When Guilt & Shame Is Well Earned

[Tornadic Thoughts]

I've spent most of my life busily rating how shameful I should feel, how guilty I should stay for how long, how much I could do to pay back society as a whole for all the stupid shit I did, the pain I felt I inflicted, the hardships I felt I created for others, stuck in a perpetual loop of trying to play catch up.

Steadily trying to settle this so-called karmic debt and stuff. Pay for my perceived sins and such, or however one chooses to label it. Steadily kicking my own ass day in and day out, just on different levels. Forever trying to please some entity outside of self. Never finding a point where I felt I had sufficiently paid my perceived debts in full, so that must certainly mean there's more ass kicking to do. A vicious cycle, for certain.

The things I'm most deeply ashamed of mostly happened when I was trying to escape ongoing cycles of abuse/neglect that I'd become so deeply entangled in, by being raised around it and remaining immersed in it for so long, along with the tsunamis of shameful thoughts I had to face all alone whenever they'd come back to haunt me.

I now understand those very poor choices weren't made by voluntary conscious thoughts that would warrant such true feelings of guilt, but rather as a means of simply hoping to somehow escape some really dangerous and shitty scenarios/mind spaces by any means necessary. I think I'd be even more distressed if I knew I didn't make some of those dreadful choices in those moments, to be honest.

I was simply living what I'd learned, be it through the despicable actions of others or simply by the adult and authoritative examples in my life. Decisions were made based solely on survival and previous examples observed, with no active memory of knowing how to approach things from any kind of a self-loving/nurturing grounded stand point.

Now that I've learned better ways to deal and heal, and have more healthy supports in place, I do better, including no longer kicking my own ass for things that were way beyond my control. I finally discovered the kinder gentler me and I'm damn glad because I long since exhausted myself, and those around me, with my "on guard" repetitive self-inflicted ass kicking of years gone by.

I find I'm able to have much more empathy for others in this process of better figuring self out, too, often wondering what they had to face to make the hurtful choices/comments/etc. they've made, even the assholes, even if only momentarily. We're surrounded by other peoples poor choices day in and day out. All the while, the train to unimaginable insanity keeps picking up speed. I'm sure someone will be along to collect our tickets soon. lol

 

[The Albatross]

K. The question I had to ask myself... because I'd done regretful/shameful and guilt inducing things was... Am I redeemable? Dunno if that's gonna help or not. But the idea of extending the benefit of a doubt to others, and then running my own stuff through the same lense... when do I really give up on someone? Almost never. Almost. So it was not a far stretch for me to extend the same thing to myself.

Guilt and shame being well earned... in the end doesn't mean we add stones to our pockets til we weigh ourselves down enough to drown in the river. It, conversely, can be a base point of understanding that ... many people may do things where guilt/shame and blame are deserved/earned... yet they seek and find to a good degree a semblance of peace and go on to live lives more in line with their base nature/preference/character. Some don't, are stuck and those are the ones (in my line of work) who grapple so hard with regrets or unrequited things at the end of their lives.

I do end of life care and have for a while. I have come through this work to understand and realize the significance and necessity to unburden or to not carry self imposed burdens on being a human being, fallible, warts and all. Rectifying it to me, is in character refinement going forward and striving to be better.

Maybe not helpful but that's all I got. [added in edit] I guess it all stems from personal perspectives on forgiveness, human condition/circumstances, and if... in the end you want to keep the burden and add to it because there will be other situations which will burden us... for which we may see our way clear to forgive others but not necessarily ourselves. I try to use the same measuring stick now.

 

[scout86]

This is not my best topic. There are differences I haven't quite got sorted out. So, I'm going to paraphrase my T, who DOES seem to understand this stuff.

By his definitions, 'guilt' is a useful emotion. You've done something that is distinctly wrong and you recognize it. Doesn't matter if it's a big thing or a small thing. You did it, you were wrong. If you feel 'guilt', the feeling is appropriate and its purpose is to help you do better in the future. Just like you said, it doesn't go away. It's there. Doing better in the future might help, but it doesn't change anything.

He says 'shame' is a different thing and it's not useful. (Here's where he loses me.) He says shame is basically about relentless punishment that serves no useful purpose.

So, near as I can tell, his point is that it's good to recognize your mistakes. To admit them, apologize for them when its appropriate, and learn from them. There is no real point in punishing yourself beyond that.

 

[Justmehere]

I have done things that are totally my own fault.

I asked my therapist what to do - and we talked through making amends and a spiritual aspect to it.

Then she said, "and now you get to grieve being an imperfect human."

I wanted to throw the pillow at her.

 

[Dana1010]

What gets me is that the self censure and flagellation is never enough. It's like I wish there were some way to punish myself adequately, so that I could move on, feeling that I payed the price. But it just never seems enough. I almost wish that someone else would come along and punish me for it so severely and disproportionately that I could shift the focus from my wrongdoing to theirs.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I have done acting out some of my abuse on my brothers and sister, I chose to do it and it has haunted me for so many years. I have tried to make amends to all of them. That dealt with the guilt I had and still have somewhat as far as I do not ever want to do those things again in my life so I had to change me.

Shame is the feeling of being so flawed and lower than all people to me. By making amends, I gave the person in front of me the choice to accept them and me or not, no strings attached.

Mostly the memories now come to me and I take them as a reminder that I have changed me and I no longer do those things or make those kinds of bad choices.

