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Guilt

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Thinkingman85

MyPTSD Pro
I'm starting to realize that a lot of my depression is because of guilt. Recently, my feelings of guilt have been lifting. My therapist and my friends both tell me that I beat myself up. However, it seems like that's how I function now.

I made mistakes six years ago and I still hold on to the guilt. I behaved in a way toward people that I wish I wouldn't have. Still, I was trying my best in the rough circumstance that I was in. Even after suffering for six years, it still feels like it is the wrong thing to do to not beat myself up over how I acted in the past. I feel like if I'm not attached to pain, then the people I had difficult situations with will not have their justice. Inversely, I feel like if I do let go of the guilt and the people still hate me or don't like me, that it is wrong for me to not feel bad.

In all, I think that my way of perceiving what happened is blown out of proportion and I'm making myself out as a guy worse than what he really is. It's hard when you're feelings are there though.

Another form of guilt that my therapist mentioned is survivor guilt. If anyone has some wisdom regarding this area, it would aid in recovery. All the best.
 
Thinking man, it is quite possible that guilt and depression have become your habitual thinking style. That is why it can be so uncomfortable when your Therapist and friends challenge you when they tell you you are beating yourself up.

It very well be that it is how you functioned for quite some time. But it is coming into your awareness now and is an opportunity to change. Someone gave me once the analogy of riding a horse. The horse, when turned back toward where it's barn is, thinks it knows where you want it to go. It is difficult to steer the horse away from the barn (the familiar and habitual place where it goes when it is turned in that direction) to where YOU really wanted it to go. Not back to the barn but perhaps to take another trail or go to a different or new location.

Reexamine your second paragraph. The reality is that your personal suffering for 6 years, became engrained for you on the idea that you needed to demonstrate suffering so that people who wronged you would become aware of or acknowledge their part in actions against you. You perhaps wrongly became attached to the idea that if you are not suffering those who wronged you "will not have their justice."

The destructive desire for justice, was turned inward onto your own psyche and became a habit. The unintended consequences were that you suffered for 6 years, and that you are recognizing that you are not comfortable "not feeling bad" if you let go of the guilt and pain and people still hate or dislike you.

Whether they still hate or dislike you is not up to you. It is up to them. You are using it as a defensive procrastination to perpetuate the old habit/behavior. It is familiar, you are invested in it, and attached to it. I call mine sometimes a "pet" wound.

I agree with your own assessment that there is some difficulty in perception, and I have them myself. Yes, it's hard but it's doable. 26-28 days creates a new habit, 6 months of persistence and practice creates a new behavior.

Depression and desire for justice are your maladaptive coping mechanisms. Awareness is the opportunity to find new and more effective ones. Ones that better serve you going forward. Great topic.

I also think your therapist is astute in suspecting survivor guilt.
 
Thanks for the response. In the second paragraph, I said, " I feel like if I'm not attached to pain, then the people I had difficult situations with will not have their justice. Inversely, I feel like if I do let go of the guilt and the people still hate me or don't like me, that it is wrong for me to not feel bad." What this issue was regarding was people that I feel like I hurt, not people that hurt me. I feel like if I don't beat myself up because I may have hurt some people, then I am not being moral. However, I've been beating myself up for six years.

You're right about my view of justice. I have a strong focus on it. If I focus less on it and more on other important things, maybe I will become more balanced.
 
Dear Thinkingman, I agree with Alby above.

I can only think to possibly add, as you said you were in a bad way 6 years ago. So your intention was not to hurt anyone. Maybe you can break it down, what percentage was your intention, what percentage was ptsd-influenced or outright controlled. (Most of us, well myself, anyway, have tried maladptive coping techniques, and in the process have hurt others). I think, however, you can only make ammends, apologize, and try not to repeat it. And even then you can't control if they accept it or not and forgive you. But that's really all you can do. And to ask yourself, if the situation were reversed, would you want someone beating themself up, if (and after) you forgave them?

I was once forgiven in advance, before I asked for it. I have the option of continuing to beat myself up, and feel ashamed, or I can just consider it a gift, and remember what I received and try to do the same for others (because it's very unexpected and liberating). That turns others' forgiveness (of you) into something good you can understand or give (pay forward) to others. I also find it helps me to react (to others) less angrily or judgmentally, because I've been forgiven when I don't deserve it (and not been made to 'pay', before I even apologized). But that's just 'me'.

