Struggling after making a mistake, having intrusive thoughts. Please advise. *MNHQ has altered title*

OP, I hope you’ve called for help. We ALL make mistakes. It’s part of being human. This job is not worth ending your life over. It really, really isn’t. Your life is precious. You are precious to your babies. Sending lots of love and best wishes your way

OP this is horrible for you right now but will pass.
33 years ago I had a manic episode. I was 18. In front of some people I didn't really know I took off all of my clothes and ran around their house and claimed I was god. Spent 4 months in the nut house.
That's embarrassing😁.
When I got better I thought I would die of shame. Everyone I knew heard about it. I have an unusual name so even people who didn't know me heard about it. That's hard to live down as a teen. But now it's just a funny anecdote. fuck anyway who judges you. We all make mistakes. But at least the world hasn't seen your fanny and boobs!

Hi op

We have all been in a situation when we have done something or said something and felt deep shame about it. Myself including and I know for me it comes from low self esteem so I beat myself up much more than some other people might.

It almost brings you back to childhood when you've been caught doing something naughty and that towering figure standing over you telling you off and it's embarrassing. I think to help process that it's about accepting that yes unfortunately I've been caught talking about things. However I would try to actually own it instead of feeling shameful, were those things I said true? Yes. Then the problem is with your work place not what you said. I would get angry instead. How dare that person breach your trust and how dare they sit on that information and then berate you the way they did. You have a right to vent about things and every single person in that room will do the same in other parts of their life because it's human nature.

I want to share my brief view of you don't mind but my mother ended her own life when I was 18 after years of struggling with depression. If I could go back and talk to her there is so much I want to say. I'm left with no answers and it altered my whole future after that. The top feeling that I have because of her being dead is 'feeling alone'. I feel alone in so many parts of my life because my mum isn't here with me. Your children love you so much and they need you to fight this.

You have already made some brave moves seeking support a few weeks ago and also tonight, this tells me that you have a lot to live for even if you don't see that right now. Your mind is in survival mode. I have put down some steps you could maybe take if it helps or this is what I would do.

Sometimes it's difficult to think of making through tomorrow and instead just think of the next moment and what choices you can make.

• ring Samaritans and force yourself to stay on the line. As you wait write down what you think you want to say to help distract you and reduce your anxiety. I promise you they won't take your children away, give fake details if you need to.

• do you feel able to text your partner and tell him briefly that your struggling. Perhaps he can come and help you with the children in the morning or come over now. Do not feel like your a burden to them if you ended your life the first thing they will say is why did she not talk to me.

• call your gp first thing in the morning and ask for support and to also look at all your medications to see if there's any tweaking that can be done, your needs come first! Perhaps ask for a sickline to hand into work so that you have some time off, can you afford to do this. You need some space and time away from work. You can look for a new iob if you want to, you have so many choices and options if you wish to take them.

Are you able to visualise if your child was standing in front of you right now and said to you that they felt how your feeling right now, what would you tell them to do. You are much braver than you realise op and I wish I was your friend so we could have a right laugh about being caught out as if you are back in school all over again. The people in work can fuck off.

You are your children's universe - please don't kill yourself - they worship you (even though they might not show it sometimes!)

Your "transgression" is really, really minor. Most people will absolutely not be judging you. The fact that you're judging yourself so harshly means that you are a very good person. A good person who is loved by your family.

In order to get over the embarrassment, put yourself in the shoes of a random colleague who knows about this. It's more than likely that the random colleague is more interested in what they're going to have for dinner, than any tiny wrongdoing of yours. Honestly, time will heal this for you. 10 years down the line, it will be a distant memory. What matters is that you love your kids and they love you - and that clearly comes through in your post.

The colleague who has embellished all this stuff is simply horrible. Management probably realise it's embellished as colleague has already done a runner.

Everyone makes mistakes. It's honestly not such a big deal. Work even said that. You've got to stop catastrophizing. Instead, think of ways to make amends. For example, try to speak well of others behind their backs 3x as many times as you gossiped.

@OhForFS I would call the mental health hub at 111 and they can refer you on to out of hours mh services in your area.

I also work in MH and on a personal level can really relate to the feelings of shame and subsequent over reaction.

Really good advice on previous posts so won't repeat it here but I'm glad posting has helped you tonight.

It will pass. You just have to hold on. And on. As long as it takes.

As others have said, there is a lot you can do to help the horrible thoughts subside or subdue. GP first thing. Samaritans if you need to talk right now.

If you think about it, nothing terrible is going to happen unless you make it so. You can just keep on with horrible thoughts in your head. They are just thoughts. They won’t do anything or harm anyone. They won’t cause anything to happen. Your shame is just a feeling. It’s not a nice feeling. But it’s just that, a feeling.

Your head is catastrophising, which means it’s blowing it so much out of proportion that your emotions are winning out against your everyday judgement. They are telling you ‘this is urgent, this is terrible’, because that’s what strong emotions do. The emotions can’t help it, they are there to protect us when we had a big lion outside and needed to run. But there is no big lion, you don’t have to run. But there is a reality out there which is that any of your problems are not that terrible, not really. And you just have to give yourself time until your mind settles, which is certainly will as the mind always does. Again a GP can help with that also, sometimes with medication.

So just recognise what it is. Your mind has gone intense and extreme, but it will calm down, you just have to allow it to, which could take a while but it will get there. Be kind to your mind, we are all only human and we can get very down or fearful sometimes, but it will pass.

Oh OP, no word of a lie, the thing that dug me out of a dark pit of shame is this classic MN thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mumsnet_classics/650904-The-Least-Professional-Moments-of-My-Illustrious-Career-Please-Feel?page=1

Honestly, made me feel if people could survive these ground-please-swallow-me moments, and live to tell the tale, there's hope for us all.

