Constant guilt from what I did. *Trigger Warning*

To preface, I made a post about this issue at the start of the year when I was in an extremely depressed m, angry and unwell state. This state has improved significantly over the past 6 months, but there are some days where my brain decides to remind me of the disgusting thing I did in my mid-teens.

To summarise what I did with a better more rational mind, I had a period where I looked at rule34 drawings of teenagers and small children at 15 for about a month or so along with weird fantasies that were all over the place. At 16, I stumbled onto an instagram account with advertisements to child pornography with downloadable links to the files. I reported about 9 of these advertisements but disturbingly masturbated to 2 of the teasers once or twice. I also read stories that depicted child sexual abuse for about 2-3 months. At 17, I heard about the dark web and ended up accessing child sexual abuse sites numerous times over a month or two. I browsed the threads and thumbnail previews advertising links to video, but fortunately stopped short from actually viewing the videos or photos. Some of those thumbs were incredibly graphic and I struggle to forgive myself now knowing that I was in a place where children were used as commodities, traumatised in the most heinous of ways and passed around and fed to the gigantic monstrosity of human trafficking.

I am now 23. Ever since that moment in time I have never been the same. Everything has been flipped upside down. The idea that in any way I have harmed a child has led me to try to forget it by taking magic mushrooms, considering death on countless occasions over the years and driving myself into a full blown psychotic break last year where I took psychedelics to escape and crawl away into nothingness. I did everything to try and counter possible harms I caused but it never feels like it's enough to wash away this feeling of dirtiness and staining. I'm sure that is nothing compared to what those victims live with though.

I still watch porn, but never have I ever considered seeking out child exploitation since that disturbing period. Have I given myself permanent brain damage from those horrific thumbnails?

Welcome back, and sorry to hear you're still struggling with this.

As you've said yourself, at no time did you actually consume the material itself. Therefore, I'd say you are not complicit in the exploitation of minors- and keep in mind, you were yourself a minor at the time. Still need to let this go and move on, you're a better person now, and ought to keep that in mind from time to time, lest you get eat up over something you didn't really actually do. I think the regret is healthy- it kept you from going down a dark path- but this continual self-flagellation has gone far past its healthful purpose, and the thing that was a positive, is now detrimental. It's not proportional to what you did. Especially when you didn't do, a lot more than you did do.