doomed to carry deep remorse towards my past actions and disgust towards me.

One thing that makes me get a lot of anxiety about this problem is - what if someone finds about what I've done somehow? Or what if people knew who I truly was? I feel like all the positive things about me are just some fake facade to cover up a disgusting person, even though it was just some stupid mistake in my past that made such a person.

I don't know... I've noticed that if that specific disgust towards myself pipes down for some time it is replaced yet by more disgust for me - I either get nasty intrusive thoughts about stuff like causing harm to others (which I would never do, I am an absolute pussy - I've never thrown a punch both because I am not that violent and due to a fear of causing harm to someone else. I even tend to get scared if I think I may have hurt someone either physically or verbally by accident and start profusely apologising and even after they say it's all OK, I still get a lingering feeling of doubt.) or I start thinking about how ugly I am, even though nobody has ever told me that I am ugly.

I just feel like I've missed a great opportunity at a wonderful life - I easily make friends and have a lot of good friends that we joke around and have tons of fun times at school, I get excellent grades (when I'm not lazy, had to cram all my work last year in the last few weeks of school for excellent marks on a bunch of subjects), my parents and grandparents are proud of me and its just so weird, how some stupid thing like that affects me so much. It's even made me lightly ponder suicide, but I usually just abandon the idea completely because I know it will hurt so much people.

I don't know what to do. I could perhaps try to talk to my parents about going to a psychiatrist, telling my mom about what happened is absolutely NEVER going to happen, I don't want to alienate her and let her know what a miserable and disgusting person I am because I really really love her (not in that way). I feel like I've betrayed her and caused her harm.

It's just so confusing...

Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it!

Everything happened only in your mind, so your mind is the way out of this.

I think that you just don't have proper outlets so your new sexual energy as an adolescent was directed who is female and around you.

Girls are as insecure as you are. There are a lot of them. Let's say there are 5 that you are interested in, you may face 4 rejections and once acceptance. Men are, like it or not, expected to be the ones to take the initiative. It means we have to put ourselves out there. But too many many are afraid. So just being nice, genuine, but asking a woman out is often enough to do the trick. Look for a woman who has something special about her, but maybe has been overlooked by others.

Just focus your energy on those things. As for your mom, she is the closest woman to you in the world. Just let it be a one off random thought, and redirect your thoughts. Give yourself a code word, when your mind starts thinking in ways you don't like, use the code word and redirect toward girls your age. Eventually it will be second nature.

You are really lucky, everything wrong is in your head, so as soon as you take the reigns on your thoughts you are home free. And you still love your mom as your mom, so train yourself to focus on the ways she has nurtured you and not on her body.

Love yourself. You are in a good place, you've recognized a thought you don't like and you have potential to change it.

Your mind is just your mind. You didn't hurt anyone. Everyone has strange thoughts - they don't mean anything. Please try to release yourself from guilt as you've done nothing to feel guilty over.

Thank you for the awesome replies! I'm feeling way better then when I had posted this!

Equus-Mind wrote:Give yourself a code word, when your mind starts thinking in ways you don't like, use the code word and redirect toward girls your age. Eventually it will be second nature.

And you still love your mom as your mom, so train yourself to focus on the ways she has nurtured you and not on her body.

Just to clear up any confusion, I am not attracted to my mom, don't even get that many intrusive thoughts about something innapropriate about her, and even if I do I can manage to quickly dismiss them.

Anyways, there's one thing that's really bothering me and it is what if I let out my secret? Say, I get drunk at a party (although the chance of that happening is low, I hate alcohol, but still, I imagine some future where I change and don't mind drinking it) and in a drunken haze let out my secret to friends, maybe even family. What do I do then?

That's probably the thought that's giving me the most fear and anxiety right now.

Anyways, thanks again for the nice replies!

I apologise for the non answer. But I don't think fortune telling's very useful. It's VERY hard to stop doing, true. Worth trying, though. The "what ifs" can really eat a person alive.

A better answer, possibly? Perhaps it's helpful to think how many jumps you've made to get to this fear. In a future where you get raging drunk. [Though you don't hate drinking.] Then, where you're in a situation where this topic of conversation comes up. [Because being drunk tends to fog the thought process. So it's highly unlikely to happen spontaneously.] Also, where the other people around you are not also so drunk that they laugh it off. [Or confess the same thing. Or confess something else equally personal.] Finally, where you've said it in such a way that doesn't give any outs. No "Just fooling around. Wanted to see if I could shock you." etc.

Well, that's already 4 really major steps standing between you and an irrevocable admission. Better odds of winning the lottery. Possibly, I think you'd be likely to find at that point. If you're with good friends. That almost everyone has something they feel guilty about. Note- those that don't are not saints! They're more likely to have AsPD or another disorder that prevents them feeling remorse or guilt. They've done / felt / thought such things. But simply don't care.

