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.

Of course, because a man might get angry and attack / rape. You must know men are not generally afraid of us.

OP just sounds very sad, not violent.

Op, we can all look back and be embarrassed about our behaviour at some point when we've really liked someone. As someone else said upthread, it's best to completely stop and then forgive yourself on a daily basis until you feel better. Remember, there are no all good or all bad people, and it's dangerous to think of people in those terms. Good people can do bad things and the other way around. Sahdghuru on YouTube had really helped me get my head around this concept. Stop labelling yourself, remind yourself you are in the school of life, and are learning and making mistakes along the way that you are learning from and allow yourself to move on. It might be good to chuck yourself into an extra job or hobby to have less time to ruminate on what happened Xx

OP I’m not sure this is very helpful. You’ve come on here full of shame and people are shaming you even more.

I imagine you were using this obsession as an escape from something in your life. It wasn’t the behaviour of a mentally well person and you didn’t do anything terrible. I highly doubt that this man was terrified. Just let it go…we all make mistakes.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

And if this was a woman posting that she had ended her relationship with a man and then he had created a fake profile to covertly continue messaging her, and had stalked her social media to find out personal details that he would not otherwise have known to then drop into conversation with her to make it seem like someone else, your response would not be “oh give him a break, everyone does silly things”.

She doesn’t have a time machine no, and I’m not suggesting she report herself to police, but once you have been on the receiving end of this behaviour you certainly wouldn’t be dishing out sympathy and “don’t worry about it” to the perpetrator.

You’re not a bad person. You need help.. and yes I would say the same thing about a man asking for help because he was ashamed of his actions. Ghosting is horrible behaviour and you’ve had a particularly bad reaction to it. Perhaps you were in a bad place and were starting to come out of it and have some hope that this might be a happy romantic relationship.. then it all came crashing down.

You are going to therapy. You have unpicked how it all happened and can ensure that it won’t happen again by recognising the behaviour pattern and remembering the burning shame. That’s all positive. You’re going the right thing by this guy by not contacting him again. These are all positive steps. You will get through this.

I think we have become used to lives where there is “No Shaming” - so that actually experiencing shame will be a tremendous shock to you.

It used be that most of us experienced small doses of shame for small things and that was enough of a negative experience to get us to actually think ahead to the negative consequences of things.
Without that, we as a society only get the therapeutic benefit (if I might phrase it like that) of shame at a very large and painful dose.

Regardless of all that, you will get over this. You know it will never happen again, and that you can handle a break up differently.
If it helps- I forgive you on behalf of society, you can have absolution if you make a donation to an appropriate charity.
As the priests used to say (probably still do, but I’m not there to find out) “Go and sin no more.”

He didn’t ghost her?

People do these kind of things due to low self esteem. The cure is to do things to make yourself feel better about yourself. Go shopping, get your hair and nails done, go see a show with friends or whatever makes you happy. Push out the negative thoughts with positive experiences
what you did wasn’t that bad.

OP, we've all done things we are (or should be!) ashamed of. ALL of us.

You're catastrophising. You're making this seem much bigger than it is. You made some strange choices and got yourself into a horrible pickle. I doubt he was scared but he was probably really annoyed and freaked out. In addition, this kind of clinginess probably came from a level of low self esteem and vulnerability so I have a lot of empathy for you. Be kind to yourself. You can't change it and it won't help to keep beating yourself up, it'll just do more damage.

This will fade, I promise you. Do one thing every day that you're proud of. Whether it's cooking a nice meal, sending a card to someone, smiling at a baby on the train when you don't feel like interacting, dropping a quid in a collection can, folding a pile of laundry that's been sitting around for days or whatever - and every time this creeps into your head, think hard about that thing instead. You are far, far more than this incident. You are far better than it. Nobody should be judged by their worst, silliest action and this is only a tiny part of your story.

Good people still sometimes do bad things. Acknowledge the behaviour, never do it again and move forwards.

