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 mean, it could have been massive.

It could have been, for example, accusing an ex-teacher of being a beast. This could have caused him to lose his job, family, go to prison.

I don’t know. But don’t underestimate the power an insult can have.

Not saying the OP did this though! Just making the point that an insult isn’t necessarily harmless.

And sorry OP, but I have my doubts that you’d ever have told your family.

I do hope you sort it out with them and find peace.

Depending on what was said in OP anonymous poison pen letter to the real victim - OP could find herself in hot water too with the police.

Imagine getting an anonymous message from someone that’s so awful the OP is terrified of her family finding out, it must have been frightening for the victim to not know who sent it.

If it was disturbing the OP may struggle to get herself out of this as sometimes words can cut deep

The wider family obviously know this family member had been hurt and upset by someone being horrid and it's taken you are year to process?
Take accountability, own you were wrong and horrid and stop blaming the ex friend, you did this and got caught.

You had mental health struggles and did something you wouldn’t have done if you were in the right frame of mind at the time.

When you could think better, you owned up to it and apologised. Your family member cut you off but didn’t tell others about the situation - so it was dealt with in the way the family member was fine with (otherwise that family member would have told others). It’s all dealt with- just a bit embarrassing to have it dragged up again.

It Isn’t as big a deal as you are making out. This issue is a speck in the life cycle of the universe. Today, maybe go out for a walk along up a hill or along the coast and look up to the sky or out to the vast water. I find this a great reminder of how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. This issue will pass, and you are not experiencing any shame beyond what has been experienced by every other human since the beginning of humanity.

And you say the ex friend is the drama queen? 🤔

Meet your family face to face at your earliest opportunity. Take ownership of your actions, without lots of excuses as to why. They may well ask you why but personally, if me, I'd say I had things going on but don't want to make excuses for my poor behaviour. Let them know that you owned up and apologised to the distant family member at the time, but as yet you've been too ashamed to come clean to them. Be contrite and say you hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive you. If they truly love you OP they will move on, but you need to own what you did and show real remorse,

I think you could do with stop worrying about this whatever has gone on ,forgive yourself and don't mention it to family. It sounds like moving on from this is what is needed now. I hope you can get back to being an untroubled soul. I am sure within families all sorts of things happen.

I get you wanted to talk to your family in your own way and at your own time and that option has now been taken away. I guess you just have to accept that now and take a deep breath or many and talk to them and be as honest and sincere as you have been here.

Perhaps start with one person you trust most?

People fuck up. You are in in the process of owning that. I hope it goes ok

You have already apologised to the victim and it has nothing to do with the wider family. Just leave it. If they want to talk to you about it then have a chat with them but explain that you’d already apologised last year. I personally would leave it and forget about it.

Did the family member get back in contact/forgive you? How did you explain what you did?

More importantly, have you been in touch with the police regarding your ex-friend’s endless harassment?

A lot of drama around you, isn't there OP?

I understand you were in a bad place, but it all seems really childish. I hope youve taken steps to seek help.

I don't understand why if the person you wronged didn't think it concerned the rest of the family, this ex friend did, just to hurt you? Or is it something they do actually deserve to know about/affected them in some way?
How do you know about this latest development, has a family member come to you about it? Because I don't understand why it would need a big round the table conversation rather than a reply of

"I'm sorry you heard that way. Yes it happened, I have apologised to family member, but I was embarrassed and ashamed and didn't know how to tell the rest of you"

Events got ahead of you, so you are no longer in control of the timetable.
But you intended to come clean, and that's still the plan. Just sooner than you wanted.
You are stressed because admitting a wrongdoing is inevitably stressful, and you were (pointlessly) delaying doing so. But just bite the bullet at this point.
The one thing in your favour is that you can prove you already came clean to the relevant person. If you hadn't done that, it would be far more difficult to be sympathetic to you.
Brave it out, fess up, and the furore will probably pass (depending obviously on what you actually did). There's no other way.

