Regretful/Guilty Thoughts?

[Galaxy Freeze]

You know when you're just sitting around, minding your own business, not doing much, then all of a sudden a wave of regrets washes over you?!
All those these bad thoughts you wish you could block out take over your mind, and then you feel yourself get very angry or guilty?

Like, let's say you think about something somebody said to you a couple years ago. You know it doesn't matter, but you can't help thinking in the back of your mind, "I need to get revenge on that person, I hope they feel horrible."
Or it can be the other way around, you could regret saying something to someone in the past, then you feel guilty and unpleasant. You think, "I wished I would've reacted differently or said something else."

Know what I mean? Every day these thoughts enter my head, and I feel myself heat up and my heart races. I just calm down by taking deep breaths, listening to my music, or drawing.

Isn't it frustrating though? Do you have these thoughts/regrets? How do you usually get rid of them?

 

[Gomendosi]

Galaxy Freeze, I do exactly that and it is incredibly confusing, just as you say, out of the blue a wave of thought hits and I find my self reacting adversely and in a physical way. I sometimes imagine misfortune on people that I think have wronged me and then immediately feel terrible guilt that I could be so horrible as to have even so much as wished that. How can I call myself a decent bloke if I entertain such notions, no wonder I don?t have any friends because I?m not worthy of them, at least that?s what I think at those times.

It is of course counterbalanced neatly, because at other times I will have a wash of feeling come on that allows me to realize I am looked upon favorably by someone somewhere and I can, and often do, affect the lives of others in positive ways, at these times I tend to walk a little prouder and smile a little too, it makes me feel good to think I may make people happy.

But you are right of course, those times when you feel the regret and guilt can easily be built on by allowing yourself to imagine other times that made you feel like that, and then as everything is escalating, you become more and more confused and angry and hurt. I find this hard to understand but I try to, and I think it is because I analyze why I get like that that I am able to rationalize myself calm? Make sense?
It leaves a bitter taste though, to know that people can affect me in such ways but they are oblivious to their impact on my life, even many years after an event!

Sorry if I seem a little strong on this but, it didn?t occur to me that anyone else gets like that and I never would have asked this myself.
So many things we share and can help each other understand.
One of the reasons I love this place!

 

[Galaxy Freeze]

Yeah, I see you're point. I agree, this is a great place to discuss things.

Glad to know others feel this way too! We all do, some more than others though.

 

[HelloDizzy]

I have ruined several lives.
Their infatuation lead to their destruction.

They are scattered and abandoned. I feel bad and must let go. They let it happen.

 

[2010Dolby]

When I was 17 my job (we were experimenting with shed-building at the time) was getting extremely competititve. The owner had told me that I need to start becoming a leader so we could seperate the men from the boys. I was temporarily given my own crew to run, just as a test for the supervisors to see how much I had progressed in the business. On my crew was my first boss (my construction mentor), who was working submissively to show me how to give orders to the others. Well, two weeks later the owner told me I needed to fire my boss to cut back on unneeded expenses. Yea, thats the kind of thing that'll smack me in the chest when I'm just driving around or watching TV. The guy is 45 years old and has a family. He was an *** but he a damn good teacher. He says he doesnt hold a grudge because it was Ted's decision, but it still sucks.

 

[Spinning Compass]

Yes, I have one major regret. I deliberately harmed someone's reputation who had been decent to me because I was seeking approval from a group of people that I really had no business being around as they were not true friends but only pretended to be. She told me something in confidence and I told these other people. I wanted to see what it was like on the other side, to have the shoe on the other foot for a change. She found out and confronted me and I did something else I'm not proud of, I lied to her. She said well maybe it was this other person who overheard me talking on my cell phone because you are not the kind to do something like that and I said yes. I will never forget how she broke down and cried. I wanted to comfort her but could not. She has moved away so there is no way I can make up for what I did. I am no longer "friends" with this group of people either.

