Hello, friends from the internet. I would like to anonymously share some problematic parts of my teenage past. I am now 20 years old and for several years I have been unable to come to terms with something I did many years ago. I know that I will never be able to forgive myself for it, but I also understand that I have to pull myself together and live despite this feeling of guilt, move on with my life to be a decent and socially useful person, and make the best of the rest of my days. I ghosted my best friend, who is the same gender as me. We had known each other our whole lives, and when we entered our teens, I realized that I had romantic feelings for them. In hindsight, I understand that it was internalized homophobia, but at the time, I was extremely disgusted with myself and wanted them to hate me with all my heart. During that time, we were both extremely depressed (I won't say how much because I'm afraid this post will be deleted), and I probably cut off contact with them at the worst moment of their lives, without any explanation. I spent the next few years in complete isolation due to guilt, but when I went to college, I met many wonderful people and now have many beautiful souls as my friends. However, I feel like I have tricked them into liking me in some way, that I don't deserve such extraordinary people. I told them about the situation over time and they were suspiciously supportive, many of them are also part of the queer community. I think they wouldn't like me if they had known about this situation from the beginning, rather than after more than a year of knowing me. I don't know what to do. I know that nothing I do will repair the damage I've caused, and an apology would only reopen old wounds. Even if I wanted to apologize, I have no way of contacting this person. I don't even know if they are still alive, there is no information about them on the internet, we didn't have any mutual friends or anything like that. I would at least like to know if they managed to find someone who could love them as they deserve. I'm not writing this to find people who will tell me, “Oh, it's not that bad, you were young, etc., what you did was cruel and unforgivable,” but I just feel a need to tell somone Translated with DeepL.com (free version)