Dealing with Extreme Guilt and Panic Attacks

Hey there, I recently cheated on my boyfriend and have the worst guilt I've ever had in my life. When I ever I feel guilty and think about what happened, it usually turns into panic attacks. I know what you mean! Lately I have just been trying to forgive myself and correct my behavior. Instead of dwelling on the past, I'm trying to the think of the present and focus on forgiveness and grace. I hope this helps!

I used to experience this a lot and it seemed to happen less as I learned mindfulness. And being more in touch with my feelings, I can recognize it before it gets out of control and be compassionate to myself.

Thank you for your advice Maisey!

I've been experiencing something similar where I get intrusive thoughts about no one actually caring about me. One thing that helps me is talking to my husband to get some perspective of what triggered that thought and then he usually reassures me. Intrusive thoughts are annoying and awful. You have to remind yourself that your guilt and the fact that you haven't acted on those thoughts is evidence that you're a good person regardless of what thoughts might slip in by accident

Holy crap I was just having an anxiety attack about this today!!

Weird question- do any weird fidgiting or checking on things help temporarily with these unbidden thoughts?

Hey, not sure if this is exactly what you mean, but I deal with a lot of intrusive thoughts abt doing bad things and that results in a ton of anxiety and guilt. Usually it’s about hurting people or being destructive in some way— things I don’t want to do and never have wanted to do and never would do, but just the thought is enough to make me panic sometimes. The thing that helps me most is when I can kind of prove to myself that it’s not real. For instance, I care for a baby for work, so a lot of my thoughts are about somehow hurting her or getting her hurt. Being able to hold her or play with her distracts me from the thought and reminds me that I’m not going to really hurt her. If I think about breaking something, sometimes I just touch or hold the thing and it kind of resets the thought. If it’s a social situation, like if the thought is about insulting or being rude to someone, that’s not as easy because I can’t always talk to them, and social anxiety may prevent me from doing so even when it’s an option. In those cases I try to do something interactive/creative like play a video game or draw or write to distract myself. There’s obviously nothing foolproof though. This sucks and I’m sorry you’re dealing with it too ❤️ And I hope this helps and that I understood you correctly!