This will pass...treat yourself kindly. You lost your head temporarily, you won't be the first or the last. How bad you are feeling shows what a good person you are. Do something nice for yourself, treat yourself. Imagine what words of comfort you would give to a friend in the same situation. When you are ready reflect on what has happened and what learning can be gained.

People stalk each other daily, it's called social media. Please give yourself a break. You made a huge out of character mistake and you are now blowing it out of all proportion. Learn by your mistake, carry on with therapy, forget about this man & move on with your life.

Do not contact him to explain or apologize. It may push him to involve the police. Every day pushes you further past this and eventually you won't think about it daily. Please get some therapy to help get you thru this and never let it happen again.

I think you've had some good advice here, OP. We've all done things we're ashamed of - the key is to treat it as a lesson. Working out why you did it (mental illness, BPD, escapism, cptsd, or maybe something else) and working out how you can live your life so that you don't go there again is the way forward.

Forgive yourself. Give some money to a charity for victims of stalking, maybe, as a kind of penance. Stop hating yourself - hating yourself is probably what drove this behaviour in the first place. Give yourself some love and kindness as you figure out how to learn from this experience.

Have you deleted all of his messages and call log and number?

It’s way too easy to think to send a quick apology text and it’s already written and sent before you’ve even processed it.

You need to remove all ways to contact him because it’s just not worth the risk of it.

If you ever have a weak moment then post on here before doing it to him.
We can talk you through it and then you can decide whether it’s still a good idea or not.

Dear OP it is good that you recognise that this behaviour is destructive and that you want to change. I am glad that you have been able to access therapy and hope that you can find a way to heal.

Your feelings seem very deep and you sound quite low with a lot of negative thoughts about yourself. Could you make an appointment with your GP tomorrow? There are also telephone based services- you could talk through how you are feeling?

OP it sounds like you lost your mind for a little bit. That's a horrible place to be. If it was a friend who was telling you she had done this would you feel compassion for her?

I think you would. So feel compassion for yourself. Love yourself and forgive yourself. We all make mistakes.

Ok what you done is a bit obsessive and weird but you’re human. You learn from your mistakes. Only you and he know it was you, so who cares what he thinks of you? And you can just cringe at yourself now and again lol. Just give yourself time to mentally heal. This time next year your life won’t be the same. Everything changes 👍🏻

I absolutely would have compassion but that would be because I know her and understand the nuance of the situation (while not excusing it). But if I didn’t know someone and heard they had done this I’d be giving them a wide berth.

This is very true.

I'd imagine OP lives in her head a lot, and fixates obsessively on people- Like a typical teenage crush.

Teenagers thankfully outgrow crushes, as they are literally built up on one's head.

At 16, I had a crush on a handsome 17 yr old from St Paul's Boys school.
He lived round the corner, and I used to walk past his house ''By accident'' hoping to see him in his bedroom window {he had a window seat}

I did go out for a lovely walk with him - Decades later, I do occasionally walk past his old house, {our Mum lives nearby still}

Someone said they had seen him a few years ago, and he was completely bald! and rather portly.

That was a shock to me, as in my imagination, he was still the gorgeous teen , like a young Jackson Browne, with floppy glossy brown hair rather than a middle aged man that he will be now. 🤔 How can that be? 🤣

OP, you are possibly suffering from

Limerance.

everyone makes mistakes OP, even quite serious mistakes. you know what you did was wrong and there’s no disputing that. you can use this as an opportunity to grow, take each day as it comes and know the fact you feel so awful about it is proof that you will never do it again. doing something bad does not mean that you are inherently bad or evil, it just means that what you did was wrong. it sounds like at the time you had very low self esteem - you can’t go back in time and make it better, all you can do now is work on yourself, turn things around and hopefully forgive yourself in the future. thinking of you🩷

You are clearly very sorry, it’ll keep replaying over and over. I think that’s punishment enough.

Never contact him again, the memory will fade OP.

I really feel no desire to contact him again. I’d like him to forget me as quickly as possible

Have you deleted his messages and contact info?

You need to do that now.