R
Race12
Guest
Hello, everyone. I’m new here, and I know I’m supposed to be brief but I’m going through something I can’t understand and I need help. It started about a month ago, when I remembered something I’d done when I was younger. The memory has been coming and going for years, but this time I decided I needed to go to confession for the sin, even though in the past I’d “explained away” the need. So I went to confession the following weekend and, just hours later, felt as if I had done it “wrong.” That I hadn’t explained enough or even explained in a way that it didn’t happen (at the time, in confession, I wasn’t “lying.” It was after it occurred to me that it didn’t happen the way I said). I also started to feel guilty about what I had considered at the time a smaller sin. One I was afraid to say in confession, even though I was thinking on it, for fear the priest would laugh at me for bringing up something so silly.
Now, a month later, I’ve decided to go back to confession and talk about everything. Maybe this is a sin in itself, a doubt of the forgiveness the church can give, and I know I have a problem with that (just read a little further). In this confession, I want to include the way it actually happened, the thing I didn’t say the first time, and a whole bunch of other sins that I have remembered since then. I’ve actually been making a list. But then a few days ago I started having doubts. First I started thinking that my intentions were not good enough. That I was going to confession without feeling contrition and I wasn’t sorry. Now it has developed into doubts and fears that I really don’t understand. I am started to doubt in repentance altogether and that, even if my confession is good enough and my mind set is what it should be, I can’t be forgiven. Almost as if I doubt the power of confession and the church in the forgiveness of sins. Today my mother asked if I believed in God and the confusion became deeper. I try to push away such thoughts. I feel sick about these things. I want to believe so desperately, and I want to feel sorry for my sins. But what I feel is confusion and despair and my main desire is to curl up in a ball and cry and forget.
I should tell you now that I believe I have a serotonin deficiency. Some of the symptoms include paranoia, depression, anxiety and other mental disorders. I am in therapy for anxiety. In the past, it has usually shown itself as a fear of disease or death in some way. For the past 4 months I’ve had an irrational fear of anaphylactic shock, for instance, but it has been replaced by this moral dilemma (just as anaphylactic shock replaced emetophobia) I think these doubts and fears may have come from the deficiency, or maybe some devil is whispering in my ear and trying to get me to give up.
I don’t know what to do. Can I be forgiven for this? How do I work through it? The confession is tomorrow and maybe I should just talk to the priest, but I wanted to ask someone here first. I want hope and a plan and I want to believe. What is wrong with me?
Now, a month later, I’ve decided to go back to confession and talk about everything. Maybe this is a sin in itself, a doubt of the forgiveness the church can give, and I know I have a problem with that (just read a little further). In this confession, I want to include the way it actually happened, the thing I didn’t say the first time, and a whole bunch of other sins that I have remembered since then. I’ve actually been making a list. But then a few days ago I started having doubts. First I started thinking that my intentions were not good enough. That I was going to confession without feeling contrition and I wasn’t sorry. Now it has developed into doubts and fears that I really don’t understand. I am started to doubt in repentance altogether and that, even if my confession is good enough and my mind set is what it should be, I can’t be forgiven. Almost as if I doubt the power of confession and the church in the forgiveness of sins. Today my mother asked if I believed in God and the confusion became deeper. I try to push away such thoughts. I feel sick about these things. I want to believe so desperately, and I want to feel sorry for my sins. But what I feel is confusion and despair and my main desire is to curl up in a ball and cry and forget.
I should tell you now that I believe I have a serotonin deficiency. Some of the symptoms include paranoia, depression, anxiety and other mental disorders. I am in therapy for anxiety. In the past, it has usually shown itself as a fear of disease or death in some way. For the past 4 months I’ve had an irrational fear of anaphylactic shock, for instance, but it has been replaced by this moral dilemma (just as anaphylactic shock replaced emetophobia) I think these doubts and fears may have come from the deficiency, or maybe some devil is whispering in my ear and trying to get me to give up.
I don’t know what to do. Can I be forgiven for this? How do I work through it? The confession is tomorrow and maybe I should just talk to the priest, but I wanted to ask someone here first. I want hope and a plan and I want to believe. What is wrong with me?
and tells me that the fact I walked into that confessional is enough. The priest told me God works with us at whatever state we are in emotionally. However, I feel that my desire to start again with a clear soul might not be true. Like, maybe I just don’t want to have to go to confession again. I was instructed by the priest I confessed to to choose a priest I trusted and could work with and I will try to find one (currently I have no priest that I’m comfortable having as a confessor in such a way). But in my current state of mind I wanted to ask you. Was my desire to feel sorry for my sins good enough? I really wish I felt sorry and contrite. It was almost as if I couldn’t make myself. That I was in “get it over with” phase and trying not to feel anything. But maybe my desire to feel sorry is only so I’ll feel better and not because I actually want to feel sorry. head/desk I’m so confused.