[agatha9]

When I was younger I was the kind of person who always did what she wanted to. I never thought of the consequences of behaving like that. As a child I went through so much pain, so much abuse, that I decided to live my life as fast as I could. A few years ago, I started hitting myself. I thought I deserved to be punished, but I never really understood why, until now. Everyday I struggle with the memories of what I've done. They come without invitation. They come at the least expected time. I also believe that there is no hope for me, I fear that my future won't be better than my present. And my present really sucks. I believe that I have misled my life so that today I'm not where I was supposed to be, where I dreamed to be.

It's been months regretting every wrong that I've made, every bad decision, every step out of the way. I try to justify myself by thinking that I have a lot of issues, but then I have always had an option, so in the end it was always my choice. I have felt this way before, but I never fell so low because of what I felt about myself. It was always because my family discovered what I did and they told me it was not right. Now I'm confronted with myself, my failed dreams, my conscience, my guilt. This time it's all about me. So I want to think there is still hope, I want to believe that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. I'm looking for advice on how I could use this pain and do much guilt to be a better person.

Therapy has not worked so far, for they insist in making me understand the reasons why I did so many things. I have found so many reasons, that now I am completely confused. I believe thinking again and again about what I did will only drive me drazy. I am determined not to do it again. So I also believe that I need to use this feelings to be a better person. Just that. Thanks.

Hello agatha9: You & I have much in common. I have not written about this here on PC. But years ago, I did horrendous things that have scarred innocent people for life. In a right-thinking society what I did should probably be illegal. But in our society it is not. In fact it is common. I hate myself for it. My only consolation is that I don't believe in god or any kind of life after death. I believe human beings are just another variety of animal that happened to evolve on earth & that when you're dead, you're dead. So, from that perspective, nothing really matters, except to the persons involved while they exist.

I am also haunted by my past. Fortunately I am aging now. And my memories are slowly losing their intensity. Plus, I don't have that much of a future to worry about. I also try to justify my deeds, from time-to-time, by telling myself I was (& still am) mentally ill. I didn't realize it at the time, & there was precious little help available back then anyway. But still, as you wrote, I had choices & I made all the wrong ones. And as a result I have devolved into someone I would never have imagined myself to be. But I am.

I have also tried therapy. It simply has not been beneficial. And none of the therapists I've ever seen were worth the bother from my perspective. What comfort I have been able to find, I have found in the writings of the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön. Basically what Pema teaches is a centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist practice called: "Lojong". And the essence of these teachings involves learning to be able to "sit" with one's pain... to be able to face it, accept it compassionately & with lovingkindness, & to be able to maintain one's equanimity. This is what I try to do.

From the perspective of the Lojong teachings it is important not to try to ignore difficult emotions, or to stuff them back down, or even to explain them away. It is simply important to learn to accept them, even welcome them, compassionately. They may appear like horrible-looking, twisted & deformed little trolls. But if one can accept them with compassion & lovingkindness, then over time they cease to look so frightening. And also, as one comes to accept these emotionally-charged memories & feelings, one can come to realize that all people experience similar struggles. And, as a result, one's compassion & lovingkindness for all humanity can blossom. It is not unlike the lotus. It's roots grow in the mud. But on the surface of the water, it blooms with great beauty. My very best wishes to you...

[Big_Bear]

I am about to go to therapy for this same issue: Guilt! I hurt so bad inside, and I always feel like everything is my fault. I am headed nowhere and the dreams I once had are gone and unattainable. I'm terrified to go to therapy, I don't know how I am going to open up and I am unsure as to if it is going to work; however, I feel determined, I want to believe it is going to work. I hope this helps me and maybe this is something you could try, start believing its going to work, you have to believe in order for anything to work.

Start journaling, writing down all these things and exactly how they make you feel. EXACTLY. If your mind is cussing out a situation and your angry than journal your anger. If you want to say F this person cause they F-in hurt me, than journal it exactly how you're thinking and feeling.

Also, buy the book "Healing the Shame that Binds You," by John Bradshaw. This book made me realize that I need help and that I have a long road to recovery but its possible. I ran across this book at Hastings when I was in one of my shamefully depressing moods and finding this book was a blessing.

Just understand you are not alone, there are many of us just like you out there. We just need to start believing we can change, and taking the proper steps to confront the anger, hurt and pain and deal with it properly. It takes time, this I'm starting to understand, and change is possible.

Good luck.

[agatha9]

Thank you, The Skeezyks. I want to believe that there is something bigger and greater than us, than this world, so I want to beleive in life after death, but I have to confess I'm not really sure about it. I decided to believe that because of the many people I lost and I miss. I want to see them again, that's all.

