Breaking rules meltdown

Yes, I do.

I've wasted an awful lot of my life, mental energy, and mental health spoons ruminating over past choices where I believe that I might have broken a rule. For me it's not rule-breaking that's the problem, but the worry that past decisions might have negative consequences in the future (so, this is fictional, but questions like "did I declare all of my savings income on my tax return in 1989?"). I'm so anxious about it that I've kept it all bottled up (in case discussing it with anyone increases the risk of something coming back to haunt me). So even under cover of confidentiality at counselling, I've struggled to talk about it. Even here where I'm anonymous, I feel that I must point out that these examples are fictional and that I'm 99.99% sure that I'm worrying unnecessarily incase someone thinks I've done something serious. It's easy to catastrophise. And the counter to that catastrophisation is so easly extended rumination where I attempt to prove to myself beyond a shadow of a doubt that, actually, I did the right thing.

The older we get, the more "life" there is to look back on and worry about. There is no "reset button".

I'm even weighing the pros and cons of posting this, despite having said nothing concrete and despite the real "things" being things that many, many people will have done and not worried at all about.

Yes, I do.

I've wasted an awful lot of my life, mental energy, and mental health spoons ruminating over past choices where I believe that I might have broken a rule. For me it's not rule-breaking that's the problem, but the worry that past decisions might have negative consequences in the future (so, this is fictional, but questions like "did I declare all of my savings income on my tax return in 1989?"). I'm so anxious about it that I've kept it all bottled up (in case discussing it with anyone increases the risk of something coming back to haunt me). So even under cover of confidentiality at counselling, I've struggled to talk about it. Even here where I'm anonymous, I feel that I must point out that these examples are fictional and that I'm 99.99% sure that I'm worrying unnecessarily incase someone thinks I've done something serious. It's easy to catastrophise. And the counter to that catastrophisation is so easly extended rumination where I attempt to prove to myself beyond a shadow of a doubt that, actually, I did the right thing.

The older we get, the more "life" there is to look back on and worry about. There is no "reset button".

I'm even weighing the pros and cons of posting this, despite having said nothing concrete and despite the real "things" being things that many, many people will have done and not worried at all about.