How do I face my family after this? How do I live with the shame?

[Pizzie]

Last year, I did something towards an extended family member that I am deeply ashamed of. There is no excuse for what I did and I have spent a long time regretting it and hurting her the way I did. It wasn't physical abuse from me but still. I eventually admitted what I done to the person involved and apologised sincerely.

My family, however, did not know the truth. At the time, I wasn't emotionally ready to tell them. I was working towards being honest with them in my own time, when I felt capable of having that conversation myself.

Unfortunately, someone who is an ex friend for more than a decade, identified me from online on a different site, found a vulnerable post I had written online while trying to work through the situation. This is someone with whom there has been a very long and painful history and someone I believe has remained extremely bitter towards me. Our falling out was different to the situation above. This person is just a drama queen and she can't cope with anything beyond herself and her own emotions and ego.
She identified me from the post, printed it, and sent it to members of my family.

So now the conversation I had been trying to prepare myself for has effectively been forced upon me.

What I am struggling with is the fact that I wanted to tell my family myself, after having time to process what I had done and find the courage to be honest.
Instead, someone else took something I had written when I was vulnerable and exposed it to them.

I am now facing a very difficult conversation with my family, and I am absolutely terrified.

I feel ashamed, overwhelmed and emotionally exhausted.

I suppose what I am looking for is some perspective from people who have had to admit something they deeply regret to their family. How did you find the courage to have that conversation? How did you cope with the shame afterwards?

I know I cannot undo what I did. I just want to find a way through this honestly and hopefully eventually find some peace.

I think you need to bite the bullet. Find a calm and safe venue, and proper time to say what needs to be said. Take your time and maybe write a letter if it helps to guide you through the main points. Be prepared to give your family time to sit and reflect on the new/complete information and accept that they might not be accepting all in one go. You might also need to accept that this is telling your family who haven’t directly been affected. If you want the person who was directly affected to forgive then that’s a separate conversation.
good luck op - it sounds like you’ve been living with this for a while and I hope you find resolution and peace.

You can't change what you did. When did the malicious ex friend send the information? Today? How do you know? Has someone from your family contacted you to ask if it's true?

You need to face the worst case scenario which is all your family decide they no longer want anything to do with you.....that is unlikely to be the outcome. Even the worst types of criminal have family who stand by them. Only you know how bad the thing you said / wrote was though. Once you've lost someone's respect, you need to earn it back and that would take time. What might really help is seeking therapy to understand what motivated you to behave like that in the first place. Was it anger, jealousy, some sort of power trip? I think if you can understand why and fix it that will help people forgive you. While your at it you could reflect on what has motivated the malicious ex friend as well.

I think some of this will depend on what you said - if it was something deeply personally hurtful that would have been devastating to her, but not have implications beyond her terribly hurt feelings, then you just need to keep apologising and being sincere about it. Make sure she understands that you deeply regret it, and (if true) that you don’t believe what you said. Don’t try to make excuses or explain why you did it - you can’t excuse it and trying to do so trivialises it. Ask her how you can repair the relationship, really listen, and be prepared to act on it however hard it is. If she says she never wants to see you again, you graciously accept that and don’t press her.

However, if what you said wasn’t only personally hurtful to her but has wider implications, ie other people would have their opinion of her changed by what you said and there has been other fallout, then you have to talk to her about how you are going to try to put that right. It might mean demeaning yourself, making yourself look stupid and spiteful, but you have to try to make amends and put it right. This could be very serious if you accused her of something illegal or morally dubious, and damaged other relationships in her life.

Above all, you have to focus on doing what she needs to make things better. That might be uncomfortable for you if she says she doesn’t want to talk about it, and you’re left feeling worse, but at this stage it’s not about you. If you have to sit with your discomfort and guilt and lack of forgiveness forever, then that’s the punishment you deserve, frankly. None of this should be about making you feel better, but focussed on making her feel better.

This and can’t you just say it wasn’t you if it was anonymous. My friend I identified from here as she posted word for word something she had texted me to ask my advice. I said someone on mumsnet posted exactly the same thing- I’m not looking at the responses on mumsnet but if it was you - please change your username when you are done I won’t read the thread. She texted me 3 days later saying thanks changed username but she could have said it was t me I couldn’t prove it.

can you delete your post from that site or ask the site to and tell them what happened to get it off the net?

Let me guess you posted on something like tatle life ? That’s what it sounds like op .

Hard to say without knowing details but in my experience, the truth is the best course of action. Admit it, talk it through, acknowledge the damage you caused and apologise.
That's all you can do really.
Good luck with the conversation. I hope it goes okay.

Sincerely apologise, OP, to whomever, and for whatever, and then move on with your life.
We have ALL made mistakes and probably hurt other people, intentionally or not, but we still have a life to live and you shouldn't be expected, or demand of yourself, to wear a hair shirt for the rest of your life.
A simple and sincere - no excuses - apology and then draw a line. Things may be awkward for a while but the dust will eventually settle and the main thing you need to do is learn from it and go on to be a better person because of it.

Why did you do it? Had she been awful to you? Did she do something to someone else you love?