I have been thinking that in fact what I should do is just to stop fighting these feelings and instead embace them and let them teach me what I need to know for the future. There is nothing to do about the past, so maybe it's time to learn from pain. But more important, I think I need to fully realize that my choices were mine, that I always had the opportunity to do something different. Maybe my mistake until now was trying to blame it all on to traumas. No, it doesn't matter what I suffered, I always had the call to let it ruin me or make me a better person. So, if it was my call, nobody owes me a thing except myself. I'm responsible for what I do with this guilt. I hope I'm not wrong now!

Thank you again. Good luck to you too!!!

[agatha9]

Big Bear: please don't let others' experiences keep you from seeking help. You are completely right: if you think therapy will help you, it will. I believe it all depends on you and how you confront these things. It's very hard to open up and confess your "sins", it's hard like hell opening the worst of yourself to someone, but it's much easier when you open up to a stranger. Please tell your therapist that what you most want is peace and forgiveness, that what you need is to grow spiritually and personally.

I'll try to buy that book. I also believe that healing is a matter of faith. If you have faith in therapy, it will work. If you have real faith in God, prayer will help. If I have faith in music, singing might help. So, I think I need something I can really put my faith in to make it work. Problem is I don't believe in therapy. I also don't believe in prayer. My believes are a mess right now. What I trust the most is the mind, like by thinking properly and being honest to myself I will be able to find some peace. Once again, problem is not fooling myself because I don't want to admit that I did what I did out of a simple whim. As I said, I always did what I wanted, not caring about the consequences. Now I have to deal with them. I and only I am responsible for feeling like this right now.

My question now would be like "yeah, I get it, it was my choice, I'm the one to blame, I am responsible for having done so much wrong and for feeling this way, yeah, what now? I take the blame, but what do I do with it?" Easy answer: don't do it again. Tricky question: what do I do with my guilt? How can I transform it to make it be kind of a fuel for being a better person?

If your therapist gives you some insight on this, please please share with us! I know you will be fine, I truly believe you will take the best out of this painfull and shamefull moment and you will grow to a beautiful human being!

[Daniel87]

Guilt is a painful feeling. But guilt is a feeling that comes from the past, and it should teach us that those mistakes should not be repeated. Use your guilt as a teacher from the past, someone who tells you how to better behave in the future. You can not change the past and this is a real fact! Now, thinking about the past all the time is not helping you at all, we should only look in the past for remembering the wrong things we have done and never repeat them so we can improve ourselves.

Think about your bright future and how you can become a better person by avoiding the exact things you regret in your past. The power of will is very strong and you can use it to brake free from guilt.

Take care and be safe!

[Big_Bear]

The past is definitely something that should be learned from. I am starting to believe in order to learn from your past you must not hide from it or try to forget about it, but you must embrace it and accept it in order to learn. We must accept that we did experience traumatic situations, made horrible decisions and held grudges against people for too long. Its like we must actually let the pain and heartache from our past surface and we must feel the guild, shame and hurt again in order to come to terms and acceptance with it.

People tell me to just drop it, or let it go, and move on. Well folks its not that easy for me, I think about it every day but I never allow the pain to surface. Mainly because I'm scared to feel that way, I don't know what changes its going to bring, and I don't even know if I fully understand the extent of the pain.

I just enrolled in therapy today and my evaluation is tomorrow, I already feel shut down, and feel like I really don't need to talk to someone, but this makes me feel like I really should... I feel like I might be denying my emotions right now.

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by agatha9

When I was younger I was the kind of person who always did what she wanted to. I never thought of the consequences of behaving like that. As a child I went through so much pain, so much abuse, that I decided to live my life as fast as I could. A few years ago, I started hitting myself. I thought I deserved to be punished, but I never really understood why, until now. Everyday I struggle with the memories of what I've done. They come without invitation. They come at the least expected time. I also believe that there is no hope for me, I fear that my future won't be better than my present. And my present really sucks. I believe that I have misled my life so that today I'm not where I was supposed to be, where I dreamed to be.

It's been months regretting every wrong that I've made, every bad decision, every step out of the way. I try to justify myself by thinking that I have a lot of issues, but then I have always had an option, so in the end it was always my choice.

I think you are very clearheaded. I agree with how you set your goals and support you in your disagreeing with the therapy that involved thinking about the reasons too much.

Do note that you are a mortal, though.

What it means is that you will not live forever.

Your lifespan is limited.

So you need to manage your life keeping in mind that it is finite.

So if you spent months regretting every wrong and emerged from that period of regrets with that solid determination to use those feelings to become a better person, FANTASTIC! time well used.