As far as survivor's guilt goes, the fact remains we can't turn back the clock, and re-do events. (Sometimes I wonder if it's the mind's way of trying to cancel-out ptsd, to change the ending of horrific things).

Hugs to you, sounds like you're doing lots of difficult processing. :hug:
 
This topic has a lot of meaning for me too. Thinkingman, at times I continue to struggle with each aspect of the guilt dilemma that you discuss here.

Something that particularly resonated with me was the sense that if you relieve yourself of the guilt, you will somehow invalidate others' right to receive justice for your wrongs, and will therefore be shirking your moral obligation to continue to suffer for what you did. I sometimes feel as though this twisted motivation is a key driver in my entire existence, and much as you have experienced, it becomes extremely dabilitating and an enormous barrier to progress over time.

Almost 3 years ago, I was in an extremely bad place and was in the process of experiencing the collossal breakdown that brought on my symptomatic PTSD. At this time, I did some things that were very bad, both morally and legally, and, most significant to me in some ways, which involved betrayal of people I cared about deeply, and who were trying very hard to help and support me at the time.

In a sense, I "got off" for what I did, because others chose to see beyond the surface to the reasons why, and to adopt a 2nd chance attitude with me that I absolutely utterly and entirely felt I did not deserve, even though it almost certainly saved my life.

For a long time I carried a guilt and shame so enormous that they were quite literally dabilitating, and one of the key reasons I couldn't let go of that guilt was that I didn't want to, or feel I deserved to. As you have stated, I felt it was my obligation to continue to feel that guilt, to continue to punish myself and sentence myself to a lifetime of miserable remorseful suffering, as though this was the only way I could demonstrate loyalty to my remorse and continue to ensure that other people received the justice they were entitled to. In some ways, the guilt I felt for the fact that I was not punished was as great as the guilt I felt for the acts themselves.

Long after everyone else had moved on, I held on... and almost lost everything because of it.

Only now, and only in small steps, am I beginning to understand that the greatest healing and "making up for" our mistakes comes in trying to do better and to ensure that we learn from them. Similarly, as Junebug has said, others choose to support and forgive us because they want to, because they believe that we're worth it, and because they understand that there are sometimes significant contextual reasons for why we behave the way that we do. It's critically important sometimes to step out of our own self punishing minds and into those of the people around us, and to think that if good people are behaving favourably towards us, then perhaps that indicates something worth holding onto, and if those good people continue to choose to be near us, then that too should tell us something about their own attitudes to justice and their own views about who we are.

And then there's the good old "how would I treat someone else who did what I did for the reasons that I did it..." test, which I think we sometimes need to carefully apply, and try to internalise the way we feel we would react to someone facing similar stressors who did what we did. I suspect that almost invariably, we would not wish to sentence another person to the guilt and sorrow that we so willingly condemn upon ourselves.

This thread is a very emotive one for me, so I hope my contribution has made some sense. You are indeed processing some huge stuff, and all credit to you for your candidness and courage in sharing so much of your struggle with us all here.

Maddog
 
Thanks for the response Maddog. I am glad that we have both shared similar experiences and we both can learn from them. As you have stated, there are some that still want to be in a relationship even if unfavorable things did happen. However, I don't think the remaining relationships will be able to work properly unless the guilt is released. To me, it's sort of an encouraging act from the supporter for me to let go of guilt if he or she still wants to be involved. It is my assumption that those people would want me functioning at my highest level... and that level would include not having guilt from the past.
 
It's critically important sometimes to step out of our own self punishing minds and into those of the people around us, and to think that if good people are behaving favourably towards us, then perhaps that indicates something worth holding onto

Unfortunately, I think forgiving ourselves is one of the most difficult things to do. Though a very important and necessary step to be able to move forward.
 
I'm struggling with survivor guilt, and finding it hard to understand. It wasn't in any way because of my actions that someone else died and I didn't. I had no power over the situation. So why do I have guilt?

In my case, it was only because someone else died that I didn't. I realise that's different from your situation, but the fundamental feelings might be similar. I wasn't glad they died like that, but I was glad that I didn't. It's survival instinct, and it's incredibly strong. We can't help our deep awareness that it wasn't us, and the relief that brings. It's beyond our conscious control. But it seems awful to feel like that. I feel as if I'd willed it in some way, even though I had no influence at all.

I don't know what the proper theory about survivor guilt is, this is just my thoughts on why I can't stop thinking about that other person and the fact that I'm still alive.
 
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