Is everything hard determined that there's nothing to regret about the past?

[Final_frontier]

I have severe pure O OCD and obsessed about a lot of useless stuff and fuked up my life. I want to know if I really had a choice in the matter.

 

[Nymph]

You can regret stuff you did in the past, i certainly do

 

[Final_frontier]

You can regret stuff you did in the past, i certainly do

What's the role of regret when it comes to mental illness? That I had a choice not to obsess about the useless things I used to obsess about?

 

[PrettyMoose]

You could say that regretting things in the past is determined as well.

 

[Final_frontier]

Nothing is free, it's all predetermined.

 

[stygal]

Some things could definitely have been handled better on my part in the past aka I kinda regret.
I definitely acted all borderline and narcissistic at some point but then again maybe it's like you said: predetermined because of other stuff that happened to me in my childhood and early adolescence and me not being able to express myself any better because of the resulting mental illnesses.

 

[Nymph]

What's the role of regret when it comes to mental illness? That I had a choice not to obsess about the useless things I used to obsess about?

I don't really know dude, I also have mental illness so I obsess over the future/past/present constantly and think about possible scenarios..if that and this happening or that instead of this..etc...
Regret is normal but obsessing over it can be unhealthy. I guess we just have to accept that what happened is past us and we should focus on other stuff but with mental illness it's kinda hard unless you're totally manipulated (not functional) from meds

 

[PrettyMoose]

Yeah, your brain is part of the physical world and you can't really control the pathways your neurons take. So it's predetermined that you worry about the past. Nothing you can do about any of it. Either take that as comfort or horror, but you don't have much choice over that either.

 

[Final_frontier]

Yeah, your brain is part of the physical world and you can't really control the pathways your neurons take. So it's predetermined that you worry about the past. Nothing you can do about any of it. Either take that as comfort or horror, but you don't have much choice over that either.

Yes. Especially if you have a mental illness like OCD, I've always felt my life is on auto pilot, being forced to follow obsessions and compulsions whatever the subject might be. I believe everyone is on auto pilot but disorders like OCD are not necessarily disorders of "free will" but they just reveal in a more obvious way that there is no such thing as "free will".

 

[mini_weeny]

Agree with all the posters above and also would like to add that we live in this complex system called life so everything is interconected and influenced by things that we definitely have no control over. One decision in life alters it's path forever and has all kinds of unintended consequences, then there's also the factor that our interactions with people affect and change us and our behavior and our destinies so seems like there's more randomness and lack of control than we think. We don't even choose to be born and have the awful genes we have.