What constitutes, exactly, half-awake, stress, and full consent?

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foolishmortal

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Does anyone feel qualified to ell me if I’m beating myself up? Regardless of this rambling (I’m writing this paragraph in retrospect), you can still maybe answer my question if you do not feel comfortable answering my first question. Thanks!

My eyes were starting to close on accident, but I still chose to go to this image that I previously considered looking at lustfully. I have been feeling worthless at work and that, being in another country whose language I cannot even pronounce right, even those who can speak well-enough don’t understand what I m trying to convey. I don’t get straight answers for what I need to know, except the old, give rewards (when, when I pretty much am disgusted with myself), setting boundaries (I didn’t have that knowledge as I have little confidence in myself) and play games with them (I still don’t get duck, duck, goose and figuring out games on the spot when I had to go to classes was anxiety provoking due to low self-confidence). I get the same old answers from other foreigners. I find it audatious to ask anyone to hang out with me and I feel guilty for maybe making others think I don’t like them. I am fun with kids and take good pictures of nature and scenic scenes, but the only courage to make any of that a job was getting this job. Going to S. Korea was a way to get away from my old self, but it came here too and now I have rare opportunities to meet with a priest who knows Engloish well enough…

The only light in my life moved to be with her husband after her contract was over. There is a nun in the city, I’ve written to, but I can’t find that church half the time. I don’t really bond with people in any mature way and I don’t feel I have any social skills that make me useful to them (esp. here, where I don’t know where to find gifts for ones I feel any closeness to). My puns don’t work here and I discovered I am no good at managing a classroom and I have 9 more months left to go. My last class had students who supposedly wanted to go to a better high school and they had to know more English conversational skills, but, despite my beefing up on humor devices, they still wanted to do their own thing. I don’t know if I were too stressed-out or too sleepy when I enjoyed the image, I previously mentioned, too much. I looked that way 2 or 3 previous days, as well as a few stints 2 weeks ago, but only one other condition did I use it to try to relieve a certain bowel irregularity. I’m so depressed, except for brief periods of elation when I’m being a Pee Wee Herman to little kids at school or children of adults I meet. I’ve actually been slowly becoming more depressed since my last boss made the job I enjoyed doing at the home for people with Alzheimers a living hell–and we were just the activity department! Shortly after having arrived here, I have felt so guilty not being around for my nephew who almost adores me, to be with this one friend of whom I am his main buddy, and for not being able to help my dad with all the snow they have gotten in the Midwest this particular year.

I find myself spontaneously saying “God help me”. I wish He would absolve me directly or through a priest and the kill me, as suicide is not an option, nor has it ever been, so I can’t cause him or others any more suffering from my bumbling and self-pity driven time-wasting.

Well, thanks for letting me grieve here. If scrupulosity, which priests tell me I have, is narcissistic, it’s not much of an ego-trip as narcissists would imagine their ego-trips.
 
Well perhaps you should read over your posts, going through things you write helps. I catch myself ‘lusting’ sometimes when I’m kind of dazed out, and then I snap out of it, it’s not really a grave sin, these random thoughts pass in and out sometimes, you will eventually snap back.

Just confess if you aren’t sure, don’t worry about it.
 
Thanks for your advice! I’ve looked at non-erotic nudes (I never intend for it to be arousing) for long hours, but then I’ve been on here for hours at a time and looking for class material and Catholic stuff for hours and I save the pages (I deleted everything that was tempting except some Catholic Answers forums). I try to get everything done in one run, exhausting every search word, so I don’t forget later. I could write it down, but I’ll lose the paper. I know it’ll happen the next time, but I still go back.

I think it’s to fill a void, but it goes so late, I’m sleep deprived the next day and depressed (but is that an excuse as I have yet to find a good explanation of half-awake, self-hate and worthless feelings that lead to self-destructive actions of a spiritual nature and/or subconscious override that excuses one from mortal sin culpability). What I cannot find an answer to is, if you think you are in control and choose wrong then do you have sufficient reflection or free consent or does it just feel like it? There is the prayer, forgive me Father, for I know not what I do–yet you still are asking forgiveness. Is that the case here, regarding sin?

