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Living with past regrets


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Certainly is mate. But, not doing it is the only way out. You're not going to think yourself better. Time to take on the advice and decide to move on. Come on Bruce, what better day than "Mental Health day", and during "OCD Awareness Week" to make a stand?

 

Edited by Binxy
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Acceptance and self forgiveness is a big key part here bruce, learn to accept the things you cannot change and be kind to yourself. Instead of looking back on how you could have done things differently, you can turn these negatives into positives by seeing that you have learnt from your past mistakes and you can move forward with the knowledge of doing so. Life is about learning and accepting we all make mistakes, if we didn’t make mistakes how could we learn from them. 

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7 hours ago, Binxy said:

Certainly is mate. But, not doing it is the only way out. You're not going to think yourself better. Time to take on the advice and decide to move on. Come on Bruce, what better day than "Mental Health day", and during "OCD Awareness Week" to make a stand?

 

Absolutely. Also bruces check out PolarBear's video on how to stop ruminating. PB says it has had 20,000 views on YouTube. 

Edited by taurean
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But we can forgive ourselves. We can learn to do this, it's part of therapy. 

As I have said before, you can carry on sitting in the slough of despond, asking the same old help questions on multiple themes. 

Or you can take up the fine advice offered freely, do a few of the things suggested, then revalue how you feel. 

I know which I would do.........

 

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I don't think this is to do with forgiveness at all but ruminating. I think you have magnified small issues in your mind so they are overwhelming. There is an article online called real life ocd by theocdspecialists. It's a really good article and I think you'd benefit from reading it. It explains how your mind latches onto events from the past and you perform compulsions around them which keep them uppermost in your mind. Attempting to forgive yourself for them is another compulsion and tells your mind they are important and need repatriation of some kind. Instead you need to accept that you like everyone else have done a huge number of things in your life and the meaning behind those things is complex. 

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Guilt is a retrospective emotion when we apply a moral standard to our actions in the past. We do not experience guilt when we commit an act but soon after an act we can judge that we have broken a moral code. Regret is an emotion where we criticise ourselves for making a wrong decision in the past. We feel that life would be better if we had not taken a particular decision.

Both emotions involve a retrospective judgment of past actions. You cannot change your actions in the past but you can change your interpretation of the past or learn from your actions in the past. Your constant reviewing of your past has affected your mood. Mood is long term disposition to feel in a certain way. Some find that taking medication can lift mood and this can help in reframing the past. Medication and therapy might help.

Your mood might fuel the regret that you might feel in the future about the decisions that you are taking now. You need to break out of your cycle of thoughts and emotions.

 

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I'm not sure if it will help you Bruces but what I do is try to think 'The me I am today, is different from the me I was weeks/months/years ago (almost a separate person). I would not do the thing that I regret but yester-me (new word e.g. 2015-me) did it because they did not know what I know now! '.

Try instead to focus on the person you want to be!

Edited by BelAnna
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I'm very different to the person I used to be but not in a good way unfortunately. 

Im in conflict with myself whether to improve my lot or just give up

i find it equally as hard to deal with the fact that my problems have had such an impact on family too 

Edited by bruces
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Bruces, if you google 'mindfulness exercises, youtube' then some of them are really helpful- try either a breathing exercise or a bodyscan exercise. 

Alternatively do something physically active like a run, swim, bike ride or brisk walk, even doing star jumps can use up some of the anxiety/hyperactivity.

If you cannot face physical activity write a list of 5 things that you are grateful for and ignore all the negative thoughts that question the positives. 

Even doing something like putting a laundry load in the machine, cooking a meal or looking online for a Christmas present for a family member can be distracting. The worst thing that you can do, which I'm very guilty of, is to sit and ruminate on one thing then the next. 

With regard to regrets about the impact of your illness or actions on family members/friends the thing to do is to make positive choices today- you could do something nice for your loved ones to make a difference and to distract you from these flitting thoughts.

Edited by BelAnna
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