No one would just go online and send really awful messages to a family member out of nowhere so there must be a big story behind it. That’s not excusing it, but maybe you could explain whatever the background story is to your family now and then concede that what you did was totally unacceptable, and you’re sorry for it and for causing a divide in the family since this person has cut contact with you.

No, I didn't post on title life.

It was somewhere else online but I wasn't bitching about someone. I was looking for help on the situation and an ex friend who is utterly disgruntled to this day and keeps punishing my for our friendship falling apart, identified it was me and exposed me.

She wants awful or bad to me. There was a few small things that were annoying but it wasn't bad as such. It was my own feelings and emotions - I was going through difficulties in another area of my life and it came out the wrong way.

If it’s anonymous just say it wasn’t you? That’s really awful of your ex friend.

I read it as bed friend for ten years, recently fell out.
But Op also said she badly insulted a relative. OP sounds as nasty as the friend she fell out with

Part of recognising when you’ve done something awful is accepting the shame and the discomfort of that and facing it head on. You can’t change what you’ve done and you can’t make the shame go away, if what you did was so awful nor should you, but you can learn to live with it, use it as the trigger for becoming a better person and move on.

In terms of facing your family all you can do is admit what you did, admit it was wrong without trying to justify it, and reassure them that you are working on yourself to ensure you don’t do something so awful again. You will then have to work hard to ensure that what you are saying is the truth and to do what you need to do to change from the version of yourself who did the awful thing. Maybe that means going to therapy, giving up drinking, cutting off negative friends/ bad influences, change your lifestyle, get a hobby, volunteer for a charity, switch careers etc. I don’t know what you need to change to be better but whatever it is you need to do, do it and prove to your family you are not defined by the awful thing you did and earn their trust back.

She can't claim that - she has already admitted it to / been traced by the recipient of the letter, and apologised.

Sounds like you behaved appallingly, caused a lot of distress to your relative for no reason, and then didn't come clean for ages and to be honest, who knows when or if you would have. If they are mad at you and other relatives see your true colours then good for them.

Well there’s a big difference between sending a message to your cousin who was pregnant saying she should stop showing off about her pregnancy around people who are struggling with their fertility and it would serve her right if her baby died, and sending a message saying she’s not as pretty and popular as she thinks she is and people were laughing at the spinach on her teeth all through Aunt May’s barbecue.

What kind of territory are we talking here?

Why do people always use that as a “poor me! It’s not my fault!”

I would be very careful saying things that mean you are not taking full responsibility over it.

You can say that you were going through a difficult time but reiterate that you are not making excuses and you have no excuse for the horrible thing you did.

Tell that you feel like you lost your mind for a moment and that they have known you their entire life and it is not the person you are.
Tell them that you understand that they will look at you differently and that if you can take it back then you would but unfortunately you can't.

You can't really do much but be 100% honest and get in there as quickly as possible.

This sounds a bit like step 9 in AA, making amends. The idea is that we’ve harmed people (honestly, some horrifically) and want to apologise AND more importantly give them the opportunity to tell us how they feel about what we’ve done and our subsequent apology.

The real, long term apology is living amends which is on a daily basis whereby we ensure that there’s no recurrence of our poor behaviour from the past.

That’s in response to your OP about how to live with the shame. Own it, move on, never repeat it, be sincere.

So, you need to stop acting like the ex friend is a big baddie for telling your family.
It is frankly amazing that your cousin didn’t tell everyone, but it seems that she has kept a dignified silence and your family must have all been very confused. You were never going to tell them - don’t pretend that you were building up to it in your own time, you were never going to.
What you did has caused a family rift because now that cousin won’t be around you. Your family deserve to be told, this friend exposing you has actually given you an opportunity to come clean and admit it, and start doing things to make amends.

Do not go into it with your family by mentioning this friend or how she shouldn’t have told them or how she is a big baddie and you’re a poor victim. You’re not.

This cousin didn’t even do anything to you. You were just downright vile. Stop blaming other people and stop the bloody navel gazing about your own feelings and need to build up to it and all that nonsense. You were vile. Go and admit it, apologise and start doing better.

The I, I, I, me, me, me in this is all very telling OP. You weren't psyching yourself up to have this conversation with your family, you were hoping you'd never have to have the conversation.

I'm going to guess the distant relative is an online/insta personality and your ex-friend found what you said on a reddit forum or similar... Where you posted thinking you'd face no repercussions.

Well here are the consequences of your actions.

Don't give any more details here, OP, lest any other person recognises your posts.

You have given enough of the situation to get the majority of advice, which is be honest, admit it was you and express unqualified, unconditional regret.

Can you send your family members an e mail?

I think sooner rather than any later. Saying 'yes it was me and I am horrified with myself and very sorry' prevents speculation, gossip and increasing drama.

I am reading it differently - OP has apologised to the original family member that she had done something hurtful too. Her wider family didn’t know about it but now the ex friend has written to them with screenshots of the anon online post. I am not seeing any admission to being the author of the online posts yet?

I think you just have to stand up and own what you did. i can't see any other option as it will be out there anyway..

We are supposed to be sophisticated enough in this country to embrace forgiveness and redemption but unfortunately these days people just prefer a sanctimonious pile on.

Lesson learned the hard way OP

Yes this 100%