Guilty For Opening Up?

[SuperAnxietyGirl]

Okay, I feel like a spammer for posting last night and then again tonight, sorry!

Do you guys ever feel guilty, like you've committed a crime, because you opened up? I have an entire life's worth of stuff I keep hidden from everyone. Sometimes, when I feel desperate, I open up. On here I don't really feel it, but like today I confessed to my best friend that I have been having some weird medical problems (My confusion spells/disassociation). But when I did that I felt a huge amount of guilt. Like I did the wrongest of wrong.

This also happened when I made an online friend and decided to have one person to know all of my secrets of my trauma and PTSD. When I told her I had to have my mom tell me over and over again that it was okay that I told her.

I was just curious if anyone else has this problem... It's probably because my parents had to raise me not to go running around talking about how daddy gets drunk. I would make close friends and mom would never let me tell them. She would always say she was afraid of having people come and take her kids away. So that could be the problem...I guess...

 

[Mayday]

Yes...I totally get this too. I feel guilty if I share my problems. Probably for different reasons than you, for me it's more that I would feel bad for admitting to having feelings, because I was never entitled to have feelings growing up. Anytime I tried to express my feelings as a child, I was made to feel bad for upsetting other people.

 

[franciemarnie]

The unwritten rule for children of alcoholics is Don't talk. Don't trust. Don't feel.

When you break the rules, it feels like you are breaking a sacrament! I know. I felt that way once. It gets so much easier. Someday you won't get any internal backlash.

When you are with safe people, it is good to talk, good to trust, good to feel. We just didn't grow up that way.

 

[macca]

Same here, I feel guilty for posting here and also for wasting my T's time. I know logically that there's a legitimate reason for it, but it doesn't feel like that. I think my reasons may be similar to Mayday, and came mainly from not being "allowed" to express feelings and such. If I did I was wrong and selfish, and other family members had feelings and I had to make sure I didn't upset them. I'm glad you posted and shared this - keep posting! :)

 

[stuff]

Oh yes. It makes me feel horribly vulnerable and I expect something awful to happen after I've done it, but I've learned that opening up has also opened up some relationships with others in amazing ways. I worry that I overwhelm people if I talk about my life, but it's also allowed other people I'm close to, to open up about their traumatic experiences as well, and definitely brought us closer together.

 

[rainy_daze]

I recently said sorry to a friend for talking about something awful that happened to me recently. His reaction was "You're sorry? You shouldn't be. I'm your friend, and I wish you'd told me sooner". That guilt that comes from being someone who needed to talk about something painful is really unfair. What are friends for? Would you listen to someone when they needed you to? I know I would, so even though I emotionally don't always feel it, I do know that if people share with me it's surely okay to share back.

I'm too hard on myself most of the time though, and the more I bury the awfulness the worse I feel. It sounds like you are too hard on yourself too SuperAnx. Be proud for sharing and try to let go of the guilt (if you learn how to do that, please share!).

Guilt is nasty when you've done nothing to feel guilty about.

 

[arfie]

Ditto on the alcoholic score. Add in beginning my computer career in Cold War Era national security and uncounted other exposure to the myths and mystiques of secret keeping.

Dare I accuse you of a "Normal" feeling?

 

[anonymous]

I can't say. Because I never have. All my secrets are still inside. I am getting ready to let it go

 

[BlackbirdSinging]

I can relate to that. When I tell I feel a sort of guilt. I also feel scared. My feelings are that if I tell somehow whichever abuser I'm talking about is going to find out and some terrible thing is going to happen. I can thank hypervigilance for that :shifty:.

 

[Mommyof5]

Yes...I totally get this too. I feel guilty if I share my problems. Probably for different reasons than you, for me it's more that I would feel bad for admitting to having feelings, because I was never entitled to have feelings growing up. Anytime I tried to express my feelings as a child, I was made to feel bad for upsetting other people.

I experience this as well. Both due to the parental shaming/guilt-tripping, but aslo because my parents and their lawyer made me lie and tell police that "nothing happened."

4 years later they went back to my abuser and asked him to marry me.

The warped situation makes me fearful at times that I may "get in trouble" for shedding light on the truth- for being the honest person that I truly am.

I fear/have guilt of retaliation of my abuser for telling others his 'secrets,' mental abuse from my parent's rationalizations, and even facing penalization from law enforcement for talking about this long lost cold case that is not so forgotten by myself.

So, you are not alone in feeling guilty. It is a very real part of life, and with PTSD, it is 100 times more intense. I feel for you guys.

 

[SuperAnxietyGirl]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one! That does make a log of sense, especially

The unwritten rule for children of alcoholics is Don't talk. Don't trust. Don't feel.

When you break the rules, it feels like you are breaking a sacrament!

This one really hits home...

Thank you all for your replies and for clarifying my guilty feelings!!

I think I have both feelings too...the children of alcoholics training... and also the guilt from parents. Whenever I try to express how I feel about certain things my mom always makes me feel guilty for thinking of them. Which makes it hard to ever let out those feelings, even to my best friend.

 

[aj1]

Some quotes that I read today that made me thing of this thread.

"Our faults and failings have a tendency to eat away at us inside, but great freedom is born from bringing our darkness into the light. Darkness cannot survive in the light. While we hide our faults and failings, they grow larger and develop a power over us. Before we know it, we are planning our days around our self destructive habits, much like an alcoholic plans his day around when he will drink. And the more we try to hide these faults and weaknesses, the more power they tend to have over us. If they are serious enough and left unattended for long enough they can begin to control our whole lives. But when you bring them into the light, they lose power over us." - Matthew Kelly - Rediscover Catholicism.

Religious or not, that one hit the mark for me today. It is in a chapter about confession. While confessing sins we commit is one thing, free yourself from the sins of others. It is a bag you should not have to carry. I hope it helps.