But if you continue immersing yourself in unproductive regret for much longer, that would not be fantastic - that would be wasting that precious time that is allotted to us only once.

You did verbalize the desire to self-punish, which is very seriously counter-productive. So I think that if you take away the plan to convert those feelings into personal betterment while dropping the self-punishing impulses altogether, then you will have made a clean break and can push the restart button on your life.

Your therapist, instead of insisting on yet more analysis of motivation of past actions, can spend the time analyzing the motivation to self-punish and working towards reducing if not eliminating it altogether.

Forgiveness is the key to be free forgive yourself forgive others then heal and learn from the past and live for today yesterday is done tomorrow is your future .

[agatha9]

Originally Posted by Daniel87

Guilt is a painful feeling. But guilt is a feeling that comes from the past, and it should teach us that those mistakes should not be repeated. Use your guilt as a teacher from the past, someone who tells you how to better behave in the future. You can not change the past and this is a real fact! Now, thinking about the past all the time is not helping you at all, we should only look in the past for remembering the wrong things we have done and never repeat them so we can improve ourselves.

Think about your bright future and how you can become a better person by avoiding the exact things you regret in your past. The power of will is very strong and you can use it to brake free from guilt.

Take care and be safe!

I started correcting my path a few weeks ago. I never listened to my family's advice, but is time I did. They all told me that I shouldn't take a very risky job. As much as I wanted to take that job, I asked a few more people for their opinion. They also thought it was too risky, so I turned it down. Later I realized I just wanted any job in order to stop thinking about what I've done and because that particular job would have helped me to take revenge on some people who are hurting my family. Something very similar happened with a guy I was dating and I broke up with him two days ago, after asking myself if I really had a future with him. I decided to hurt him now when it will hurt just a little, instead than later, when I know it would have hurt so much more.

One of the things I learned is that I need to listen to the people who love me instead of doing what I want. My family and my friends are very good people who just start warning me when they see that I'm behaving strangely, not when they see me happy. I think it's a start.

I do know that I don't want to go through this again, so I know what I have to do and what I can't do again. So I think my will to feel peace again will help me a lot.

Thanks, Daniel87. You take care too!

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by agatha9

I decided to hurt him now when it will hurt just a little, instead than later, when I know it would have hurt so much more.

So you have just demonstrated that you can be thoughtful, caring, empathetic, and considerate of the feelings of others.

[agatha9]

Originally Posted by Big_Bear

I just enrolled in therapy today and my evaluation is tomorrow, I already feel shut down, and feel like I really don't need to talk to someone, but this makes me feel like I really should... I feel like I might be denying my emotions right now.

Give it a try, my friend. You have nothing to loose and a lot to gain. Keep in mind that your therapist won't be able to do much if you don't tell him exactly how you feel. I learned that when it comes to guilt and shame, it doesn't always matter how you feel towards someone in particular, but when you need to apologize. It's how you feel about yourself and that is a subject we always tend to avoid. We lie to ourselves because we don't want to accept that we are not the perfect mask we put on everyday to fit in.

Feel free to use this thread to find support and help whenever you need it. If we support each other, we will accomplish so much more than having to deal with this in our own.

[agatha9]

Originally Posted by hamster-bamster

I think you are very clearheaded. I agree with how you set your goals and support you in your disagreeing with the therapy that involved thinking about the reasons too much.

Do note that you are a mortal, though.

What it means is that you will not live forever.

Your lifespan is limited.

So you need to manage your life keeping in mind that it is finite.

So if you spent months regretting every wrong and emerged from that period of regrets with that solid determination to use those feelings to become a better person, FANTASTIC! time well used.

But if you continue immersing yourself in unproductive regret for much longer, that would not be fantastic - that would be wasting that precious time that is allotted to us only once.

You did verbalize the desire to self-punish, which is very seriously counter-productive. So I think that if you take away the plan to convert those feelings into personal betterment while dropping the self-punishing impulses altogether, then you will have made a clean break and can push the restart button on your life.

Your therapist, instead of insisting on yet more analysis of motivation of past actions, can spend the time analyzing the motivation to self-punish and working towards reducing if not eliminating it altogether.

Yes, Hamster-Bamster, I called a psych hotline because I dropped therapy, and they told me that I seemed to know exactly what I'm going throuhg. A friend told me exactly the same. What I don't know is what to make out of it. But today I decided that I will stop thinking about past traumas and just focus on what I can change. The only things I can control are my mind and my actions, so I realized that I don't want to accept that I always do what I want, that I have been driven by impulses and whims. I have to face myself as I really am, as disgusting as I find myself being that way.

