Help me cope with heavy regret

To be honest, I know exactly what you mean. It really hurts to feel that you’ve wasted some of the most valuable moments of your life. Regret has been a driving force for me to try and reinvent myself and start living life. Don’t ignore them, but don’t let them keep you down either

 

Great question. Try asking yourself this question: Have I learned something from the mistakes I made in the past?

 

If you can now become a better person then they were not wasted. We all make mistakes and do bad things somewhere in our lives. Failing is falling and not getting back up.

getting back up and trying again is the way forward - so start looking forward and make them proud now. Start by making yourself proud.

 

Lately I have been moving forward more carefully if that makes any sense? The way I'm starting to approach regret is to take the lesson I learned with one and apply that to the next thing I go into. If it is regret attached to a person I am remembering a more compassionate and kind approach.

 

I think for a lot of people they might have two parts to the regret, the action and the identity. You can change your actions, you're already doing it - but the identification is the stuck part and is closer to shame. What helps me is I don't really see the identification as real even if it's common for people to feel stuck with it, everything can be changed even if it would take work.

Also, progress is not only limited by time. Some of it you can control, at other times it might be a pleasant surprise whether it's from something you've done for a while, maybe several things like different kinds of self improvement coming together or partly getting lucky and having a good situation. The thing is to notice it then which would be motivating.

I'm much older and I believe this is true for people my age who have a longer history of use so I definitely think it's possible for you. Yes it may feel heavy but that's only because a part of you recognizes your potential, the other part that would make the difference is you are not that person anymore, you were never going to stay that person even if it was in a rut for a long time - and it's just a question of whether you change deliberately or just a little coasting along, either way you'll change.

 

I can relate a lot, started PMO around 10-11 and my grades fell as I chose PMO and gaming over studying and focusing on human interaction, nowadays I have so much regret I can barely be motivated to even brush my teeth. However, I cope with it by trying to put more effort into everything I do, like drawing or working out and trying to make an effort not to be a PMO gaming addicted barely functional human and trying to find the joys in smaller things like walking my dog or saying hello to a stranger. It also helps that I check Nofap almost daily for the challenges and seeing the same people almost daily fighting to beat their addiction like me

 

Don't assume that everything would have been great if you didn't have PMO addiction when growing up. I didn't have high-speed internet growing up but a lot can still go wrong, and it isn't all your fault either. That said, of course it's terrible that people grow up with this crap.

 

To paraphrase a quote I heard (I think it's from Maya Angelou), "I forgive myself for not knowing the things I needed to learn before I actually learned them." For me this puts the whole idea of regret into a rational perspective, and allows me to take a step forward from where I am right now - since right now is the only place where I can effect change in my life.