God is the only one who is the source of my happiness, but I fear love. I can only intellectually love God, I think, because of the good things that have happened, but I cannot feel it as I am oriented toward the negative experiences. When I really get like that, I use the internet as a place to fill the void (causing wasted time) and then despise myself for having done that after I exhaust every option. I think I may start using a computer room here I pay for my time there.

Thanks to anyone who read this. I do hope someone knows about culpability regarding certain states of mind. If someone thinks my behavior on these 2 posts of mine was likely a mortal sin, I will take it as a strong possibility as it would be more objective than my own interpretation. I hope this is not a subconscious plea for positive attention after many angry things I’ve said on the forums, but that is not my intention here. I would be most grateful for help in light of those past posts.
Code: 
 Guidetopsychology.com, BTW, is an interesting site made by a Catholic psychotherapist for no advertising payback or cost to viewers.  St. Dymphna, pray for us!  I think there is a St. Bartholomew of somewhere,. who is also a saint for those with mental troubles like depression, stress, insanity, etc.
Sts Liguori, Loyola, and Therese of Liseaux are scrupulosity saints, I think. I also heard of another like that. All of you, pray for us! Those who have any hope for salvation, despite doubts, have Sts. Rita and Jude (sts of impossible something or other) and I include St. Philomena (a powerful intercessor to include with St. Joseph, God’s foster father, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother).
 
There are three parts to making an action a mortal sin:
  1. serious matter
  2. you KNOW it’s serious matter
  3. full consent of the will.
All three must be present.

Robbing a bank in broad daylight with lots of planning probably qualifies.

If you were walking by the bank at the time and the robbers forced you to drive their car, but you didn’t know they had just committed a crime, you would be participating but parts two and three would be missing … and even if the authorities prosecuted you, you still would not have been committing a mortal sin.

Full consent of the will means that you deliberately and purposely decided to stick your finger up God’s nose … and do it even though you know He wouldn’t want you to.

There also are situations involving scrupulosity. Taking situations that are not mortal sins and in your mind converting them into mortal sins. Or exaggerating the sinfulness of some situation.

It’s worth doing a search on CAF for “scrupulosity” and “scrupulous” … the subject has been discussed dozens of times.
 
What is CAF? I probably heard about it. I know an action was essentially an evil (more directly towards God), but it wasn’t to stick my finger up His nose. I knew it was objectively wrong. My question is…can you believe you are making a free will choice, but subconscious psychological factors, you are unaware of, are calling the shots (like a fear of being loved or an inferiority complex being influential in your snapping at people that are getting annoying or driving aggressively when you feel powerful, even though you feel in control of your thinking and you know it’s uncharitable)?
 
foolishmortal said:
What is CAF? I probably heard about it. I know an action was essentially an evil (more directly towards God), but it wasn’t to stick my finger up His nose. I knew it was objectively wrong. My question is…can you believe you are making a free will choice, but subconscious psychological factors, you are unaware of, are calling the shots (like a fear of being loved or an inferiority complex being influential in your snapping at people that are getting annoying or driving aggressively when you feel powerful, even though you feel in control of your thinking and you know it’s uncharitable)?
Click to expand...
CAF is the Catholic Answers Forums … the site you are on now.

Up near the top of the page, is a button called “Search”, click on that and enter in “scrupulous” or “scrupulosity”.

It is very difficult to say … but if the circumstances are so full of duress as the picture you painted, then I would say it’s not a free will choice. So it might not be a mortal sin. Usually for something to be a mortal sin, it has to be pretty clear cut.

Having said that, we still should work to build ourselves up to avoid those actions. They may be “near occasions of sin”, meaning that they may lead us to sin.

So we need to work and study and pray to overcome those situations.

Pray the Rosary each day. Even if you don’t have the beads with you, you can count the prayers on your fingers … or make a rosary with knots on a string. Meditate on the 20 mysteries … The Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and the Glorious. Visualize being in the household of Mary, Joseph and Jesus during His life in Nazareth and Jerusalem.

It helps tremendously.

Pray: Lord, carry me, hold me, forgive me my sins, and make me the way you want me to be.
 
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