Just need to vent - Guilt/Regret is Taking Over

Hello:

I know this isn't a therapy or mental health forum, but just needed to vent lol. I'm getting married (35 M) next month, and I just got back from my bachelor party in Cabo with some friends. I genuinely had a good time with the guys playing golf and having some laughs and all that good stuff.

But now that I'm back to reality, I've reflected on everything and I just feel guilt and regret about some of the things I did. I didn't cheat or do anything unforgivable or anything. I was just partaking in the "usual" bachelor party activities. The guys got me a shirt where I had to get girls to sign in order to complete a checklist.

So yeah, I had to play games at a bar where I got up and had to do a "strip tease" for a girl on stage, girls were coming up and signing my shirt all night, girls were dancing with me all night, and then the guys insisted on going to a strip club even though I didn't want to. I kept telling them that strip clubs "aren't my thing", but its hard to convince a group of guys that on a bachelor party lol. Anyway, they insisted on getting me a lap dance even though I said I didn't want one; eventually I caved and just went along with it. Oh yeah and we were doing drugs along with alcohol which I was not planning on doing (the drugs part at least), but once I got drunk it sounded like a good idea.

The night ended with us going to a late night bar and I was dancing with a few more girls (nothing more than that). I do remember dancing with a girl at one point, and it felt like it was progressing from fun, flirtatious to possibly some mistakes being made. I noticed the girl was very intoxicated and I removed myself from the situation. But I was very drunk, and now that I'm sober, this really scares me because I could have made a mistake in my drunken stuper.

So yeah anyway, I know this was a bachelor party, and in American culture you're supposed to go out and "have fun" one more night and nothing I did was really out of the norm or out of line per say (by cultural standards at least, you can argue all of this is not right). But I am killing myself with guilt and regret. I am just getting this terrible, clinching feeling in the deep pit of my stomach that I am struggling to shake. I feel like I'm on the verge of losing control or having a panic attack. My stomach and chest muscles are either really tight or spasmed or clinching constantly the past few days and I am becoming overfixated on it. It reminds me of my past bouts with general anxiety and panic attacks before I read Claire Weeke's book.

I have a history in my younger days of making some mistakes while under the influence of alcohol, and I think this is a minor form of PTSD around the subject. I just know that I have a really good thing going with my fiance. She is the love of my life, and we share everything with each other. I really hate the way I was acting that night (even tho it was generally harmless). And I feel like I have to keep secrets from her now. And I feel like none of the other guys feel this way; I feel like the only one who is going through this. Maybe its good that I have some character that makes me question things? lol

I don't think it is wise to come clean to my fiance about all of my activities and tell her how I feel just to make myself feel better, because that is just going to unload my anxiety on to her and that's not fair. At this point, she knows about the shirt, girls signing it, and us going out and partying and thats pretty much it. She just shook her head and laughed about it.

Anyway, I have done some meditation today, and have come to the conclusion that the real reason I am experiencing such negative feelings in my body and mind is that I am trying to repress how I feel. I am thinking that I need to just keep repressing these feelings of guilt and regret until they go away or something bad will happen and all the good things in my life will be taken away.

I have tried to feel the feelings whenever they come up and notice them without judgement, and this has helped me today. Trying to apply the TMS recovery mindset of just allowing the negative feelings without trying to fight them. And honestly, just typing all this out has helped me a lot. I know this forum is not a therapy session, but it has helped me feel a bit better lol.

What are some good techniques for dealing with this kind of thing? I know that I am the personality type or overfixates on things and can create anxiety out of nothing at times lol

 

Hi,
Thanks for sharing with such detail - really felt like I came along for the ride!

First, it sounds difficult to be experiencing the amount guilt, regret, and anxiety that you are at the moment. They are particularly painful states and not easy to deal with.

Reading your post it felt like you had come to some great conclusions and insights. In particular: the attempt to repress the guilty feelings leading to intense anxiety - classic TMS eh. I know when I don't allow myself to feel guilty, for big or small things, all hell breaks loose in my body.

There seems to be a key dissonance: you say that all the activities were fine, culturally normal and all that, but a part of you disagrees with that as proven by the guilt and the big ramp up of anxiety. It might be worth touching in with the inner part that is disagreeing with what happened and hear their side of the story.

"All the good things in my life will be taken away" -> this sounds like a lot of fear is coming up and an extreme reaction especially as your fiance seems like an absolute gem and there is a lot of trust built up in you. What is it that you are afraid of?

I wonder if there is some hidden anger at your friends as well. It seems they were insistent in taking you outside of your comfort zone in terms of flirting/strip club while you were intoxicated? Just a passing thought I had while reading your post.

