Did something bad. Struggling with guilt and shame

[Hettyvery]

Was chatting to a guy online for a few months. He became a bit distant and for some reason I became obsessed even though before he became distant I had my doubts. Anyway we ended up going on a date and after he became more distant and I became more obsessed.

in the end he didn’t want to stay in touch and I did some things I’m really ashamed of. I created a fake profile so I could keep talking to him. It was pretty clear he figured it out so in a panic I tried to make him think it wasn’t me by saying some details I had found out about him from online stalking. Of course he still thought it was me.

im absolutely mortified at what I’ve done and am really struggling every day with the thought of there being someone out there who has seen me at my worst.

every thought from morning to night is about this and it’s torturing me.

The excessive guilt and shame is just another way of hanging onto your association with this man, I'm afraid. It gives you a reason to carry on thinking and talking about him even though active contact has been closed off. You need some psychotherapy to explore why you formed this dysfunctional attachment in the first place. Have you ever felt these intense feelings towards anyone before?

@Hettyvery

Is this an unusual state for you get get yourself in, or have you found yourself feeling like this before over anything? Either way, I think that if you're in 20 calls to the Samaritans over this territory, you need to seek professional help as for whatever reason you have lost perspective. Get in touch with the GP, and continue to engage with your therapist. I hope you get the help you need and it gets easier for you.

Ok you’ve got me curious now. How would the person know him better if it wasn’t a specific person? Someone who worked with him, or went to school with him or knew a friend?

I fear you’re right. It’s a continuation of the initial obsession. No I’ve ever felt this intensely for someone before.

Oh did you pretend to be someone who would know of him, and that was rhe reason you used to make contact?

As in the stuff I said to him would be very unlikely for me to know.

The stalking sounds like the behaviour of somebody who is not mentally well and so does obsessing over it, having such extreme guilt and ringing Samaritans 20 times in one day. It all points to obsessive type behaviour. I think it would be sensible to book a GP appointment and consider trying medication, many anti-depressants can help with mild obsessive compulsive type behaviours and feelings of anxiety. You are clearly not well and you shouldn’t hold things you do whilst unwell against yourself, but equally you should aim to help yourself get well enough that you know that kind of behaviour won’t occur again.

Did you tell him who you were pretending to be?

It's really not as bad as you think it is. You're beating yourself up disproportionately. Yes, it wasn't cool but you're not the only person to ever get giddy over someone who was unavailable. I've sent an embarrassing number of unanswered texts in my time, to tell the truth.

You do curse yourself afterwards, but now you know not to do anything like that again. Some things only really sink in when you've already made the mistake. Such is life!

I was fine before this though. I don’t know what mentally well looks like.

OP, the good thing is you've recognised that your behaviour was wrong. Try to not punish yourself for too long. What's done is done and you will hopefully learn from it. It was bad what you did, but there are people out there who do a hell of a lot worse and don't even think twice about it.

It may take a while, but you will start to get over this.

Mentally well would be not feeling overcome by guilt and shame. It would be not phoning the Samaritans repetitively 20+ times in a day. It would be forgiving yourself for this behaviour, moving on, forgetting this man and feeling happy with yourself.

You did what you did because you have MH problems and clearly should not have been dating, and should not try to for a year or 2 at least. Obsessing about him and now obsessing about what you did, is all one and the same

Very true.

Your obsessive thoughts and behaviours surrounding this man, plus your obsessive thoughts as to your behaviours subsequently, suggest you may need a little support with your mental health.

*didn’t refresh thread before posting.

I did some stuff I wasn’t proud of that arguably is worse than what you did. I got lots of therapy (still having it actually) with a lovely therapist who made me see i am human, I am flawed, I make mistakes. The fact you and I felt guilt is because actually we ARE good people. hold onto that.
Just move on and use it to better yourself and grow from it. Even better if you can is to understand why it happened- somewhere deep down there will be some need being met and that’s ok. We are allowed to have and want our needs met we just don’t always know how to do that and it comes out in weird ways.
Just be kind to yourself! Xxx

Okay it was a crazy thing to do but you can't undo it no matter how much you sit there thinking about it.

