How Am I Supposed to Deal with the Guilt?

[WorkingThruIt]

I really thought that I had everything under control with my fears and other symptoms until a couple of years ago when the guilt really hit me hard. This was before I was diagnosed. I was doing laundry one day and it suddenly hit me that I am completely responsible for my attacker never being prosecuted for his crime.
The morning after the attack I found the scissors that he left by my bed. Somehow, the police and everyone else missed them the previous night. When I found them, I thought that he brought them there to kill me and, in an effort to spare my parents from the full horror of it all, I hid the scissors and never said a word. It turns out that the scissors were the only piece of evidence that could prove he was inside the house, since I never saw his face. I know that, statistically speaking, pedophiles don't tend to make miraculous recoveries. The thought of ensuring that he was free to do it to someone else makes my knees want to buckle. I didn't understand the legal implications of my actions at the time because I was 12. The guilt is crushing me and I don't know what to do.

I bought the books I Can't Get Over It, as suggested. The exercises for guilt seem stupid and trivial to me. I don't know how I can marginalize my culpability when I am completely responsible.

I should also note that as a matter of my belief system, I don't shrug responsibility. It is the main reason that I am an atheist and don't believe in things like fate.

 

[ruddy]

I know the guilt feeling all too well. I never reported my attack so the man who attacked me went free to hurt others and my sister (who watched) had a child. That child (my neice) is now in therapy for ptsd and has been hospitalized with mental problems a few times. If only I had spoken up??? I can't change the past so I just do the best I can to help my neice deal with things happening in the present.

I also remind myself that I was 15, didn't have any support system, and did what I thought I needed to do to survive at that time. YOU WERE 12. You did the best you could do at that time!

 

[Deleted member 541]

Guilt is one of the harder things for me to deal with also. My abusers were my own brothers and I had to continue living with them, and my mother didn't believe me. I don't know how to get rid of the guilt, but I will tell you this. We were children when it happened. You were 12 and not aware of responsibility on the grand scale. You were scared and panicked.

I hope that someday you can forgive yourself for doing what you felt you needed to at the time. It was ok for you to hide the scissors. You were just a kid. Be kind to yourself, and try not to punish yourself for trying to protect yourself and others back then......

 

[waif123]

I only reported one of my attacks, but because i didn't scream scratch him, etc. the cops did not charge him. I feel like I failed, and other women may suffer. One of my abusers I could not follow through on the charges, because of it being too much stress. And the list goes on.

I really understand the guilt, but as you go through therapy and you realize what you were thinking then, and not judging yourself based on hindsight it does get easier.

 

[anthony]

Ok, now your giving yourself just a bit of a hard time here. Firstly, not religious myself, so I am not going to pull any of that on you. Quit worrying about that.

Secondly, regardless what you believe is right for you surrounding what you own, there is also just stupidity of owning everything, which just doesn't belong to you.

You answered your own question surrounding guilt, yet you are dismissing it. You stated, "I didn't understand the legal implications of my actions at the time because I was 12." So what exactly don't you understand about this? How exactly are you telling me that you are so overwhelmed with guilt when your next breath is that sentence? I'm confused, sorry.... but I am. I don't care what books say, but I can absolutely see you are wrong in your thinking here, and you even admitted it, yet you dismissed it in the next fluttering thought.

Are you supposed to be some legal expert at the age of 12? Are you supposed to know that it was evidence? Who cares if you hid them, you said it yourself, you where 12.

 

[morgan]

One of the main things I did in the hospital, while working on the guilt around my trauma, was to challenge my belief system. Our thinking is somewhat faulty because we have PTSD. We tend to cling to our beliefs because we think they keep us safe or strong. This is just not so. Sometimes our beliefs actually keep us sick. This is my suggestion, get with your therapist about it and see if he/she can offer an alternative that you can live with. it's challenging to say the least but, well worth it.

For me, it totally changed my life. I have some brand new perspectives because of it.

Here's one for you to look at right now. It was the policemen's job to gather evidence, not yours.

