Coping with post-addiction guilt & remorse -- need honest feedback

[omgitsaliv55]

Hello everyone,

I've been a long time lurker on here and want to start off by saying thank you to everyone here for collectively creating such a supportive community. Bluelight has been the single most helpful resource to me in coping with my substance abuse and mental health issues over the past two years.

A little over two years ago, I (rapidly) developed a severe case of Body Dysmorphic Disorder that precipitated anxiety and major depression. For those of you unfamiliar with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, it consists of chronic obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors resulting from dysphoria with a perceived physical defect -- often a specific facial feature. This description may sound superficial, but it is often as debilitating and life-threatening as anorexia nervosa or bulimia. Like OCD, people with the disorder don't actually want to be having these thoughts and the social & occupational impairment can be severe. For me personally, I ended up withdrawing from college, quitting my job, and now live at my mother's house while I get my mental health back in order. To this day, the thoughts are often present in my mind from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. I tried to get help for this several times, but most of the mental health professionals I spoke with referred me elsewhere or did not provide the appropriate type of treatment that I now retrospectively know was necessary.

Unfortunately, I also let my mental health issues lead me into the darkness of addiction, specifically amphetamines (Adderall). I found that it took many of my symptoms away and allowed me to be relatively functional again, but the dosages I was using escalated and became increasingly more dangerous. On top of this, on a few occasions I used benzodiazepines primarily to come down, but this often resulted in blackouts. On one occasion, I chose to get behind the wheel, ended up totaling my car, and somehow slipped away with a few scrapes. After waking up in the hospital with no recollection of getting behind the wheel, they told me it was amazing I wasn't decapitated given the state of the vehicle. I was obviously charged with and plead guilty to a first-offense DUI. It's also worth noting that on one occasion when feeling very suicidal, I took my mother's clonazepam without asking. I came clean, she's since forgiven me, and I'm now seeking addiction treatment, but I still feel a lot of guilt and remorse about it. So far, I've at least made it 90 days without any Adderall usage.

Given the extensiveness of my addiction, most people are surprised I'm alive. I was hospitalized several times for suicide related overdosages (or just suicidal ideation alone). I'm now finally getting effective mental health treatment (I'm on a laundry list of anti-depressants and mood stabilizers) which has dramatically decreased my drive to use drugs, but I still have a lot of suicidal ideation and extensive guilt/remorse over the previously mentioned mistakes I made. What's more, in the state that I live (Wisconsin) the first DUI-offense isn't even a misdemeanor (though most other penalties/fines are the same) even though I could've KILLED someone. Sure, a lot of people have driven under the influence and gotten away with it but I'm still haunted by horrible imagery of what could've happened due to my decisions even though it didn't happen. On top of this, all of this would have been completely out of character for me before I became mentally ill.

I have to move past this guilt and get better, but right now it's really holding back my recovery and is driving a lot of suicidal ideation. I know that committing suicide would cause people far more pain than I've already caused, but I feel like the mistakes I've made are pretty bad even though I've gotten off quite easy. Yes, I know of good people who have done worse and I don't hold it against them, but I like to think I hold myself to higher standards. Has anyone else made similar mistakes? And if so, how did you move past the guilt to make way for recovery?

 

[bakeryrogercow]

Hello everyone,

I've been a long time lurker on here and want to start off by saying thank you to everyone here for collectively creating such a supportive community. Bluelight has been the single most helpful resource to me in coping with my substance abuse and mental health issues over the past two years.

A little over two years ago, I (rapidly) developed a severe case of Body Dysmorphic Disorder that precipitated anxiety and major depression. For those of you unfamiliar with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, it consists of chronic obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors resulting from dysphoria with a perceived physical defect -- often a specific facial feature. This description may sound superficial, but it is often as debilitating and life-threatening as anorexia nervosa or bulimia. Like OCD, people with the disorder don't actually want to be having these thoughts and the social & occupational impairment can be severe. For me personally, I ended up withdrawing from college, quitting my job, and now live at my mother's house while I get my mental health back in order. To this day, the thoughts are often present in my mind from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. I tried to get help for this several times, but most of the mental health professionals I spoke with referred me elsewhere or did not provide the appropriate type of treatment that I now retrospectively know was necessary.

