Hi there, I don’t really know how to explain what i’m going through but i’ll try anyway and hope to get some advice. I’m 19 years old and a few years ago I remembered a ‘fantasy’ that I had when I was around 9 and ever since my life hasn’t been the same in terms of how I feel. I don’t want to go into detail but I read an article about something terrible and absoloutely horrific that happened and I ‘enjoyed ‘ reading this and I know this maybe isn’t making much sense but the fact that I enjoyed it was very twisted and evil. Things improved a few months after I remembered about what I did but a year and half ago it began to affect me again. I wouldn’t say that I’m depressed but I honestly can’t remember what real happiness feels like and I do occasionally get anxious and have had really scary panic attacks and honestly I feel like I might lose my mind. I believe I have suffered from derealisation for a lot of my life and the anxiety from what I did affected me so much last year I felt like the world wasn’t real and it terrified me so much and while things are slightly better I just want to cry because things will never be the same. Things aren’t the same such as Christmas and even watching a movie isn’t the same- I just don’t feel true happiness anymore .People have been very complimentary about me and think I’m ‘Lovely’ and ‘gentle ‘ but clearly i’m hiding this very dark secret and it’s making me miserable. My family is loving and generous I don’t deserve to get gifts or anything I feel sad for them having a daughter like me (I haven’t told anyone what I did) I couldn’t begin to explain to anyone what I thought about it is just awful and what happened in the real story is extremely disturbing . It does scare me. I have friends , do feel empathy for people and I love nature and music and family and am just a normal girl. What I will say is that when I was younger I loathed myself and thought I was so ugly and had very low self esteem and I did have anxiety (not to do with this) but now bizarrely enough I have more confidence and am more relaxed around people . Also I can still go about life and I love to laugh and genuinely have fun but it’s nearly like the beauty in life has been hidden from me.When I had this fantasy (I knew that it was wrong at the time and want to say it was non sexual) ) little did I know it would spoil my mind and emotions in later life . Ignorance really is bliss. How do I move past this? I know maybe i’m not making much sense here but please if anyone has any advice on what to do or why i did this I would greatly appreciate it
Thank you so very much