Also, Anthony has given you some food for thought, in fact we all have. Think about it.

Take care and I wish you the best, Morgan:Hug_emoticon:

 

[WorkingThruIt]

Anthony,

I made a mistake. I didn't understand what kind of mistake it was at the time. Now, I am an adult and understand the implications of my misjudgment. It is not so much the reasoning part I am having the problem with, it is the feeling of guilt that I cannot seem to get out from under.

I can also logically say that I should not let a few minutes of terror define my whole life, but that has not gone as well as planned either.

 

[anthony]

Hmmmm.... your last statement is not really true though, in that a few moments of terror can absolutely define your life without the right course of resolve for you as an individual. As you said, you read the book but nothing clicked for you, that just means we must find what you can understand and interpret to help you. That is the idea of the forum, more heads the better the change of finding that one thing that clicks for you.

Why do you feel guilty, exactly?

 

[WorkingThruIt]

I know the question you are asking seems simple, but it is not to me. I feel guilty that my mistake has made it so he could be free to harm as many little girls as he pleased. I feel guilty that he had to single me out and I feel responsible for bringing so much emotional turmoil into my family.

Since therapy the other day, I am going back and forth between being incredibly angry and a blubbering mess. So, I am going to stop here rather than go into a curse-ridden rant of how I should be stronger and should be able to be above all of these feelings.

 

[Lisa]

WorkingThruIt... I totally see what you are saying because I have the same kind of guilt.

But, as I am being told repeatedly in therapy, at the end of the day he is in the wrong as a paedophile. Not you. He should feel guilt for what he caused you and your family, not you. If he hadn't have done it... none of the crap that came after would have happened. That's the ultimate truth. As for hiding the scissors... you have to understand where you were at emotionally as a 12 year old, not where you are at now. You are older, have had time to think, and are more capable of understanding legally the situation ... at 12, just after an attack, you are not in the same position. So, thinking back to then, you must acknowledge that... despite not realising the implications of what you were hiding, you were hiding the scissors to protect your family from the full horror. How can a child be expected to carry such guilt when you were only trying to cope to the best of your ability, and doing what you needed and felt was best? Hindsight is sometimes not a good thing, as it leaves you feeling you wish you had done this or that... but the truth is, you were 12, a child, in turmoil and trauma.

Yes, it is hard to think that as a result of that, he is reigning free. I understand that, believe me... but you should not feel guilty for his actions. It's the police's job to catch him, and what the hell were they doing not finding those scissors?! Having read everything, I feel absolutely no way you are to blame or should feel guilty, but I do feel anger towards the police for not doing their job properly and putting a child victim of horrific attack in the position of holding the pair of scissors that would have convicted him. Because nobody can expect a child to know what to do in that situation, when faced with family they love in turmoil, and innocence to the reality of what you were hiding, and emotional turmoil to add on top...

As much as you sense huge anger and great conviction of your guilt right now... you must allow this to be talked about. Or you will never let go of the guilt that you should not own. And in the end... what does guilt serve ultimately? It doesn't change anything. So you must face this. Because I know how much guilt can hurt, and ruin a perfectly good person...

 

[AmazonBelle]

In this kind of situation, I have found it helpful to imagine how I, as an adult, would treat a child of 12 if that child acted as I had.

I would be compassionate, because as an adult, I know that children are not capable of making rational decisions, especially in threatening conditions.

I felt terrible guilt for a long time about the way I treated my younger brother and sister when I was asked to babysit them, at age eleven. I yelled at them a lot. When I asked myself what I would think of a child in that same circumstance, my first response was outrage at the adults who put the child in that position. My emotional response towards that child was one of sympathy and care.

 

[ruddy]

And in the end... what does guilt serve ultimately? It doesn't change anything.

I've discovered that my guilt had/has a very sinister purpose. That's why it comes and goes even though I know on a rational level that what happened wasn't my fault. It's a way of hiding from the pain or emotions of something going on in the present. Instead of acknowledging and dealing with my feelings I punish myself by feeling guilty about the past.