Taking On The Perpertrator's Guilt

[angel2write]

I feel guilty all the time. Especially if I make a mistake or someone looks at me wrong.

But I think you may be right about sponging up some of my abuser's shame and guilt. Something horrible happened. Everyone else thought it was ok. But it didn't feel ok to me. Something in me was screaming that it was wrong. It was bad. It was horrible. But everyone around me seemed to think it was good and ok. So the bad feelings curled inward. I think this may especially happen if you get punished for crying or getting upset. The message is "you are bad for not liking this lovely abuse I have given you." And we FEEL so bad, and they're telling us we're bad, and after a while, we start to think we are bad. Yuck.

I am feeling ashamed right now for even typing this.

 

[Mercy]

As you have written about shame you pour a little of it out in words that we all can understand and many many have felt.
Thank you, you give us the chance to check in with ourselves at see where we are at with our own burdens of shame.

 

[Mercy]

So the bad feelings curled inward. I think this may especially happen if you get punished for crying or getting upset. The message is "you are bad for not liking this lovely abuse I have given you." And we FEEL so bad, and they're telling us we're bad, and after a while, we start to think we are bad. Yuck..

Yes, that is what happens. We begin to believe their lies. I don't believe you can possibly be bad. That is a judgement against you. Other people made you carry the heavy burden of their guilt and shameful deeds. That judgement was not kind, loving, gentle, affirming, things that would make a child's heart smile.

Where has all our laughter gone. The perps sucked it out of us for themselves and put guilt in the very place where we should have been carrying joy in living.

 

[Queen Boudica]

I feel guilty all the time. Especially if I make a mistake or someone looks at me wrong.

I am feeling ashamed right now for even typing this.

Oh angel2write, don't feel ashamed for writing this, it has been very helpful to me in sorting out my own thoughts on shame and I am sure it will help others who read it.

That is exactly how I feel, so guilty whenever I make the slightest mistake or even reading into the way that people look at me that I have done something wrong.

Felt exactly that way yesterday when I had a friend over and I was talking to her about going to the pyschologist, (I've told her I have complex trauma due to my childhood, but not much else). But I don't think she is really interested in finding out any more. I am not a close enough friend for that. And she then left earlier than I thought she was going to saying she had some shopping to do.

So I just felt like I was trying to open up to her but she doesn't want to know. And I felt guilty and ashamed for putting her in that situation. And I felt really alone and down after she left.

I can only hope things will get better, but it is so hard.

 

[angel2write]

So I just felt like I was trying to open up to her but she doesn't want to know. And I felt guilty and ashamed for putting her in that situation. And I felt really alone and down after she left.

Hurting for you. I have been in that situation many times, and it is very painful.

I think sometimes people don't want to make us uncomfortable by talking about ugly things or asking questions about ugly things. They don't realize that we need and want to talk about it. Which is, I guess, why most of my friends tend to be abuse survivors of one kind or another. We understand the need to talk about the pain sometimes.

Of course, there are also people who don't care and just don't want to know. So you can't always tell the difference. It's good that you risked talking, though. Even if it didn't work out this time. You challenged the silence. Good job.

A

 

[Mercy]

Sometimes people just don't know how to react or what is appropriate to say. I'm thing now of how my friend, who was a new widow, felt so let down when many of her fiends either didn't call and come by or came and stayed a short while, all the time not mentioning her dead husband of 43 yrs at all. They we afraid to upset her. But she needed to talk about her feelings and about him.

I think talking about PTSD is worse for some people, because of their own abuse or abusive ways. People also just don't know how to react. Some are scared and run away. Some don't want to say the wrong thing and make it worse for you. Some participate, unwhittingly, in society's own denial that such things exist. But it is very much like the way people avoid talking about death with the bereft. Try not to take it personally.

I might suggest that you could make a time with your friend doing the things you both usually like to do together, go marketing, go for walks, see a movie, whatever it is that you have enjoyed in the past. It is not really necessary now at the beginning of you disclosure to dive in. Maybe your friend is so sad for you, it hurts her to see you hurt. Friends are like that. It would be good to show her that your feelings of friendship are still there. I know we all crave, strongly crave for there to be someone who will really be there for us, especially in the hard times. I know I do.Most people can not do it.

People who haven't experienced trauma don't seem to get it. They can be caring by their own lights but without experience, they can't plum the depths of our pain. In a way, they are disabled by their untraumatized lives and cannot companion us. So, OK that's life. I'll bet your friend still wants to be your friend. Please, don't let your feelings of being let down by her get between you. You know the old line, if you want a nice dinner party, three subjects are taboo, politics, religion, and shucks I forgot the third one.

sending (((Hugs)))

 

[angel2write]

People who haven't experienced trauma don't seem to get it. In a way, they are disabled by their untraumatized lives...

Love this! "disabled by their untraumatized lives..." Terrific!

You know the old line, if you want a nice dinner party, three subjects are taboo, politics, religion, and shucks I forgot the third one.

Isn't the third one sex? If talking about sex is a no-no, talking about traumatic or abusive sex would definitely be out. :confused:

 

[Mercy]

Yah-h-h

 

[scott_1971_h]

In a way, they are disabled by their untraumatized lives and cannot companion us.

Yep. And some people are familiar with it but dont want to deal with it.

 

[Queen Boudica]

. I'll bet your friend still wants to be your friend. Please, don't let your feelings of being let down by her get between you.

I'm still going to be friends with her. I think I should not expect other people to understand what I am going through. God knows it is difficult for me to understand myself. And I don't want anyone thinking I am trying to make them feel sorry for me by telling them about my problems. I really worry about that.

I am used finding it extremely difficult for me to make close friends, just because I feel so different to normal people and I find it so hard to be interesting and normal. And it is hard to believe that anyone wants to be close to me and doubts always creep in when small things happen that I can then use to justify that they don't really want to be my friend. I have to try really hard to ignore those doubts and persevere.

I find myself trying to make myself very helpful even to the point of really putting myself out so that friend will like me and to make up for my inadequacies. I am a very good cook, so I use that to my advantage, but then there is a tendency to think they are only here for the food. Don't know if that makes sense?

Anyway, think I am rambling.

 

[Mercy]

good ramble!![DLMURL="https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/javascript:;"]:cool:[/DLMURL]

 

[angel2write]

And it is hard to believe that anyone wants to be close to me and doubts always creep in when small things happen that I can then use to justify that they don't really want to be my friend. I have to try really hard to ignore those doubts and persevere.

Ahhhh... paranoia. The emotion that puts the "P" in PTSD!! I think most of my sessions with my therapist start with having to deal with my paranoia about what she was thinking about what I said in the last session.... It's even worse with friends because I don't feel like I can just ask if I was weird or offensive or if they hate me because of something I said or did or forgot or messed up or misunderstood or didn't laugh at or laughed at or mentioned or dropped or... :laugh:

Sheesh. Do you find yourself apologizing a lot? About, like, everything?