False Guilt

[JustOneMore]

Does anyone else have this?

For example:

Someone asks you if you have seen a missing £5 note. You know you haven't seen it, you know you haven't taken it but you automatically feel guilty as if you have taken it.

Or there's been an accident on the railways and you beat yourself up because you didn't do anything to help the victims, even though you may be 300 miles away from the scene.

Please don't tell me it's just me. I have tried googling it, but can only really see biblical references which are no use to me whatsoever.

[b0bulat0r]

I feel this all the time,

I see things on the news and I wonder why I am sat here doing nothing,

I hear about people on here suffering and I wonder why i've done nothing to ease their pain,

I have a strong desire to be a super hero and "fix the world" often seem to think like its "my responsibility" and "my duty" to do things and that i'm constantly failing by doing nothing,

the truth is much more than we often cannot do anything to help,

its difficult to learn but I have to pick the battles I can actually fight and make a difference where I actually can, everything else I need to learn to try to stop beating myself up over.

the hardest thing for me recently was a month ago, I spoke to someone who was incredibly suicidal and I urged them to get help and support and I spent hours trying to talk them out of it, they ultimately decided to take their own life,

I couldn't sleep at all during the entire week after it happened, I blamed myself, I felt like i'd actually committed murder even though I had done nothing wrong, but I failed to stop it.

it was heartbreaking, it took me the best part of 3 weeks to properly bury the guilt I felt over it.

[buzzybee]

Oh yes, this resonates with me completely.

Guilt is very common with survivors (I'm not assuming that you are a survivor), I tend to get it now when I am around people who trigger me, who trigger the small child within me, so it sets off a chain reaction of me feeling 'its my fault, I'm to blame, i must have done something wrong'..when in reality I've done nothing wrong. I tend to stay away from people who trigger me, cold, heartless, people who lack empathy, who are self centred, bitchy, have false laughs and smiles…..they are usually women and largely women in a position of power and who misuse their power…..hence why I'm going back into therapy, i refuse to allow this to dominate any more of my life.

but I really do empathise with you

[Kara.]

Yes, me too. I even used to blush when I was a teenager and people thought that I was guilty of whatever they were talking about. And I also felt guilty for not doing more and more and more for others. Partly was my grandiosity of thinking of myself as more powerful than I actually and partly was my survival complex, in which I felt guilty for being safe when others were struggling.

Better at all of them though so good luck in your way to bettering your condition.

xxx

[maddy harper]

i have guilt over eating food because of my anorexia

the good thing is i haven't perged my self for over a year.

i havent been sick since last feb.

so i think i'm doing pretty well tbh.

[nataya]

i get guilty even when i know i have done nothing wrong.

my partner can notice my guilt and it can get me into trouble but there isnt much i can do i dont mean to respond this way but it just happens....

so i understand.

[lonelyheartemma]

It's not quite the same thing but I always feel guilty when my mum moans about the weather. Most of her moaning is directed at me but some of it isn't. But I still feel guilty about it. Sometimes she moans about my dad and I feel like that's my fault in some way too. And I think the 2005 London bombings is my fault because I was there the evening before and was approached by a really odd guy who wanted money.

Oh and whenever I see a policeman I start feeling guilty. I don't know what I'm feeling guilty for but I feel like I must have done something.