(Alas it's a bit swiss-cheese now, as some deregistering MNers asked for their posts to be deleted, but this contains the original Angela Hernandez story: nervous speaker, all of a fluster, introduces herself to a room full of people, "Hello, I'm Angela Hernandez." Comes a voice from the back of the room: "No, I'm Angela Hernandez!" It was her boss... )

The fact that management have said to move on is a huge message... They presumably have known what that person was like and they obviously know that you're a lovely person because otherwise they would not have
advised you to move on. They really wouldn't.

It's horrible when people do stuff like that. It makes you feel massively exposed

I don't think it is the answer when you have children.

If someone grassed on you for dissing the work culture, it's all hearsay unless your voice has been recorded or multiple people have reported you. Everyone gossips. Even the ones who claim not to. Your work has moved on and evidently don't give a shit about said employee tittle-tattling about you.

I hate my workplace because it's full of twats like the employee who told on you, especially as there is gossip galore and if management took seriously every little titbit of info they get from the brown noses, they'd have no employees left. Equally, my workplace would also do better to not promote them, which they do. My workplace is full of inadequate supervisory staff who earn £50 more than me a month because they know how to kiss arse. I will one day hope to let my boss know what i think. But deep down I think they know they're not respected and that the work culture is shady.

Go to your GP and get signed off. Speak to someone IRL for support. This really is not something worth dying for and your DC being left without a mummy

Hi are you okay ? My dad killed himself please don't do it, you sound a lovely person this person should not ruin your life and the kids lives . Please answer us today we all want you to believe in yourself again . It's going to be okay soon . Tell someone on real life please stay strong x

Don't do it. I know 3 people who have died like this and it shattered everyone they left behind. Unfortunately people often don't realise just how much they mean to other people. Life will go on, and people will forget about it soon enough.

Suicide is never the answer.

You matter, you are worthy, you are loved.

Are you ok OP? I'm awake if you need anyone to chat with x

I strongly feel suicide isn't an option for me but , I've felt so low recently, it crossed my mind.I felt suicidal for a few weeks and only turned a corner in April of this year. My kids kept me going. I could never do that to them even though my depression was the worst I'd ever experienced. Hang on in there, u will soon start to feel better X

The samaritans, breathing space, mental health support lines etc can help you X

just wanted to say that you probably overestimate the importance and effect of your comments to the rest of your colleagues. They will have moved on with their own concerns, family issues, money problems, births, children worries and those things some colleague said weeks ago will have faded from their minds.

OP. Are you ok? Hope you're having some nice sleep and when you wake up I hope you feel abit brighter. What amazing advice and messages you've been sent. I don't think I can say anything that hasn't been said but I do echo what people say about people at work will have moved on by now, people soon forget and as humans we all make mistakes in life just like yours. Sending lots of love X

Please get help. My DP father did this when they were young and he still carries the pain until this day. I hope you get the help you need x

I wish I could give you a big hug. You’ve had some great advice here from very wise Mumsnetters. I am much older than most people here, and have had many jobs. On at least four occasions, I have made major fuck-ups at work; the sort that can still make me wake up in a cold sweat years later. What felt like the end of the world at the time never is. In fact, I guarantee I’m the only person that remembers about them. My bosses and colleagues won’t.

Please be kind to yourself and put this behind you. It’s never as bad as you think. Your family needs you.

I hope you've sought out some support OP following the great advice on here. You mentioned you felt shame about what had happened and I wanted to add a few words about that. On Monday I went into a work meeting and made a total arse of myself. I got all upset, shed some tears in front of some senior colleagues and basically said if they weren't happy with me they could speak to my boss's boss. Everyone else in the room was shocked into silence. For the rest of the day I felt like a complete idiot, sure that my colleagues who were in that meeting were telling everyone else in the office what a complete failure I was. Worried someone actually WOULD go to my boss's boss and I would be fired (catastrophic thinking much??). When I got home I spent the evening berating myself for being so sensitive and unprofessional, sure that no-one would ever take me seriously again.
Went to bed early and the next day I woke up and felt.....slightly less bad. As the day progressed I started to cut myself a bit of slack. A colleague reached out to make sure I was OK. I started to think maybe I wasn't such a failure, maybe me & everyone else had been under a lot of pressure. The following day I woke up and thought, OK, every day is a new day, a day to start afresh.
Today I am feeling OK about what happened. Not great, but OK. So I guess the point I want to make is that these feelings of shame, failure etc will pass. We are all doing the best we can in life, some days are tougher than others. Sometimes we need to reach out and ask others for help to get through those tough days. I am lucky one of my colleagues reached out to me to check I was OK. Please, please reach out and get some help. Ask for support.

@OhForFS

they need you because...you're their mum.

No parent is perfect, you're their mum & they love you.

tell someone who will give you a hug. Trust (at least) one person.

in the meantime, I'm built for hugging, certainly no sharp edges (🤣🙄🙇🏻‍♀️)
((((HUG))))

they don't deserve to live with the feeling that they weren't enough to make you want to stay.

Dont worry about thanking anyone, let alone everyone individually. People just want to help. The only 'thanks' anyone wants is for you to get help, fight for yourself and your two small children.

Yep. You can get help to be well you can't undead yourself!

You can turn this around 🌸

Suicide is not the answer here.
Everyone makes mistakes in life and in this it's actually another person's vile behaviour not yours.
I hope you can access help OP.
Lots of good advice on here.
You have kids l- they need you, and you need you, to get better.