What if what you did was actually wrong/immoral?

When I first discovered OCD I felt like I was an exception and the anxiety and intense fear I had was just the overwhelming guilt you get after you realize how messed up your life is. Then I learned about what was actually going on and got some relief. And after a while I started ruminating more and more about and turns out what I did was NOT okay. I felt shame for it before that, but now I feel even more intense shame. I’ve been going through the same cycle over and over, being even more cautious of myself than ever. To note, since my event, I’ve NEVER done this afterwards in my life according to my memory and I was young when it happened, but not old enough to understand how serious it was. Since then, I’ve ruminated, compulsive searched, scanned over messages/conversations I’ve sent, look for forgiveness groups and felt like I’m just someone who’s actually shameful for what they did and afraid of consequences. What do you do with this? To me, I feel unforgivable, and my whole life is just an inconvenience to others.

baseballc

Date posted: 29w

Try to accept that what you did in the past was done by a former, younger you. Everyone makes mistakes, does “bad” things, etc but everyone also has the opportunity to be able to learn from it and be forgiven for it. Your immense concern of what you did in the past is a sign that you are remorseful and won’t do it again. OCD is so gripping in this situation in two ways. One, before you knew you did it, OCD wanted to control your past and seek assurance that you didn’t do anything wrong. Assurances you couldn’t give yourself but OCD demanded of you. Second, when you realized you actually DID what you were afraid of, your OCD had no recourse since it could no longer control a situation that already occurred. But it did find a new way of “see, you thought it was false but it’s actually true, now go look for other things just like it!” Point is, OCD made it awful for you when you “didn’t do the thing you were afraid of” AND when you “did do the thing you were afraid of”. Two completely opposite sides of sides of the coin. But you are still here, now. Reality is, you’ve made it through your mistake. Odds are you have made others, and you made it through those too. As you again will, and again, make it through. Find solace in that fact and reality of it all. Give yourself the credit you deserve

ulili09

Date posted: 29w

@baseballc I really appreciate hearing this. I’m undiagnosed at the moment, but I recall a year after the event, I immediately went into therapy. I didn’t know OCD at the time, but my therapist put down lots of other diagnoses that could be chalked up to this. My thoughts of guilt and shame only ramped up recently in the last two years which made me think I’ve purposefully blocked out this part of my life until I looked back and realized how awful it was. This event along with many others have been making my current life a living nightmare because these things actually did happen and I feel deep remorse from it. I don’t expect people to forgive me, but I worry I’ll be seen as less than or even unworthy from close loved ones and have no support.

baseballc

Date posted: 29w

@ulili09 I hope you try and find a way to forgive yourself. I feel like that is the most important/core piece of this. It’s easier said than done but space yourself out from who you were then who did those bad things. I have had my share of things that feel so wrong/immoral and it could have happened decades ago but it still gives me a little shiver when I recall them. But I am not that same kid/teenager, whatever it might be. The fallacy is trying to apply what you know NOW to how you acted THEN. We wish we could go back and change it, it’s so obvious to not do it. But try, really try, to put yourself back into that situation you were back then. Nearly impossible but it’s a good way to separate you, now, from you, then. There are a few billion people who are harboring regrets and bad thoughts about past transgressions. You are not the only one, you are not alone and you ARE worthy

dee012

Date posted: 29w

I feel the same.. ive done things I regret as a child and then some things recently that make me feel unforgivable… though the stuff when I was a kid was worse. I always worry if what I did was “morally wrong and unforgivable.” And people have told me it’s not, and they’ve heard worse but, ocd amplifies everything. You’re not alone. Sorry I have no advice :( only support.

ulili09

Date posted: 29w

@dee012 Exactly! Ever since I started feeling regret I’ve scanned over a lot of my past as a child and I feel like a lot of it is worse which is what makes my event even worse because I was a victim to all of it? I feel like my morals are messed up. It’s heartbreaking. 💔

ulili09

Date posted: 29w

But I can’t die, because I’m a coward. I feel like I deserve to feel this way for so long. That I’m always an awful person and I never realize that until it’s too late.