IF after all this, friends or family take something you've said seriously. You would apologise. Emphasise that it isn't an ongoing thing. And move on. I know that sounds bizarre and "too easy." When this has been clearly a really difficult issue. It's plain astonishing what people will accept and deal with, though. Some people have permanent incest fetishes or other paraphilias. That doesn't mean they're bad people. Or that their life is over once they realise that. It's just one part of them and there are many, many other parts. It's not immoral to look at the bigger picture. Family and friends will know you well enough to do that too.

Hello again.

I am starting to get tired of this constant remorse. If I start forgetting about one thing (or move on from it, although temporarily) that makes me remorseful, I get something else to make me feel remorseful about, or I start to feel intense fear / anxiety at the thought of people knowing about what I've done, and how things will go on from there, which I think will be a complete nightmare if it ever happens.

(Let me just start by saying I am 16 years old) One recent thing that has popped up is that I realized something bad. A while ago (I was 15), I had found some pretty neat fanart of Daenerys Targaryen from GoT, and thought - "hey this isn't pretty bad fapping material". For a drawn person (it's kinda hard sometimes to define age of drawn people, unless it's blatant), she looked like she was definitely above 18, since the face was mature-looking, just like one of the comments on the image had said. The only knowledge about the character I had at the time was from the TV series, that I had only watched an episode of (and Emilia Clarke is pretty hot). And today, I found out that in the books, she is actually very young, like 13 or something, and that the fanart was not for the series, but for the books. The moment I found out that I felt an intense fear, a panic of sorts. I wanted to run, to escape, but obviously you can't escape from yourself, so I felt doomed and panicked even more. Now I am just feeling pretty empty and sad. The whole thing about liking someone younger than me, even one year difference, is pretty scary and disgusting to me. I am even afraid of looking at some girl who is younger than me, or if I see a girl that might be my age or even older and is good-looking, I think something like "but what if she's younger than me? no, I should not be attracted to her", unless she is blatantly older than me. If I find some nice model for.. eh, private time, I start googling to see when she was born and if she's older than me, even if it's like obvious that she is. I am even afraid posting this right now, as I feel like I can be put in prison or something.

I just don't know anymore, it's like a constant - "why am I doing this to myself? why am I beating up myself?" and "why did I do that? why am I so awful and not a normal person?".
I spend a lot of time ruminating on these things in my mind, trying to find excuses and it feels like I am debating with myself about whether I am worthy of being liked by people and living or whether I am just a failed, disgusting and immoral person. I do get very intrusive thoughts that I can't exactly describe, since they are like a reminder to start ruminating and feeling bad about what I've done.

I want to live a happy life and be normal, but it seems I have doomed myself.

-- Fri Dec 18, 2015 11:18 pm --

I am getting pretty scared now. Starting to feel like I'm probably on some watchlist or that people are just plain disgusted when they read what I had posted, as paranoid as it sounds. Oh man...

Have you read many other threads in this part of the forum? There's a lot of people dealing with a lot of crappy feelings. For many different reasons. No watchlists, no need for paranoia.

The ruminating seems really tiring though. Have you thought any more about whether you might be able to get some support offline too? A therapist or counsellor, perhaps?

Ada wrote:Have you read many other threads in this part of the forum? There's a lot of people dealing with a lot of crappy feelings. For many different reasons. No watchlists, no need for paranoia.

The ruminating seems really tiring though. Have you thought any more about whether you might be able to get some support offline too? A therapist or counsellor, perhaps?

Thank you so much for the response!
Yes, I've read a lot of other threads in this part of the forum, and while I can't find anyone else with my reasons for remorse, a lot of people seem to be affected in a similar way to me - basically, doing something in the past that doesn't fit with moral beliefs / standards and feeling intense guilt about it, with fear of someone knowing about it.

I've thought about it a lot, but that would mean revealing what I've done, otherwise it'll be a waste of time, and frankly, I'm way too scared of doing that. Only place I've ever actually told other people is here.

I know I'm certainly not attracted to incest and girls that are younger than me by more than a year difference (since 1 year difference is normal, or at least I think it is) but I still feel bad.

That Daenerys fan art definitely did not look like someone younger than me and I thought she was drawn as if she was older than 18/19 years. It just makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable even typing about it, ugh. I'll just forever avoid 2D/drawn explicit images now...

guiltyperson wrote:I've thought about it a lot, but that would mean revealing what I've done, otherwise it'll be a waste of time, and frankly, I'm way too scared of doing that. Only place I've ever actually told other people is here.

But, it seems to me, the problem isn't what you've done. It's how you feel about some things that went on in your head. For me. I found that letting stuff out of my head helped me get perspective on it. I went through the privacy and confidentiality rules with my therapist right at the start. For different reasons to you. But still, it's quite "normal" to check in about all that kind of thing. And then, they're not there to judge. The aim is to get out of the ruminating rut. And try to find healthier ways to respond to distressing thoughts. That's so hard on your own.

I really wouldn't worry about this. Personally I feel that pen and ink don't have human feelings and, as such, don't have human rights. But, moveover, the character is older in the tv series and the actress is older than you!