Unfortunately, I also let my mental health issues lead me into the darkness of addiction, specifically amphetamines (Adderall). I found that it took many of my symptoms away and allowed me to be relatively functional again, but the dosages I was using escalated and became increasingly more dangerous. On top of this, on a few occasions I used benzodiazepines primarily to come down, but this often resulted in blackouts. On one occasion, I chose to get behind the wheel, ended up totaling my car, and somehow slipped away with a few scrapes. After waking up in the hospital with no recollection of getting behind the wheel, they told me it was amazing I wasn't decapitated given the state of the vehicle. I was obviously charged with and plead guilty to a first-offense DUI. It's also worth noting that on one occasion when feeling very suicidal, I took my mother's clonazepam without asking. I came clean, she's since forgiven me, and I'm now seeking addiction treatment, but I still feel a lot of guilt and remorse about it. So far, I've at least made it 90 days without any Adderall usage.

Given the extensiveness of my addiction, most people are surprised I'm alive. I was hospitalized several times for suicide related overdosages (or just suicidal ideation alone). I'm now finally getting effective mental health treatment (I'm on a laundry list of anti-depressants and mood stabilizers) which has dramatically decreased my drive to use drugs, but I still have a lot of suicidal ideation and extensive guilt/remorse over the previously mentioned mistakes I made. What's more, in the state that I live (Wisconsin) the first DUI-offense isn't even a misdemeanor (though most other penalties/fines are the same) even though I could've KILLED someone. Sure, a lot of people have driven under the influence and gotten away with it but I'm still haunted by horrible imagery of what could've happened due to my decisions even though it didn't happen. On top of this, all of this would have been completely out of character for me before I became mentally ill.

I have to move past this guilt and get better, but right now it's really holding back my recovery and is driving a lot of suicidal ideation. I know that committing suicide would cause people far more pain than I've already caused, but I feel like the mistakes I've made are pretty bad even though I've gotten off quite easy. Yes, I know of good people who have done worse and I don't hold it against them, but I like to think I hold myself to higher standards. Has anyone else made similar mistakes? And if so, how did you move past the guilt to make way for recovery?

HI! Congratulations on getting sober That's a huge step, and you should be really proud of yourself. You know how hard addiction is so you know how big a deal it is. A huge reason why people get high and become addicted is to forget things or mask feelings. It seems like this became your reason to use. And unfortunately, because you're sober in recovery, you are suddenly faced with not only post acute withdrawal syndrome, but lots of feelings you have been masking. Guilt and shame are extremely common to experience in early recovery. Here's some things to keep in mind that helped me in the beginning. I, like you, got a DUI during which I was blacked out. I also totaled a car blacked out (these are separate incidents). I was able to keep the totaled car from the police by limping the car home and having it scrapped without telling my insurance or the police of the accident. Its a horrible thing that I did, so I know where you are coming from with the guilt.

However, neither of us did actually hurt anyone!! You got away clean and hurt only yourself, and now you're working to heal. You cannot change the past, but you can make the future by living in the present. You need to just keep telling yourself that. You will be amazed how much stronger a person you will become as the days pass and you're still sober. Slow but steady improvements, and you'll understand that, yes, I did something bad, but I was addicted and going through a bad time, and I didn't hurt anyone. Now I am sober, and I'm making good decisions and living a good life. If you go back to using, you will just be continuing to feed that guilt.

So, things to actually do NOW? I started volunteering twice a week. On saturday mornings I work at a shelter for homeless that are coming right out of detox and trying to get back on their feet. I get to talk with all the clients, and help in the kitchen. On tuesday nights, I'm part of a community organization that pairs up with troubled youths in the worse parts of the city. This helps tremendously with the guilt. I already feel so much better and I acknowledge, yes, I did some sucked up fhit in the past, but that person is never remerging from the past and I'm a good person going forward. You can do this too!

 

[JessFR]

Man you gotta cut yourself a break here. Sounds like the only harm you did to anyone else was taking your moms pills right? What you did doesn't warrant how hard you're being on yourself. Yes, it could have been a lot worse, and yes it's largely just luck that it wasn't. But the important part is it wasn't. And punishing yourself for it is not helping anyone. You asked for forgiveness from your mom, so you already did the right thing there.

I know it's much easier said than done, but you gotta remember that there's no point spending energy focusing on what you can't change, focus it on what you can change in the future.

You asked for honesty, honestly I think what you've done is really very minor. It's the harm we do to others in our addiction that is what we really should feel guilt for. I've done a lot worse to other people than it sounds like you've done, I really think you need to get some perspective and stop worrying so much about what didn't happen. Focus your energy on making sure you won't do it again, cause if you get yourself back on track now, you can still get out of this without having done much harm to anyone.

Just my perspective, but I don't think you deserve what you're putting yourself through, and I think perhaps you should focus more on the future. The best thing you can do is get clean so you don't get into situations like that again, and punishing yourself is just as likely to put you in more pain, and more pain only increases the desire to use. Put simply I don't think it's constructive.

Good luck with sobriety man.