ashamed of same-sex encounter i had 4 years ago

It was just porn addiction, not you. You can check many other posts of guys hocking up with guys, regretting it then doing it again anyway. They had no choice, porn addiction was messing with them.

There is nothing to understand about it, no character flaw, no hidden meaning, it's just addiction. Talking, trying to rationalise it, confessing, any method whatsoever isn't going to do much if anything, you need to quit porn to regain yourself. You can keep masturbating, having sex, whatever just no porn (videos, nudes, erotic stories, fantasising about sex).

It sounds like you're stuck in a form of ocd like some guys get with hocd. I could be wrong on that one but you'll have to quit porn to find out

 

Recoome:
My guess is you just don’t want to let go of it or you would. All those things people told you are true. Maybe you subconsciously enjoy the memory so much you won’t let it go of it. There, now do you feel better?
Come on Dude, with the philosophy you are holding on to, wishing it never happened, means you are doomed to live with it the rest of your life because you can not undo the past. You HAVE to accept it, find a way to not let it effect how you live now and forward in the future. Good luck.

 

Don't be ridiculous!

 

Some items in that list are very powerful (e.g., forgive self, pray, let it go, etc.); it's surprising that they don't help. Or, don't you give them a real try? Also, self-forgiveness may not be a one-time act. It may need to be repeated. Curious, though, is this the darkest thing you've ever done in your life? How have you coped with any of your other dark actions/sins/vices in life? Do you find similar deep regret that you cannot be free from in other situations?

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So it is the finality of it all the gets to you. But, it's not the finality that someone died, got insulted or hurt, but just your memory of undesirable act, right? - but one that was more rooted in the addiction (a preceding darker factor) than the consequent act itself. You might consider the AA steps with your addition at this point (higher power? making amends? etc.).

If you really can't get beyond this yourself (as with self-forgiveness - this is the only thing we're really talking about), you need to talk it out with a therapist - else it will continue to trap you, quite easily, for the rest of your life, and even keep you in sexual addiction. There will be no cure for the addiction as long as an unforgiven wound is there, which addiction will always want and need to medicate. Best wishes, brother!

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And you don't have the same regret and the strict lack of self-forgiveness when/if you absolutely destroy yourself and others with alcohol and drugs. But, one distant same-sex encounter is the greatest devastation for you than all the rest and everything else dark that you ever did?

 

I don't know that there's any way of reframing it that'll put you at ease. I'd say just stop thinking about it. Memories are reinforced when we replay them in our mind. I just exercise or do something to better myself and take the focus off my thoughts whenever I start to get stuck in a shame spiral over something I did in the past. Don't let it define who you are now.

 

there isn’t a person on this forum who doesn’t have a major regret in their life.

you have two choices: continue beating yourself up for something in the past, that you can never change and let it sour the rest of your days.

more you can put that sack of bricks down and leave it there—in the past—so you can enjoy life.

 

Sometimes I'll be going on with my daily life, and suddenly my brain will remember something horrifically embarrassing that I did years and years ago, and I'll relive the emotions so strongly its like I'm still there. I used to really, really struggle with this, until I realised that this is nothing more than anxiety fooling me into thinking that the thing I'm remembering matters more than it actually does.

The reason I'm telling you this is because you wont ever overcome your shame and regret if you keep believing that you wont. The brain is a powerful thing and the simple reality is sometimes it isnt out to help, and in those cases you need to be ready and willing to tell it to go fuck itself and move past whatever it is trying to make you believe. Having a same sex encounter as a straight male is obviously a terrible thing for you, and I do not mean to diminish what you have experienced. BUT, a lot of what you have described in this thread isnt really being caused by the event itself, its being caused by your anxious brains reaction to the event. You need to consciously make the effort to stop caring about this one thing and stop coming back to it, the more you relive it and ruminate over it, the less likely you are to actually get what you want.

 

Just want you to know if you were my friend and you told me this I would still be your friend. And I would appreciate your honesty and I would appreciate that I actually knew you. I hope you have some friends in real life where you can find this freedom. We all sin, we are all broken. I have friends who have done things sexually that have put them in prison and they are still my friends. I'm sure they wish they'd never done those things. We all are broken. It's okay. I'll pray that Jesus gives you peace in this but know that at least those of us at nofap accept you and we know we're just as broken and wish there were things in our past that we'd never done.

You now have something where you can be understanding of others who have the same experiences. You're experiencing the pain of it all. I also think a longer nofap streak can help as well. I am very irrational and upset if I recently acted out sexually for at least a few days after.

 

Stop thinking about yourself and identity so much for 1). You really can ‘start over’ per se. Easier said than done, I know, but you need to let go of all the memories that make you ‘you’ (the good and the bad). I call it psychological reincarnation.

 

It’s the release/freedom you’re looking for