rotten

[oldwoundshurting]

Does anyone else feel that they have a rotten core? On the surface I am a nice person - lots of friends and pretty sociable. Work really hard and get on really well with colleagues. Pull my weight and try my hardest
I work outside the home and struggle with feelings of guilt about that but ultimately I reconcile with that as I am the primary earner and needs must. I do focus on my children when not working. So far so good. I give to charity regularly, have taken animals from shelters and made them family pets. I try hard to support struggling local businesses and support the arts by attending things and making donations. I tip well and generally try and live a good life. I work hard at my marriage but this is where the rotten bit comes - I was unfaithful a number of years ago and just know that I am this stinking rotten person on the inside. I have moved geographically away and put practical obstacles in my way. I have had counselling and yet and this is why I am disgusting - I struggle to completely let go of that time. It was very powerful. I know now that it was not love. A secret cannot be love. Love is being constant and true and loyal and I try so hard to be that wife now but I know I am disgusting and rotten. Something terrible happened 15 years ago and more and more it won't stay in the box I put it in. Is this why I am so effed up or am I just basically bad through and through.

It will stop when you allow it to, but if you keep picking the scab off a wound it won't heal.

Put it in a box. Don't put it in a box. Don't pick the scab. Work it all through. What will actually bring the calm.

Sweetheart- I hear you. My boyfriend committed suicide 10 years ago. We had just separated but he was desperate to get back together. I loved him but didn't think it was healthy for me. I know the guilt you are describing. But ultimately you are not responsible for anybody else's life. Really, you aren't. It was his decision, his life, and he decided to end it, for whatever reason. It really doesn't even matter what you did or how you acted in the hours or days prior to his death. It was his choice. A psychiatrist I was talking to said that suicide was the ultimate punishment for his loved ones, and although he understood the raw pain someone must feel to contemplate suicide, it was also a very selfish thing to do. Their friends and relatives are left to pick up the pieces and questions are just left unanswered. Please get more counselling. You are not a bad person. It was not your fault. It really wasn't.

I'm so sorry, i just saw your posts from later on last night. I wish now that my words had been gentler and kinder.

You really are punishing yourself for what happened. Drinking may help at the time, but if you're anything like me, you'll feel so much worse and more negative today.

You're not rotten, and everyone else can see that, but the loudest voice is the one inside your head that keeps telling you that you are.

Putting it inside a box and not picking the scab isn't going to make you feel bettet. Finding a way of dealing with it, through some sort of therapy, is.

I really would recommend hypnotherapy at some point, but i think some kind of talking therapy to work through it is really needed too.

Thank you. Everyone that has posted.

I haven't had any contact with someone who has been through it. I am just sat here with tears streaming.

Headache too - unbroken sleep and hangover to work through. Hey ho.

You didn't need to be gentler clean. At all.

I don't want anybody to think that what happened 15 years ago in any way excuses in my mind my infidelity. It does not. It never could.

The only link I was drawing was to my rush after that event to rush into security and safety and marriage way too young and before I had even begun to process what had happened. I was running from those events. I married a good man. Good Dad. The marriage itself has been appallingly crap at times - well before what I did to it. But we have worked at it.

I don't know what I'm trying to say. Ashamed of my histrionics yesterday.

Hystrionics? Where were they?

You were pretty calm and factual i thought. Just someone who is obviously in a lot of pain but turning it all inwards instead of letting it out.

Give yourself a break lady, you're very, very hard on yourself.

You felt a little more free when you told this man about the suicide. For which my heart goes out to you - from the outside it is clear as day that it wasn't you fault. Do you think you could feel more free if you told your husband about the suicide?
I'd suggest counselling before you do, but maybe it would help you to tell him?

After I behaved badly and out of character by having an affair I went to a counsellor to work out why I had acted in such a shitty way that contradicted all my beliefs. She told me I deserved to be happy. I just sat there and sobbed. You sound as though you don't believe you deserve happiness OP.

With a good therapist you can acknowledge all the elements of your past that are making you who you are today and accept them. We all do things we may regret later, we all have good and bad things we have done. That is what makes us mature and wise with a bit of luck. Coming to terms with the mistakes and moving forward with compassion for ourselves as well as for others is healthy.

What would you say to a friend who told you this story? Would you judge her or would you feel sorrow for all she had been through and hope she could work through it with help to reach a happier place?

