Your question is incredibly profound and thought-provoking. Truthfully, I’d assume either circumstance is bad, for you’d not merely be wallowing in self-deceit and disengaging yourself from the problem, but be denying having a healthy conscience to inform you of your wrongdoings.
Regardless of your attempts at distorting reality and pretending nothing ever occurred, any individual possessing some extent of morality will question their own righteousness once a moment of cowardice propels them to avoid accepting the proper penalty for their behavior.
You’d simply be lying to yourself if you were to reject having personal responsibility for whatever act you committed. For every action their is an inevitable consequence, be it good or bad. Despite the time you’ve devoted to living a lie, the reality of the circumstance will always prevail and transcend from the untruths.
Ultimately, the truth is underlying the falsehood of your actions and can never be denied, but only concealed beneath a sometimes convincing façade. Nonetheless, when you pretend to do the right thing, you are being amoral and living under a masquerade of fakery that suggests much of your character as a person.
Although you may well be admitting that you consciously know you did a wrong deed (that you presumably want to hide), you are being inauthentic and deceiving others through actions that are lacking in sincerely or valor.