Parker_b

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 25w

Sexual Real event ocd.

Getting eaten alive by thoughts right now, when I was a child me and other kids around my age would experiment and do things we shouldn’t have, I’m talking very young, like 3-5 as I got older I was for whatever reason always curious to a horrible extent and it lead me to do in appropriate things to kids around me, I was 7-8 at the time. I would say it happened 3 times in total in my childhood. And i eventually told my parents the last time it happened because even though I didn’t know it at the time. I had ocd. And I knew it was bad. That was when it all started. I feel absolutely disgusted with my 7 year old self and it comes up every once in a while especially when I hear anything about sexual abuse. I’m nearly 20 now and I enjoy my life for the most part and I’ve been down the ocd path before but I feel unforgivable. And I never want to tell anyone about it, but my ocd seems to want that. I have a beautiful girlfriend that had some traumatic things happen to her and I love her with my soul. I don’t ever want that to come up. Because that’s not who I am. When will I be able to forgive myself? If at all I hope I’m not alone.

Real Events OCD

bkelp213

Date posted: 23w

Can’t function for all my guilt

I’ve done things in the past few years that I’m not proud of - only a couple of things I can think of and they didn’t directly hurt anyone at least with is relieving (but maybe indirectly they sort of did or could’ve which makes me hate myself because why did I do that… *how* could I do that…) If I could back and stop those things from happening, I would. I may not have thought about what I was doing at the time, so I didn’t really recognize that they weren’t okay, but that doesn’t excuse them, and I would smack some sense into my past self if I were able. I feel like if anyone knew what I‘ve done, they wouldn’t want anything to do with me. They’d write me off as worthless. And maybe they should to be honest. Now yet another thing has come up - I haven’t done anything, but I had an intrusive thought pop up that made me *think* about doing something and this would be unforgivable in my opinion. Though, to be honest, the things I’ve done before are also somewhat unforgivable in my opinion… 😞 Regardless, I don’t want to do it because I don’t think it’s okay, but I worry deep down that I do. Or that I’m looking for an excuse to make it okay to do. I don’t know, it’s complicated. And I’m upset I even thought about it. I wish I had never seen the thing that triggered that intrusive thought. Yet another thing I would stop if I could. I’ve tried to not think about it or focus on it, but it doesn’t work. Even if it goes away, it just comes back again. I just keep thinking about it and it’s overwhelming. Anyway all of the guilt of this is killing me. I feel like an irredeemably terrible person and it makes me want to give up. I can’t get on with life because it’s paralyzing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and at this point, it feels like I don’t deserve to just move on. I can’t live with myself and I feel like I don’t deserve anything anymore. I know a lot of this is probably OCD, but I’m not sure all of it is and I don’t know what to do… if I spoke to a therapist about it, I don’t think I could bring myself to say what I’ve done or what thoughts I’ve had. But if I was told to move on by someone who didn’t know the truth, I would worry they wouldn’t really say that if they knew. Agh, it’s all just a mess 😞

emma345

Date posted: 19w

Reocd but actually did something bad

17f I have a lot of events, but my main and my worst one which is absolutely fucking diabolical was done when I was 14 and repeated when I was 16. Everytime I post something about real event ocd here people are like you are probably didn't do anything that bad, and when they hear what I did they are like yeah that's bad. Someone even asked me if I'm autistic cause "it's crazy how you didn't realize that the thing ypu were doing was wrong at this age." And I kinda agree, like it's fucked up It's just that my event is bad. Doesn't mean I don't have real event ocd. You can have a reocd over the event that was bad, it doesn't mean the event wasn't that bad or you don't have recod. It's just people always expect it to be something innocent and it's not Even a healthy person would feel guilty over it, it's just that I had ocd my whole life and it's making the guilt absolutely destructive, like to the point when I sometimes have a hard time breathing when I think about it, I lost more than a year of life to it, almost checked myself out couple of times if I wasn't so scared of pain/failure, the event haunts me in my dreams, it's in my head 24/7 and I will never able to forgive myself. That ocd. But the event itself was bad. So maybe i deserve it.

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What if what you did was actually wrong/immoral?

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