Today you need and and kindness

He knows but I couldn't tell him all of it. I don't know why. I just felt able to tell this other person all that was bad. my boyfriend's absent father blamed me - he told me at the funeral. I held that in for more than 10 years and did not tell anyone - not my husband. I told OM and he didn't try to fix it or deny it or anything. He let me tell it all. Sat with me in the freezing cold for an age and just squeezed my hand. He found a warm pub and bought me a cup of tea. He said I couldn't stop shaking and was worried how I'd drive home. But he didn't judge me or try to make it go away. He just hugged me and shed a tear a and it was out there. And now it is here written down. His dad blamed me. So that's that.

I think I need to bow out now from this.

Rotten? You are very far from being rotten. A truly rotten person just wades through life, with no thought for the pain and suffering they cause others. They certainly don't spend their lives feeling guilt for anything, or trying to make amends for said guilt. They don't have the emotional capacity to write what you have written.

Human is a better fit for you. Find a good therapist who will help you work through everything that is causing you such pain. In a safe environment, with complete confidentiality, you will be helped to find a way to forgive yourself all your real - and perceived - guilt. To become who you want to be.

I would also respectfully suggest that drinking will not help, in fact will just create more problems for you. But I suspect you know that.

If you'd realised what he was trying to tell you, it's possible you could have prevented it that time. He would have just taken another opportunity when you weren't there. That would have been easier on you but it still wouldn't have prevented the inevitable. His mother did not blame you because she knew this. You know why the absent father blamed you? Because otherwise he might have to blame himself. It may well not have been his fault either - who knows? - but that wouldn't have stopped him feeling that it might have been, or that other people might believe it was. Where was he when his son was suffering? Nowhere - but you were there - aha, must be your fault then! He was full of rage and pain and guilt that had to go somewhere. That's why he said what he said to you. It doesn't make it true. It's horrible to feel there's someone somewhere who blames you for something so awful, even if it's totally unfair; which, make no mistake, it was. It was a hideous burden to dump on a young girl.

I feel very drained now. Booze won't have helped. It is hard to revisit it. Hard to stare it in the face and think about him saying that to me. I haven't allowed myself to remember it - just carried that knowledge in a state of panic for years - that I
I did it. Not just me thinking that but somebody confirming my very worst fear. I didn't tell my mum or my best friend. I carried it like a lump of lead.

I want this thread deleted.

OP, you weren't to blame. Even if you'd called him a useless twat and left him there, you still wouldn't be to blame. He chose to end his life. We can only speculate on the reasons, but there will have been many.

I think he was terrified and asking for help but couldn't explain it in explicit terms.
Perhaps that's so, but you are not a mind-reader and the responsibility was on him to ask for help if he wanted it. It actually sound more like he had already made up his mind, as he was telling you basically how to live your life in the future. If he had wanted to not die, he would not have killed himself.

As for his dad - psh. People who are grieving often have an urge to lash out at the nearest target. A father who has been largely absent is going to feel even more like doing that to assuage his own guilt. He probably also told you're BF's mum she was to blame.

BTW I went through something similar. Split with my abusive BF, went back to pick up some things, he'd taken an overdose. I got him to the hospital in time. Was it my fault he took the pills? Hell no. He did that all by himself.

More recently a colleague lost his boyfriend of 3 years - they had a stupid argument one night, both been drinking, BF went out, got on a bus to the station, and threw himself under a train. His family have in no way held my colleague responsible, because it wasn't his fault. They knew the BF had had MH problems for years. They have supported each other through their grief.

You have been carrying this burden of guilt around for 15 years, and it's okay to put it down now. Please seek help from a skilled therapist who can guide you through letting go of this. You don't deserve to spend the rest of your life feeling the guilt for something that was never your fault.

OP. I was nearly that man once. A young guy with many problems, troubled relationship with gf, history of depression. She split up with me and I couldn't cope. One night I lay in bed, deciding whether I should end it all or not. It was a very close thing, but in the end I decided that it would be selfish. Now I realize that suicide is the most selfish thing in the world because it doesn't end the pain, it just transfers it to other people. No-one has the right to do that, no matter how bad life is for them.

What you went through is awful and you're probably suffering PTSD. There are unresolved emotions in there, including your anger at him for what he did to you (it's OK for you to be angry with him), that need to be resolved. You're past the point of being able to resolve this on your own and should seek out counselling starting right now.

Thanks for the perspectives. I strongly feel I need to leave this discussion now it's pulled up so much that is too upsetting to deal with. All down to me I know - bit of a ridiculous stance to take given I started it but I just feel like a washed out rag doll.

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