Is it normal to still feel extreme guilt for an incident that happened half a decade ago?

[Anonymous]

Long story short I had my heartbroken 3 times in the space of a year and I became very angry, bitter and resentful towards women. I took my anger out on a woman I hooked up with whilst punching and slamming her head on the floor in an uncontrollable fit of rage after having sex with her, I’ve never told anyone this story before hence why this is posted anonymously but when I calmed down and was catching my breath this beautiful young lady looked an absolute bloodied mess, her face was unrecognisable with blood and cuts. I was honestly so frightened, I thought I had killed her. I couldn’t hear her breathing and I was absolutely panicking especially as I knew I’d be caught as my DNA was inside her as we just had intercourse…I was sat on the sofa crying with my face in my hands and suddenly I heard a cough and I looked and she was repeatedly coughing whilst spitting out blood. This is the emotional part I don’t wish to delve to much into but as she was recovering she was begging to be let go and there is much more to this than I will explain but we made a deal that I’d let her go if she promised not to tell the police or anyone about this incident. At the time I thought she was going to tell so I told myself I’d never have anything to do with women in a sexual or romantic interest again if she doesn’t phone the police and if she does then I’ll accept my punishment which is deserved. She didn’t contact the police but 5 years later I still feel racked with guilt and at times suicidal 😢😢😢😢😢

[quaranta]

It's impossible to give you sympathy here because there is no chance to soften the accusations: by your description it sounds like you destroyed her face while she was not even the actual target (she wasn't responsible for the other women who heartbroken you) and anything she might have done was for sure disproportionately small compared to your reaction.
Nonetheless, you were conscious when you did that, not under drugs or anything and anger alone is not a sufficient excuse. Plenty of people in the world getting insanely angry with their blood boiling but who would refrain from actual crime, so...
Now this girl is probably fighting against phobia of dating any man, an unhealthy relation with her body and appearance, low self esteem for feeling ugly for having scars on the face, and is probably lonely and dysfunctional. If it was me, I would have reported to the police anyway even if we agree to not, because after receiving my face destroyed (and life) you wouldn't be anyway deserveful of "loyalty" upon agreements. I guess she didn't call the police because she was scared and shocked, not because loyal to the agreement, though.
I saw a similar thing happening within my circle of friends: one of them was guilty for something he did more than 10 years ago, something disturbing but in fact harmless, but still, it haunted him for long. In the attempt to fix this he tried to contact the girl again to hope getting her forgiveness, to check she doesn't hate him. Even after 10 years she got extremely scared of getting an innocuous message from him, blocked him and threatened to take measures against him if he attempts any further contact.
So, don't ever try to get her forgiveness by contacting her. She would only be even more scared while she is trying to battle the effects of that, and all her circle of friends and family who refrained until now from coming to destroy your face, would get activated. Also, she wouldn't have any reason to forgive you because she is not responsible for your past and she isn't the holder of the whole female gender, neither the holder of your own failures and lacks, so it would be just completely non-sense to hope in getting forgiven by her. Don't.
The only thing you can do is to co-live with this memory and to find the reasons in yourself about why you weren't able to refrain yourself, and to work on that learning from this episode to be sure you won't even remotely do anything like that in the future. Did you go in therapy? If you're scared of being reported you could try online sessions which could be more anonymous. Some psychologists specialize in anger management.

[Anonymous]

Sorry she should have called the police on your ass what you did was attempted murder and kidnapping. Don't come here looking for sympathy and for anyone to tell you no you shouldn't be feeling any kind of guilt. Do the right thing and report yourself to the police otherwise rot in hell you rotten decay