I would apologise to him, say you're going through a tough time atm it was out of character and you'll never contact him again. That's the only thing you can do to move forward.

You feel bad so that means youre actually a good person. There's a reason you've done this and with therapy you'll get there

Be kinder to yourself and just learn from the lesson, that's all we can do when we mess up. If you continued to stalk him then yes that's bad but you've stopped.

I'd refrain from dating til you get to the root of it, then when you date it's because you want to rather than need to.

It will fade in time, don't worry about it. I've done some crazy things after my divorce because I was in a vulnerable position but life got a bit better.

I did something so stupid once. I had a crush on a married guy from work, to be fair he flirted a lot and I thought I was in love with him. Then he got upset and started saying unpleasant things so confronted him when I was drunk. He complained. Then I wrote him a LETTER, an actual LETTER saying I was upset and ashamed and could we still be friends as I thought we were friends. He then got another job and I apologised on the day he left and he accepted with grace. I have seen him on Facebook, and how he looks now, no thanks. I was going through a tough time when this happened and I latched on to him. I felt a fool, I was mortified. It did pass though and it will for you too.

Please don’t do this, just leave him alone now.

She absolutely should not contact him again.

I think it might be an idea to see your GP and explain about the obsessive thoughts and the shame you feel. You sound unwell, and in order to get better, you need professional help. Phoning the Samaritans 20 times in one day tells me you are in a very dark place. Is there anyone in real life you can talk to? Mum, sister, best friend? Sending you healing vibes and support.

I can hear how upset you are. Some suggestions to help cope:

1 - make a fairly large donation to/volunteer for a charity/cause you feel strongly about and see that as atonement.

2 - do some visualisations about moving on from the event (eg conjure up an image that represents what you did and then imagine that image fading to black and white. Then tear up the image and throw it on the fire and watch it burn.) Do this every time you feel shame.

3 - create and repeat some mantras to yourself (I made a mistake but I am not defined by that mistake. I am a good person). Repeat as regularly as you need to.

You will move on from this and you will learn from the shame you feel just now. Don't let it ruin your life xxx

I have done some things in life that I was deeply ashamed of. Affair, fucking off with AP and neglecting my kids, one incident of DV with AP. Some shit in my childhood.

The problem with shame as an emotion is that the urge it brings us is to hide "have the ground swallow me up". It can be protective in the short-term, especially if we may face harm if our actions become known. Best explanation I heard was it protected us from revealing things that would get us expelled from the group when humans needed to live in groups to survive. The great risk can be that to avoid feeling the shame we bury what we have done deep inside and go on to do it again. I think when in shame we lack empathy for the people we have hurt as we focus on ourselves.

I think what you did has shown you something about yourself that you should recognise, own. and work to address in therapy. You will have to be honest about it to your therapist and that may feel terrible but a good therapist will see you as a whole person, capable of doing bad things, who wants to understand what they did them and find ways to not do them again. Which is the best anyone can do.

It took me a long long time to get there and therapy that didn't let me wallow in 'poor me' self-pity but got my poor behaviours out to look at with me, help me make sense of why I did them and let go of the shame. I liked myself a lot more after therapy which I hadn't expected as I went in full of self loathing yet with a cycle of behaviour that maintained it. I had finally decided I either owned my shit to see if I could get to the bottom of it or I lived in shame until it killed me.

Through therapy shame turned to guilt. A separate emotion where there is empathy for the other. The urge in guilt is to make amends. For some of my past shit behaviour I have apologised when appropriate/possible . I imagine that may not be possible in your case. For others I try to 'pay it forward', use what I learned for someone else's benefit, be kind to myself, work to like me, self monitor for urges to be a cunt and do something else. Don't beat myself up for the past and don't wallow in self criticism/self-pity.

Good luck OP!

2 and 3, fair enough, but I'm not sure now is a good time to be spending fairly large sums of money on anything, save that for down the line when all is back on an even keel maybe.

I just thought as she can't move past it might help to apologise then leave him alone. But I can see why it migbt not be a good idea from his point of view...

I would definitely stick with the therapy and just learn from all of this good luck op