Guilt is plaguing me

A good while ago now I had an inappropriate conversation 15-16 year old. I was 18 at the time. They wanted to speak about sexual topics and at the time i didn’t realize how wrong that was but I can across extremely creepy. I was very open that I was not attracted to anyone younger than me nor her but the conversation was still inappropriate. I shouldn’t have been speaking about those things with a younger person no matter what. I realize that after a while and started to tell her I didn’t feel comfortable talking about sexual topics. She persisted. Even sent me illegal images of children which disgusted me. She didn’t seem understand what was wrong doing that so I explained. She still persisted in her efforts to get me to be sexual with her and admitted to finding prepubescent girls attractive. At that point I stopped talking to her. Recently, I found her @ again and apologized. She said she didn’t remember what was said so I left it at that (might’ve ###$ up by saying “I guess it wasn’t that bad then but I felt bad” comes across bad after she said she she didn’t remember) . I feel like anyone could say I was tryna groom her. I have to admit I have ocd tendencies. Things like this never leave my head. They plague me all the time. I feel a pit in my stomach every time I look at the chats. I’ve done so much other things in the past (not of the same nature of course) that plague me too. Theres probably even things I don’t remember doing which scares me. I don’t feel like life is worth living anymore because I’ve done bad things. I’ve begun to avoid people even more than I normally do. I feel like they’ll know everything I’ve done and tell everyone I’m evil.

Hello, and welcome to the forums!

I think you found yourself drawn into a situation that you really weren't comfortable with. I could.. tender some guesses about their end of the conversation, but I don't think it's really necessary.

I personally say you're going to have to just let this puppy go, as in my sig line, LET IT GO. I would.... not contact her again for any sort of reassurance (you mention OCD tendencies, so, Reassurance), I'd just let it go. I think, unless you in no uncertain terms told her flat out this is a conversation we shouldn't have, and you think you need to hang onto that, then I'd be tempted to delete the chat, if for no other reason, that if it's not there for you to review, you can't be tempted to stare at it, and ruminate- which is only going to feed that OCD.

The mental image that immediately sprang to mind, is me suggesting (as in a movie) to carefully place that conversation on the ground, and slowly back away... I mean that only a little facetiously, it's a pretty accurate image of what I have in mind. That you just need to walk away from this as if it never happened, and let the thing go, and not contact them again for any kind of follow-up (I know it's really hard not to), or respond if they try to contact you. As far as you're state of mind is concerned, this person seriously needs never to have existed, in your mind. Otherwise I worry that it's going to keep eating at you. We all do things that we seriously doubt the wisdom of, and this is one of them. As long as nothing further occurs I'd count myself fortunate, and try not to let myself get placed in the same sort of situation, again.

Try to be a little kind to yourself- also, remember your own age at the time! two, three years is not a wide gap, and the line delineating 'adult', from 'not adult', can be a bit arbitrary. In fact, in my country, oftentimes laws will take that into account- sometimes the age of consent can vary, depending on the respective ages of the parties involved, rather than an immovable line.

Snaga wrote:Hello, and welcome to the forums!

I think you found yourself drawn into a situation that you really weren't comfortable with. I could.. tender some guesses about their end of the conversation, but I don't think it's really necessary.

I personally say you're going to have to just let this puppy go, as in my sig line, LET IT GO. I would.... not contact her again for any sort of reassurance (you mention OCD tendencies, so, Reassurance), I'd just let it go. I think, unless you in no uncertain terms told her flat out this is a conversation we shouldn't have, and you think you need to hang onto that, then I'd be tempted to delete the chat, if for no other reason, that if it's not there for you to review, you can't be tempted to stare at it, and ruminate- which is only going to feed that OCD.

The mental image that immediately sprang to mind, is me suggesting (as in a movie) to carefully place that conversation on the ground, and slowly back away... I mean that only a little facetiously, it's a pretty accurate image of what I have in mind. That you just need to walk away from this as if it never happened, and let the thing go, and not contact them again for any kind of follow-up (I know it's really hard not to), or respond if they try to contact you. As far as you're state of mind is concerned, this person seriously needs never to have existed, in your mind. Otherwise I worry that it's going to keep eating at you. We all do things that we seriously doubt the wisdom of, and this is one of them. As long as nothing further occurs I'd count myself fortunate, and try not to let myself get placed in the same sort of situation, again.

Try to be a little kind to yourself- also, remember your own age at the time! two, three years is not a wide gap, and the line delineating 'adult', from 'not adult', can be a bit arbitrary. In fact, in my country, oftentimes laws will take that into account- sometimes the age of consent can vary, depending on the respective ages of the parties involved, rather than an immovable line.

This is just my paranoia coming through maybe but I’m scared she might attempt to protray me as a groomer someday or something so I hold onto the chats just in case. I could back them up on my old computer maybe so I won’t have such easy access to them. I don’t even know why I would have the conversation in the first place but I used to kinda force myself to be actually sexual with others when I was way younger because I wanted them to like me (very naive of me) but anyways hopefully I can get over it! I’m sure my ocd will latch onto something else eventually. My other plethora of bad doings are waiting in line
Thank you for responding to me ❤️ I’ll come back to your comment for reassurance if I need it (I will) instead of digging a deeper hole for myself. I hope you’re having a good day.

You're more than welcome, and yes it sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things! Sometimes I think we just have to wait our fears out.