Hey there friend :) I just read your thread: that's a really rough spot to be in, I'm truly sorry to hear, wishing you hugs personally amongst this
.
I got a ton of clear ideas for advice for you when I read your post and thought on it as I read the rest of the replies.
I want to write something full in content and drive for you, but unfortunately I'm a little strapped for time & energy at the moment: I will do my best to give you a little "abstract" for what a full letter of mine may entail for thee. A little preview, of what I intend for you. May it be of any ease at all, for your struggling soul, in this unimaginable predicament you find yourself in ♥.
You are not the same agency who did those things. Your consciousness was overpoured with strong chemicals and many influences, resulting in a conscious state that is so wildly different from the you who wrote this that it is reasonable enough to regard it as a different agency.
If you overloaded my bloodstream right now with PCP and meth and cocaine, or whichever other drugs that severely alter human personality and behavior,· I would probably not act too cool.
Your situation is where you fell into a severely altered state of consciousness, that ended up executing various actions of great distraughtness to your self now.
This is a rather interesting dilemma—one could debate philosophically at length whether you were to blame or not. The very fact that such ambiguity exists and is present in this case is telling.
What more is there to account for? You already swore off drinking, and felt remorse for what happened.
One could analogy your case with someone who suffers schizophrenia or psychosis enduring a psychotic breakdown or similar extreme episode, resulting in painfully regrettable aftermath for the person themself. Imagine this was their
first breakdown. And that after the episode, they pledged to
always take medication, and to
never miss their dose; for the sake of themself, and their loved ones. Are they then to be blamed after the fact, when they
truly lost control, and are now doing everything they can to protect themselves and others? When they have taken moral responsibility for what happened, even when their agency was snatched from them, by chemical factors overpowering their usual systems of sanity? I think such a person is not completely worthy of unceasing blame and indictment, but ought to be recognized for the peril in which their debacle took place, to have the facts behind their episode laid clear. The facts are these: They would
never have acted such, in their healthy and sane state of mind. Their actions took place in a dilapidated state of consciousness, where their moral sensitivities and capacity for both conscientiousness
and self-control, were absolutely intoxicated,
wounded.
You were wounded, you know that? We would not blame a wounded animal for lashing out, even if it were against its caretaker—why should we not extend this very same compassions to our very fellow humans, who share much in common with pure intentions amongst animals?
You feel horrified at the victimhood and aftermath that has affected your friends and contemporaries.
You are a victim too. Your victimhood is different, and not in the slightest any less severe. You bear a difficult weight—the weight of actions you did not intend, the wright of being expected to account for actions you had no idea were taking place.
Consciousness is influenced by chemicals. Many assume that selfhood is simple, but it is complex. Your shock and dissonance you experience here may be analogous to the shock that some people experience when their loved ones go from being lovely to awful after intaking intoxicants: It's an unwelcome surprise, the severe effects chemical alterances can have on a person's demeanor. But in this case, it is all the more horrifying, because you grapple the moral horror of hearing from outside accounts actions that occurred in your own body. But they were not done in your own mind. Not the mind you live with right now. Not the mjnd that you wrote this with. Not the mind that hesrd the news. Not the mind that regrets what happened. It's not the same mind. It's not the same agency. It's such an extreme difference between those two mnds, they act in such a radical contrast, that it is only practical to regard them morally as anything but the same agent. This you right now,
you,
@hereandthere13, are not to blame for what happened.
You are doing everything you can right now. You're trying to fix everything that got messed up. You might have shattered some things while drunk, but now in your sobriety you are working overtime, sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterday's life. You need something right now. What is it? You don't need blame. You need
forgiveness.
Forgive yourself. You are trying your absolute best right now; what more can love and humanity expect from you? ♥
A good person is defined not by their mistakes, but how they respond to them.
Forgive yourself. You have revealed yourself to be doubtlessly moral, by the immense condemnation you felt, and levied upon yourself, in the aftermath of that horrific, horrific news. That news is old news. The state has changed. You, are not the same. You have changed. You are sober, and you ought to bear forgiveness.
Not everyone has to forgive you. It will be too much to expect every single person to. But there IS one single person whom you
do deserve it from.
Yourself. ♥
How are you supposed to forgive yourself? It is actually very difficult, especially in a predicament as taxing as yours, and I apologize if my previous exhortations may have made you feel any more guilt than you grapple with already.
You can forgive yourself by developing how you understand consciousness, agency, and moral accountability. No matter which moral or ethical background you come from, be it religious or secular, theistic or atheistic, there
is forgiveness for you. It's not something you earn, but something you learn. The person you are when you're seeking your peace of mind will not be the same one who lives in it: but it
will be tasted by
you, the person I am writing this to, nonetheless.
And whoever you are and would or will be—I dedicate this letter to you, nonetheless. And I profess these words and advisements to any one in such a circumstance as tearjerkingly maddening as yours. I truly cannot imagine what you must be feeling right now. You are still a human being; with a tender conscience, who doesn't want to hurt others, who feels hurt when others are hurt, who wants to do everything they can to ease rhe lives of others. Please take care of yourself. You don't deserve execution, but healing. Not condemnation, but forgiveness.
Regret (in its active, most painful form) may be understood as a desire to undo certain actions; and even when that pain resides, one may still think to oneself, a silent still wish that one had done differently. Isn't such a presence truly the closest that a done mistake can come to being undone, in the future? Especially for things that
can't be undone simply or directly recompensated. Perhaps this regret itself, and your sincere striving and change you have already rendered and made real, is sufficient grounds for your ethical salvation, after all.
Please feel most free to write more if you feel anything that I have not definitively addressed is still discomforting you. I hope for these words to be of deepest practical benefit as possible, and if they have reached short in any way, you are most free to write out rawly any affliction you feel, and it is my sincere desire to extend the reach of these words into any territory which they have not get comforted.
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