- Date posted
- 34w
I am broken. Any advice will be appreciated.
*TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of adult content and suicidal thoughts* I am in pieces right now and I’m struggling to see a way through this nightmare. I’ve never posted on forums before but I see a lot of people sharing similar experiences on here and I feel like I need some advice. So around 4 months ago I was in a bit of a depressive state and I ended up looking at some NSFW content on Reddit, which I now regret more than anything I’ve ever done in my life. I was on a specific page that I’d used a few times in the past, but I found myself spending a much longer session on there than usual- I think because of the stress I was going through at the time, and I wasn’t looking for ANYTHING illegal whatsoever. I can remember scrolling past a few things that I found unpleasant, and I WISH this was the sign that I took to leave the site immediately. However, like an idiot, I continued scrolling through because I hadn’t found anything I liked. As soon as I left the page, I had an awful, awful feeling build up inside of me. The next morning I woke up with the realisation that one of the posts that flashed up had a very ambiguous sounding title and I got that horrible gut-drop feeling. Whilst there wasn’t anything visually alarming, the title that I remembered spoke about “waiting for their mum to get home” and I felt absolutely sick. Even just writing this is making me want to throw up. I started panicking and I even called my mum because I was in shock. Ever since that happened, I have had numerous visits to hospital because of it and I’ve been put on medication. I made a little bit of progress until I was hit with another dreadful realisation that I had seen something else with a worrying title on there in the past, and this time it felt like there were no excuses. I started spiralling into a pit of self-hatred and despair which is where I am currently at now. Even though I knew I just forgot about it, it doesn’t make me feel any different the situation, and I cannot forgive myself no matter how hard I try. I’ve had dozens of health professionals tell me that I haven’t done anything wrong, yet it just feels so catastrophic. I have since reported the subreddit and I haven’t looked at any kind of adult content since, because I personally find it the single most terrifying thing now. I just wish there was a way to settle my uncertainty and make sure that the people in the images were safe, but there is no way to prove that. Things have just got worse and worse and by brain is bringing up all kinds of gross/disturbing things I’ve seen on the internet from years back, and it’s taken over my life at this point. I don’t want to sound narcissistic but I’ve always considered myself to a person with strong morals, and this feels like it’s violated every single one of them. It’s made me feel like I don’t deserve to heal or grow from this and the only thing that is keeping me going is not wanting to upset my family and friends. I’m sorry for the long post, I’m just terrified with what’s happened and I’m starting to lose faith in ever recovering. If anyone has struggled with anything similar and has come out on the other side I’d love to hear how you overcame it because I genuinely cannot see the wood for the trees. Thank you for reading.