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Looking after ourselves

ArraDreaming
Senior Contributor

Did it again and feel stupid

I did it again last night, I couldn’t sleep so got out my phone and ended up pretty much doom scrolling through old messages and emails from years ago. 

 

I don’t know why I do it, but every time I do it I feel physically sick shame and guilt. I was so unwell years ago and such an awful person to interact with. 

I can’t even put it into words, it’s embarrassing how poorly I behaved and communicated with people who only had my best interests in mind. But I was just so far gone that anything anyone did I was aggressive. What the hell.

I feel sick. And there is nothing I can do, I can’t contact these people anymore. But I also can’t stop going down to this vortex of pre 2020

23 REPLIES 23

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

Hey @ArraDreaming  We sound like we use to be very similar people and I have folders in my email full of messages to people who just wanted to help me, where I was such a horrible person too. I did my best to try and push people away but they wouldn’t go! 

perhaps it’s not healthy to keep these emails and messages? Perhaps we should actually go through them one last time and delete them? 

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

I want to do that, but I also don’t want to @Bow 

 

Reading back and it doesn’t even sound like me, as in I don’t want to associate myself that person, doesn’t seem like me. But I know that it was because I remember it. I wish I didn’t though 

 

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

Hi @ArraDreaming ,

 

You may feel ‘stupid’ but I can see that your ability to reflect on your past actions shows your growth and maturity. If anything, I think it’s commendable.

 

I also cringe at the things I’ve done in the past, and I’m not proud of my actions! But today, I see it as an opportunity not to go back that path.

 

BPDSurvivor

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

@Bow I want to delete them but I can’t bring myself to, and I think that’s because it will force me to let go of evidence of probably the worst period of my adult life, I don’t know why I’m clining on to it so badly 

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

Hi @ArraDreaming,

I'm really sorry you are feeling like this. 

I think you should offer yourself some self-kindness and self-forgiveness. It sounds like when you were communicating with these people you were in a very hard stage of your life. I'm sure most of us have said or acted in ways that we wished we hadn't in hindsight but I guess, for me at least, is realising that the past is over and I can't change it but what I can control is today and the future.

There's a saying that I really like which is something like "when we know better, we do better". 

I think rereading messages from the past is bringing your past into your present and that (I would imagine) is just bring back all those negative feelings that aren't helping you. When I feel down I try to look find ways to engage myself in positivity such as listening to uplifting music, watching a funny tv show, playing Scrabble - anyway that feeds my mind with good energy. In the past when I was down I would listen to sad music (for example) and I realised all that was doing was compounding my sadness and it just made me feel worse. 

I really do hope you see yourself as I'm sure a lot of people on the forums do, a really nice person with a lot of positive things to offer.

Kind regards,

FloatingFeather 

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

I get it @ArraDreaming  i really do. And I get what you saying about letting go of the evidence of the worst time in your life. I have heaps of journals written by someone I don’t even recognise! Yeah I still have a lot of negative thoughts etc, but I was a completely different person back then. I can actually laugh about some of it now, cause it’s so out there and terrible…. If you can’t laugh your gonna cry about it. 
If you can’t bring yourself to delete them, just don’t read them. I don’t read mine…. Unless I’m looking for something in particular, often a date that something happened etc. 

All the best

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

@ArraDreaming 

I just deleted a few contacts that are not current.  Maybe your processing is just fine, and you will delete them when you are ready.  Sometimes we do need to hang onto old stuff to process it and come to understand the whole circumstances etc.  I have also hung onto messages for 6-7 years cos I wanted to hear the sound of their voice.  Its only a few years ago so =, delete, dont delete, do what you do, you have come a long way though ...

Take Care

Apple

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

I still have documents and things from years and years ago hard copy in a box at home @Appleblossom and I have moved a lot of times with it I kind of want to set it on fire but each time I move it makes it way into the new house 

Re: Did it again and feel stupid

Prompted me to go on a rabbit hole and open that box back up full of stuff I requested from freedom of information a couple of years back but never gave much more than a quick skim over, yeah nah, I probably shouldn’t have done that
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