To be honest, if it was last year it does look like you never wished to admit it. Now it’s done, so just explain yes it was you, you have apologised, and and there is nothing you can do to change it.

You reap what you sow.

You do not sound like a decent person.

I don't have much sympathy, sorry!

It's a horrible situation, but there are positives to this all coming out into the open. The ex-friend who printed it all off and has shown your family now has no hold over you - your family know now. You were eventually going to tell them (not in this way obviously, but eventually) and it's just made it sooner than you wanted. But you can take back control.

Like others have said, meet face to face with them, address it head-on and admit that you did it. Tell them that you have already apologised to the person involved and that they know it was you. You have dealt with that and moved on, and done as much as you can to make amends as you know it was wrong. It won't be a comfortable conversation, but the good thing is, there is no more lying and covering it up or pretending - it's out in the open now and once it's discussed you can move on. Your awful ex-friend has no further hold on you which is a good thing and she might have actually done you a favour in the long run.

Be brave, own up to what you did to your family by explaining in your own words, and you will get over this.

This.

My god, it really is all about you isn't it? You have gone out of your way to be spiteful to a family member and have caused them pain yet here you are playing the hard done by one. You may not be "emotionally ready" and need more time but have you ever thought about the poor family member that didn't have the time to become emotionally ready before you stuck the knife in?
I would imagine your ex friend suffered at your hand too, no wonder she has taken the opportunity to pay you back. Well deserved i would imagine.

Without knowing the details, which is fair enough, it is hard to really know. But from what you said, the family member you were horrible to knows it was you and hasn't bothered to tell your family for whatever reason so presumably he/she didn't think it needed to be said. Or maybe he/she was waiting for you to the do the decent thing and tell them yourself.
However, you're painting yourself as the victim here and you're not. You got found out, that doesn't make you a victim. I'm guessing you also did something to upset this ex-friend which is why she'd got it in for you. Leaving a trail of disgruntled / offended people behind you will do this.
All of this is your own doing. You need to own it. If you are genuinely sorry, then say so and tell people you regret your actions. And make sure the actual victim's feelings are considered when you do so.

Are your family pushing you to talk about this now that ex friend has been in touch with them? Chances are they had almost forgotten about it.

In reality You said something upsetting to say a cousin, apologised to her, I presume she accepted your apology and hasn't said anything to family members herself so why do you feel the need to. If they do bring it up due to ex friend, can't you just say "I know I was wrong, I apologised to cousin and we are OK so no need to go over it all again.

It might help to write them a letter to "brain dump" it to hopefully stop you focusing on it so much then depending how you feel either give it to them or throw it away.

Honestly if you wanted to tell them yourself you should’ve done it sooner. I understand why you didn’t but you left it long enough for someone else to act and you lost the ground. As far as shame goes, it’s the most horrible emotion, but you just have to analyse what you did, identify what you would do differently and how you would avoid it. Learn from it, really absorb the lesson. Then you can let it go as ‘I am human and this was a learning moment.’

When speaking to your family, firstly apologise and say you know there is no excuse and accept you are entirely in the wrong. Then ask if you can explain yourself while acknowledging that it won’t make it better. If they allow this then you can explain why you did it. This sets up the scenario as you being finally honest, taking responsibility and accepting the consequence. People respect this reaction, they do not respect crying and trying to wheedle out of it with excuses.

I sent a massive insult that was utterly utterly utterly dark anonymously and it was traced to me. The relationship is that the other person cut all contact.

My mind is boggled at what the hell the insult must have been. An "utterly utterly utterly dark" insult that caused her to cut contact with you? Did you message to say you hoped she'd be raped? Or that her children would be mutilated?

Unless I've misread, the cousin hasn't accepted the apology and has cut contact with the OP.

Agreed. Printing out a post made on a public forum and sending it to people isn't illegal. Sending someone an extremely dark insult, however, sounds like threatening behaviour.