You are already doing the right things in terms of noticing whatever is coming up without judgement but my intuition is saying that if typing this out really helped, why not practice a few days of journaling - Nicole Sachs style where you just let whatever needs to surface arise without filtering.

The only other tool that I find particularly helpful when I am over fixating and anxious (which is a very common experience for me too) is self-compassion. I try to hold my heart with light and kindness because feeling that way is painful. This often opens the door to allowing the emotions to flow and some clarity for how to work with the situation I have found myself in.

I hope this was helpful!

 

I think it has a lot to do with abandoning yourself and your values to please friends and “culture” - you felt you “had” to live up to the expectations of others and ended up abandon yourself.
Now you are just reflecting on that.
What if you’d said no, instead of yes to the alcohol, drugs, women? What would your friends have done? How would you feel if they were not happy about that?
This might be about the safety you feel with friends that you now see you have different values from. You’ve gone through experiences and internal reflections they have not.
Circle around the situation in your mind a bit. The “thing” that bugs us is usually not the thing at the front of our mind, but the one lurking. Your world is changing, what does that bring up?

 

I think this is a key point. I'm currently battling with myself on this. I naturally feel guilty about everything, but I'm worried that admitting the guilt is there means that I did something wrong. And if I did something wrong, that means I'm a bad person, I need to tell my fiance, I need to call off the marriage, and the downward spiral starts lol

So I have been trying to vigorously justify everything in my mind as "normal" and "ok" in order to dispel this guilt. This is causing repression because I'm afraid of the guilt (because its existence means I did something wrong).

And all of the wedding stuff is heating up. My fiance is so bubbly and excited, and I just feel like I've let her down. She IS an absolute gem and I don't want to screw this up or bring negative energy onto her lap and kill her bubbly vibe.

To add some extra context, 2 years ago I had an incident on a work trip in New Orleans. I drank way too much, blacked out and ended up in a strip club where they took advantage of my money and myself in ways I would not have consented to when sober. I broke down and was a wreck for weeks. I cried when I told my fiance and she was nothing but supportive and comforting. She didn't even get mad, she just immediately went into support mode which is wild to me.

I had many incidents in my 20s where I drank way too much and did things I regretted. Once I met my fiance, these incidents just didn't happen anymore because I was so much happier as a person and maturing and realizing that I was using alcohol to drown my negative feelings. But since I had this "relapse" incident in New Orleans, I think my brain/body is remembering that, and this is a kind of PTSD experience for me. With the wedding being a month away, its causing more panic of "what if I screwed this up"

But ultimately, I didn't screw anything up. This was just a brief lapse of character and judgment that doesn't reflect me as a person or future husband. I'm trying to balance out the "feeling" of the guilt will also not beating myself up too much about it. Its ok to feel guilty; its ok to be mad at my friends; its ok to be mad at myself

 

Also very good points. I was consciously stressing out before the bachelor party about being the center of attention and being expected to do things and what not.

The "thing" point is also good. What if my "id" actually really liked all of the partying and women and now its angry that I'm trying to repress it and become a married man who can't do those things anymore? Just some things to think about

Now that I type that, I imagine that my conscious mind beating up my id about the desire to party with friends and chase women is absolutely enraging to the subconscious mind. And its an animalistic part of us we can't repress. We have to accept its there while also not making decisions that wreck our lives lol

 

It feels like that alcohol tries to distract you from something deeper something more fearful to you. Maybe unconsciously you wanna break free from something and with alcohol that is the legitimate cause to do wild things etc. And the fact your fiance is so supportive so nice that you even felt it was sureal may indictae accepting yourself as who you are is not easy for you. Somehow being the true self is hard. It has to cater to cultural stds, friends, whoever, and you somehow have to do things you dont really want to fit in. And later you regret and feel guilty, giving others the power to create the life for you. All these feelings give TMS a lot of chances to manifest.


Dr. Mate wrote a book called The Hungry Ghost and it talks about how the brains work.

 

Nice, I've listened to him on Joe Rogan's podcast before! I'll add the audiobook to my queue.

And yeah you hit on another good point. Most of my childhood trauma was from extremely low self confidence which I have improved drastically, but still deal with at times. Any little thing can be an excuse to validate the idea that I'm not good enough for something.

I'm trying to schedule a therapy session to talk through some things. I think that might be pretty helpful

 

You have mentioned PTSD a couple of times too which seems really important for the intensity of the experience. I am glad to hear you are scheduling a therapy session as for experiences of higher intensity having another compassion presence can make such a difference.

I highlighted that part because you are so on the money with those thoughts. I know for myself the first step is realising what is going on, and the next - far more difficult step - is allowing myself to feel.

