C
Catherine1
Guest
Hi everyone, I have read a couple threads on here about this but decided to make an account because I’m not sure about my case. So I was never truly shown how to confess. I am a cradle Catholic, but my parish had teenagers teach us for our first communion, and all they ever really did was go through the Cathechism questions but nothing else. I didn’t even know the Holy Eaucharist was Our Lord until I was about 13. I found out on my own by God’s grace. Eaither way, around that time (13) I became very centered on my faith thanks to EWTN. I did have some legitimate mortal sins to confess at the time, and I did it to the best of my ability. The issue is that I developed scruples, as I grew older I became so overwhelmed with confession and feeling like my confessions were always wrong, that I gave into despair. I stopped receiving communion out of fear and eventually fell further and further from the faith. By the time I was 23 I gave into doubts during college and left the church for a couple months. I never stopped believing in Holy Mother Church, I just felt like my faith became a torture chamber where I always felt condemned and that making a good confession was impossible. I am 25 now and have recently decided to take courage and go back to the faith I truly do love. During my years I’m between my new conversion I have committed some serious sins and some sins that I wonder if they are sins or if it’s just my mind ( or I’m trying to convince myself they aren’t sins). Either way, I’ve been trying to make a good confession for months! I even tried to make a general confession in an attempt to clear my conscience, but really it didn’t take long for me to go back and seeing that I didn’t mention details that at the time ( maybe because of panic, fear, shame, or all of them) I didn’t meantion. I have always mentioned the sin or general sin, but either I miss a detail or later on I come to realize that I needed to be more specific with a sin that at the time I convinced myself belonged to a geral category of sin and did not need to be specifically mentioned. Either way, I’m beginning to sink back into that dark place I was in. The other day I sat in my room crying out of my mind because I don’t believe I am capable of making a good confession. I don’t want to receive communion because I don’t want to commit sacrilege, but I also know I need Him and I know it’s a mortal sin not to receive during Easter. I feel trapped. It’s almost like, I sin if I do and I sin if I don’t. I can’t find a confessor and I feel completely alone and hopeless. I know God is merciful, but I am the problem. My inability to confess is the problem. I almost think it’s easier to just accept that there is no hope for me, but then I remember Our Lord died for me, and I don’t want to cause Him that pain. I honestly feel desperte. Please help, I don’t know what to do.