I have played the perfect girl for too long, I have kept secrets so well, that today I can't keep a single thing to myself. But that also makes me think twice of what I will do and the consequences of my decisions. And in the end, all I have to do is, first, knowing that I really am a very impulsive person, then accepting that I am like that and finally take action to take control over myself.

I never wanted to believe that I am a bad person. I refuse to see myself that way. But being so impulsive just means that I need to work on controlling myself better. I am a very very caring friend, I might be one of the most loyal persons my friends and family know, I am very supportive, but when I want something, I don't care about anything or anyone, I just do it or get it. I always took the easy way. And for me, that is doing what I want. And note that I'm not saying what I believe, but what I want. I need to stop it.

About self-harm... I stopped about four years ago. I seeked a therapist voluntarily for the first time in my life, becaused I knew why I was doing all that stuff. I understood then that I wanted to punish myself. And I realized I was punishing my whole family too, most important my dog who I loved so much. So I decided to look for help to give him a good life during his last years. I nailed it. Now, sometimes I feel like I want to die because I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I know I have to fight, I know I have to be reborn from the ashes. I feel no need to hurt myself again. Therapy worked and it took just a few sessions.

Thank you for your support. Your words mean a lot to me. And yes, I know life goes faster than we notice and I can't waste a lot of time in thinking about all this stuff. And that's why I'm doing everything I can to be back on the road again.

[agatha9]

Originally Posted by Nature1968

Forgiveness is the key to be free forgive yourself forgive others then heal and learn from the past and live for today yesterday is done tomorrow is your future .

I have forgiven everyone who hurt me in the past, including some family members. The one I can't forgive is myself. Maybe because I've been hiding from the truth, blaming it all on traumas, when I always had a choice. It's hard to recognize I was responsible, I am responsible for this, because I failed at taking care of myself. But now it seems like I finally accept who I am, so maybe I can change direction and then forgiveness will come naturally.

Thanks for your insight.

Forgiving yourself comes first , then as you heal you will accept yourself , love yourself , take care of yourself , so that you can love others .

Anything that is a secret bring it to light

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

[agatha9]

I think it's finally sinking in...

I'm feeling so bad right now, that I'm desperately trying to figure out how to deal with this. I would usually smoke, but I am really sick and I can't take a cig to my mouth. I just slept about three hourse because of this freakin' flu and I can't allow myself to get worse by smoking.

I've come to the point where I realize that I have always had a choice. I could have do e things differently but I didn't. What does it say about me? Well, I already know the answer. Now the thing is that I fear making the wrong decisions in the future. I also fear that my secrets may be revealed. This basically regarding my sex life. I have slept with too many guys, but I always thought it wouldn't matter and that no one would ever find out. I was discrete and they were too many for me, not really that muchm but enough to make me feel bad, which I believe is what really matters.

It's not like I pretend to be a saint, it's just that I don't like to talk about sex. I believe that sex is one of the things you do and no one else has to know. So I kinda feel like I'm being a hypocrite, because I used to criticize so hard those girls who went all public about their sex lives. I don't want to be seen as an old-fashioned girl, because that's not who I am, I am definitely not scared about sex and I don't think I will burn in hell because of my sex life. It's just that I notice that sometimes I had sex for all the wrong reasons and I wish I had stopped before I felt so ashamed.

Now the worst part is that I'm in love with a great great guy. As far as I know, he had only one girlfriend. They were together for more than five years and then he decided not to date again. I feel like I'm way too "experienced" for this guy. I have confessed that I have had a lot of relationships, but we never talked about sex with other people. We're just getting to know each other, we haven't even kissed, why would we talk about sex? Well, I've been told that he is kind of asexual, so it might take a long long time before the subject comes up. And I'm fine with it. I have been trying to control myself because I believe love is not just about sex and I really want to have a real love now, so I'm fine with a guy who doesn't insist that much in going to bed.

It's weird, because I don't want to ding in his past because I won't allow him to dig in mine. I know a few things about his past relationship and that was enough for me to feel a little insecure. It was a long term relationship, something I have never had. She must have meant a lot to him... Well, on the other hand he has only had one relationship and I have had a lot. Maybe he will fear my commitment issues. I don't know, but the point is that everytime he doesn't call I start feeling guilty and ashamed because of my past. It's like I blame the feeling of being pushed away on my past.

And it's just the feeling because he has showed real interest in me, but then again, so much shame makes me feel like everything, absolutely everything is my fault. I felt the same way when my beloved dog died, like my sins hae brought him to such a tragical end. Yep, so dramatic. So what I try to do now is focus on the future. But every now and then these thoughts come back to haunt me. And I have to deal with this without smoking...