 

Yes, I've been doing a guided meditation that has really helped me focus on feeling emotions and not being afraid of them coming up. But once the mediation is over, its time to move on to the rest of my day. If the feelings come up naturally throughout the day, I allow them. Facing them seems to make them less scary and I tend not to dwell longer to try to "solve the problem in my head".

I think self-forgiveness is also key. I still catch myself thinking about things I did 5 years ago and beating myself up over it. It's definitely something I struggle with lol

 

FYI, the intense feelings of guilt seem to have subsided for the most part. But now my acid reflux is flaring up. Gotta love it lol

 

Of course. When we don't like a symptom or sensation, it usually likes to stick around or, if we end up deciding we can live with it for now, the brain often kicks in with another sensation we don't like to feel.
The intense feelings of guilt have consciously subsided, but deep down in there it still might be stirring.

I had a flair this week. My very elderly cat was attacked by a stray cat that got in our home and almost killed.
The vet found cancer when they did the xrays (cat is bouncing back, much to everyone's suprise). The MOMENT she said "cancer" and the reality sunk in and I did not want to feel that grief and....symptoms! I lost another cat just a few months ago suddenly, and my Mom a month after that.... (and apparently the word cancer is a trigger, even though I fully suspected the cat had cancer)....

Have you ever tried EMDR? If "cancer" keeps being a trigger, I'm going to go back to my therapist for a session. For me, this seems to work like a charm. The subconscious/conscious brain seems to be able to sort itself out after a round or two of EMDR.

 

FWIW I get feelings of regret/guilt any time I have too much alcohol, even if I don't participate in the, er, fun activities you did (and you need to cut yourself some slack on that, but it's easier said than done I know). I tend to beat myself for indulging too much, regret the hangover/post-drinking pain I inflict on myself, ruminate over stupid things I've said etc. For that reason, alcohol and I aren't BFFs.

Despite being TMS prone, and all that brings - I really feel like chemically alcohol doesn't play well with my system(s). I am strictly a social drinker and oftentimes even then it just gives me a headache and brings me down. The odd thing is that I enjoy a beer with certain food, and we've now opted for a lot of the many good non-alcoholic beers that are available when eating pizza or tacos, etc.

Anyway, hoping this guilt phase you're feeling passes (I'm confident it will) and you're in a better space soon.

 

Sorry to hear about your cat! I have two cats of my own. Words can definitely be triggers, as I recall reading from Steve O's book.

I have not even heard of EMDR. Is that something I could schedule with a therapist? I have started "therapy" by talking things out with a licensed therapist via the Better Help app. I am just using the text chat feature for now; I don't really feel comfortable doing a live call or video chat just yet. But it feels good to write out how I feel and get feedback from a licensed therapist which is probably more healthy than just posting my problems on the internet for strangers to give advice on (no offense to you guys lol).

 

Yeah, as I mentioned me and alcohol have had an interesting relationship over the years. I was absolutely a problem drinker in my 20's. I would drink to black out way too much. But now that I have worked on myself and improved my self confidence, I have realized that I was using alcohol to deal with my social anxiety and lack of self confidence. So I identified the root cause of my problem drinking.

I would say that since I have started dating my fiance (4 years or so), I have had 4-5 instances where I drank to black/brown out situation with just the guys, and I had a lot of "hangxiety" after in pretty much all the cases. Sober me doesn't trust drunk me to make good decisions when she isn't around. And not remembering everything I did makes me extremely anxious. In one of these cases was the strip club incident in New Orleans which really wrecked me for weeks, but in all the cases I beat myself up with guilt after (even if nothing bad happened). This time just seems to hit home even more since it was my bachelor party and I'm so close to the wedding.

Also, I'm sure the Id really likes partying and entertaining other women. I'm sure it gets pretty enraged when my conscious mind tries to reel it in and beat it up when it lets loose a little. I would be lying if I hadn't had feelings pop up that miss the "single life" which I usually repress. And I think that is pretty normal for most guys who are getting married. Obviously, I love my fiance and I'm ready to spend the rest of my life with her, so it makes sense to repress these animal tendencies of the ID. But I'm sure there is a healthier way to feel these feelings and just not act on them lol.

 

Hi, @GTfan
I know this is not going to be a popular thing to recommend— but you might want to consider going completely sober. Giving up alcohol. For some people, it’s the only way to prevent things that can ruin your life. And it’s also the only way to heal what’s really wrong underneath. Just food for thought.

 

Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on it now, with some time removed. Remember, the bachelor party is never really for the bachelor...he's just the reason and excuse!

 

You have repeat social anxiety around friends.
It might be time to re-evaluate why you want them as friends if you feel this anxiety around them. Is the problem really the drinking or the lack of feeling safe and accepted?

 

Cactusflower,
So sorry to hear about your Mom passing away. And now your dear kitty with cancer. ❤️