Hello ScientiaOmnisEst: I once attended a partial hospital program where they told us: "Don't should on yourself..." Don't hobble yourself with unnecessary & unhelpful beliefs & expectations.There are things about my past I have not shared here on PC or much of anywhere else. I believe I understand what you're feeling because I have many of the same feelings. The only difference is I'm old & no longer care to have any kind of life, good, bad, or indifferent... I simply keep to myself while awaiting the end which I hope comes sooner rather than later. And, in the meantime, I strive to accept the fact that I am the person who did what I did. There's no changing it & there's no getting around it. I don't understand it... it simply was what it was...

I have an internet friend in the U.K. He is a Christian. (I am a devout atheist.) But if I were a Christian, he is the type of Christian I would want to be... in so many ways... He knows more about my past than most anyone else. And he has, in the past, written about the power of forgiveness... of the self as well as of others. For my part however I have told him that, from my perspective, there are some things one simply cannot forgive oneself for. Others may choose to forgive. But self-forgiveness is inappropriate. The most one can strive for is simple acceptance. This is what I strive for in my own life.

Still... I think, if one can, one should move forward to the best of one's ability. It serves no useful purpose to continue to beat oneself up over things that are now in the past. From what you wrote, it doesn't sound to me as though what you are castigating yourself over was all that serious, in the whole scheme of things. But of course guilt, as with beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. If you feel what you did was terrible, my suggesting it wasn't won't help. So I will simply offer you some healing thoughts, with the hope that in some way you will perhaps be able to achieve self-forgiveness, or barring that, a level of simple acceptance that will allow you to move forward into a brighter future.