All I can say is beware of large, close-knit families (including cousins, aunts, in-laws, etc.) who do not seem to have any lasting friendships outside of their families, who do not socialize with outsiders. Beware their invitation of friendship should they extend one. There is a reason they are that way. Family comes first. Anyone else, especially anyone who is "different" is put on this earth for their amusement. If it pleases them to be friendly they will, but if they change their mind (and they will, frequently), you will be cast out into the cold and not know why. And if there is a conflict between you and a family member, they will close ranks around that family member. They will set you up and leave you holding the bag. I have learned my lesson now.

 

[epath13]

been there done that, in my case regrets were more about not having enough fun at one or another points of my life one time I got that idea to start apologizing to everyone who I did something "bad", I was only able to find one person, apologized only to realize that it didn't really matter, she was fine
For me talking about it, working through it, analyzing have never worked, I could reanalyze my own analysis and then repeat the process a few time over. There's only one thing that worked for me and still does but I guess you have to have a certain mind set for that. That thing is: meditation/ balancing/ cleansing exercises. If I have an unpleasant emotion, let's say guilt or anger, apparently, for me, it doesn't always matter where it's come from. The "placement" of the emotion matters nothing else. When I do those exercises it's "placement" changes or that emotion goes away. You can look at it differently of course... I could give a few theories of what's actually happening but I'm feeling kinda lazy right now so yeah...some people are on therapy for years to fix the issues that you're talking about, it's not that uncommon among all kinds of people.

Drawing is actually a pretty good way to deal with any kind of overwhelming emotions.

 

[Fighternerd1000]

Oh yeah. A whole wave of guilt just started to overtake me, tried getting over it, but just won't go away!! I did a self-diagnosis and found out that I have OCD, and I unintentionally become anxious about my past. My story involves cheating on 5 tests(5 classes each) in college, and I regret this very much. I know what I did was wrong, and I was so bothered by that, that I decided to stop cheating all together. I have stopped cheating since then, and I have been doing fine since. I'm a junior and this was way back in Freshman year and my first semester during my Sophomore year. The first time I cheated was because I was very new to college and I was desperate to raise my grade. This was due to the fact that I was taking Ground School and Flight Lab(I was going to be a pilot but because I'm on medications, I won't be anymore, as the FAA is very stringent on medications). My flight instructor gave me a book for Ground School(I got confused and thought that this was for Flight Lab instead of my Ground School, as there was also a Ground School portion for my flight training.) The 2nd time was when my professor made a mess of things by giving out study guides that everyone is supposed to study for, only to find out that on his tests, a majority of the material on the test was irrelevant to the study material on the study guide! (I hate that!) So me and a portion of the class met together to discuss this predicament, and(by dumb luck) one of our classmates requested the final exam from our professor, who sent it to him via email. He then sent us a copy of the exam to study off from, and we all passed the class. The 3rd time was when one of my classmates from class gave me all the answers from the test I was about to take. Because I did not want to be completely dishonest, I only looked at some of the test answers for questions that I did not know, and only answered those by heart those I am familiar with. The 4th time I cheated was on the final exam. I knew I wasn't doing so hot in Meteorology II(I wasn't failing, and, unbeknownst to me), I was getting a C or D(I thought I was getting the latter, as I had been doing poorly on some of the tests, despite studying for them), so I asked my classmate what some of the answers were, and so I got them. The 5th and final time I cheated in college was on a quiz. This time, I only cheated on two questions. Again, I know I'm the one at fault here and I was a desperate loser, but I have turned in the right direction and I have not cheated since then. Even so, on Friday, those thoughts just came back to me out of the blue!! Seeing that I have OCD, I tend to receive unwanted thoughts and they are stuck in my head!! I learned that many people with OCD are anxious about their past and I try everything to get rid of those thoughts. They go away, and they don't last for weeks, but I still hate it!!

 

[smith2267]

This sounds like obsessive thinking to me. Maybe you are OCD too