Someone here said we have to grieve being a fallen human and I think that is true. I sure hope that this helped a little and if not please toss in the trash.

 

[Sideways]

I did something awful to a good person once - he was trying to help me, and what I did to him that day? I've puked remembering it a couple of times.

The shame of that took on its own life force for a long while. I got lucky that he didn't call the cops on me, so I figured the shame was reasonable penance. I apologised after a fortnight, and we didn't speak again, but an apology wasn't nearly enough to appease my conscience. I know he's moved on, he's put it in his past - so I got lucky there too.

At some point, I had to front up to it, accept it for what it was, that I was responsible, but also that it was in the past. My shame was actually preventing me from genuinely owning up to it in a lot of ways. Acceptance has to be of the whole package, the whole warts n all truth - and it being in the past, not part of my present, is part of the Acceptance package. Shame keeps it in the present, and so you can't 100% Accept and still hold onto it like it's part of your here and now, because it isn't.

The way I see it now (and I'm not done healing from it yet), is shame doesn't help him, it doesn't help me, and it's not actually any kind of constructive penance. I was just using it to flog myself. Deserved perhaps, but it has a used by date. Punishments have an end point, even for me.

When I started to make room for it in the history of my life, where I've been, accept, forgive a little - I got the space to look at where that behaviour had come from, where the line in the sand was in terms of what was acceptable to me, and what I needed to do to make sure I never crossed that line again.

My thinking is that in his position? Apologies are great, but it's far better for him to know that Ragdoll learned from it, and won't ever do it again. I flogged myself for it, but I learned from it too. That's better.

So now, it's part of where I've been, but if I can learn from it, and be better, it doesn't need to be who I am today. Carrying it round like a chain on my ankle - what purpose would that serve now for anyone? Pardoning ourselves is actually part of that self-punishment process. I screwed up, I was ashamed, I won't ever do it again. That's how we teach our kids yeah? There's gotta be love at the end of it all, no matter how bad they've screwed up.

 

[Ronin]

By recognizing where in the whole thing I haven't f*cked up.

Sure, the whole thing was a colossal cockup.

But there were pieces I've done right in.
That I've done what was right, beyond situational & necessary for survival & ordered & requested 'right', in.
That I've done my best in, & with the best intentions.

Takes destucking my head out of black & white, all or nothing, ruminating thinking, first.
Also doesn't move the guilt & shame, but lets me know it's not the only pals squatting with me there are.

Edited To Add: And by not doubting basics all too long. Things as trust, in the judgment of others & my ability to sort shit, things as faith in good outcomes, even when things were doomed to boot from the point one, because, after all, they're good things, just in shit circumstances. Yet circumstances change. Good things should be kept.

 

[City Slicker]

To be presented with the same scenario, different time & place, and choose differently. It doesn't erase the guilt of the past, doesn't change it, but it helps to balance it.

I have been thinking on this.

What I quoted from your post above is the one thing I tell myself when I am looking objectively at my responsibility for the things about which I am most ashamed. Those are almost 100% things I did as a result of the way I was raised, the lessons I learned, the inability I had to cognitively process things in a properly sequenced way, my emotional lability, developmental impairment etc.

I know that my guilt says 'I feel bad...' and my shame says 'I am bad...'

Were I speaking with someone who expressed horrible shame and guilt about the things they did and I knew about their past and the trauma they had experienced I would be asking them to look at those mitigating factors I mentioned above about the way they were raised and what they learned as a result of their trauma etc.

I get that part intellectually - but it is sometimes like I am not allowing myself to 'let myself off the hook' because in some ways that would be like admitting I was a victim of something in much the same ways as were the people who hurt me.

There is a forgiveness of myself element, a recognition that I was hurt by things that happened and that I also hurt others. To recognize this in myself initially made me feel like I was as bad as the perpetrators who hurt me.

Ahh but the intellectual part only helps so much when it's 3am and I can't sleep and my mind drifts back to those things...
Remembering that I need to also consider the good foundation I put in place as a result of the teaching of guilt and shame is a struggle sometimes. Yes, it certainly adds balance and yes, I have gotten much better at 'returning the serve' when that ball of shame comes at me like a red hot tennis serve.

Day to day now there are interpersonal things that come up in the everyday living of our lives. Mostly I can deal with these things in the way I would want someone to deal with them with me. Mostly I can feel good about that. In order for the balance to be there though, I have to sit with what I handled well that day and keep doing it each day and I do find that over time I have been able to build and support that balance a lot more.

These are lessons I have learned in both guilt and shame that has made me the person I am mostly proud to be today.

Thanks for the discussion.

 

[GwenDR]

I did something awful when I was a teenager, and I still feel extreme guilt over it. I've hated myself for it ever since. I really understand that distinction between guilt and shame, though. The guilt is the unpleasant but necessary instructive regret. The shame is the self loathing over something I cannot change: that I did this, and I will never not have done it. I hurt someone I love.

 

[Ronin]

The guilt is the unpleasant but necessary instructive regret. The shame is the self loathing over something I cannot change: that I did this, and I will never not have done it.

Incredibly helpful to me distinction, Gwen. Thank you.

 

[Rani G2]

And maybe someone has a better answer to how you deal with that, than mine; You just do. Own it, learn from it, and if you're f*cking lucky as hell maybe you'll get a chance to do differently someday.

Going to write this down.