topic Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself in Depression

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

white knight — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 23:55:16 GMT

Do you blame yourself for the mistakes you've made? Do you feel guilty about them? Do you spent time dwelling about "what could have been"?

I use to until I realised, that you are only responsible to limit our mistakes in the here and now. Once that decision making has been made, if it was the wrong one, it was only wrong after making it. But punishing ourselves year in year out is not clever, its responsive and harms us.

Eg For whatever reason I grew up impulsive problem I now dont have. Such a trait resulted in buying and selling 35 cars before the age of 23yo and as they were on loans I got myself into heaps of financial trouble. My family heard my justifications each new car I purchased, friends laughed but it was a serious issue.

As the years rolled by I dwelled on those impulsive years and beat myself up about them. But was it my fault? We end up as we are for a reason. In my case it could be I needed attention, needed change often, liked different cars in my driveway or got tired of one car quickly and desired another. Or my mothers BPD (undiagnosed) had its effect on us kids.

Whatever the real reason, it wasnt fault on my part. There is only fault when one doesnt learn and improve on the situation as best one can. As time went by I tried to keep a car for long periods. By 30yo I kept a car for 3 years, by 40yo 5 years and now my new csur purchased in 2008 I still have.

In my 20's my then girlfriend had had a baby adopted out when she was 16yo, 8 years earlier before I met her. We split after 6 years then met up 20 years later. She'd spent many a restless night dwelling on that one mistake, to give up her baby. I told her that under the same circumstances she would have done the same thing, she would bow to the pressures from family, no means to support her baby and the stigma from that era. Essentially, blaming herself was unfair. What would be more unfair is to not search for her child and help her child through life by knowing her birth mother.

We met up again 10 years later. She told me she found her child, now with children of her own. She had accepted it was unrealistic and hurtful to lay blame on herself for giving up her own baby. She has some lingering guilt, wished things were different and still takes medication for depression.

Importantly, her self blame has drifted.

She is now an active granny. She progressed.

Blame and guilt are suppressive thoughts that need to be contained. Be fair to yourself.

Tony WK

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Guest_128 — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 10:51:58 GMT

Tony, I'm just tagging this thread, I have read it 3 times,want to say something just don't know yet.

Think you have touched a lot of nerves here and people are holding back.

Later

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

white knight — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 11:51:20 GMT

Hi Later

No worries. Thats a good idea.

Tony WK

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Mia001 — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 12:01:14 GMT

Hi white knight,

Do you blame yourself for the mistakes you've made? Do you feel guilty about them? Do you spent time dwelling about "what could have been"?

I find this a hard topic personally. I blame myself a lot for making mistakes. I expect myself to be perfect, set my standards high and wonder why I fail to meet them. I'm just human, after all. Everyone makes mistakes.

I know that I wouldn't be who I am today without my past. Some things I've learned to accept and move on. But there are still things I wish I could change. I guess I have a few regrets in my life. There's stuff I just don't talk about, but I still have to live with it. Often I wonder what would have happened if things been different. I know I should just move on, but I can't seem to. Maybe I'm just in denial and I need to talk about it. I don't know. I just can't bring myself to do anything about it.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on it.

Mia

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

CMF — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 12:29:35 GMT

Love it Tony, once again.

i am so utterly exhausted ATM so won't respond but it's a good one.

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

white knight — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 13:11:49 GMT

Hi Mia

I hear you. Its like some past experiences cannot be pigeon holed into the one marked "closed".

I've got a few. My old prison warder days now 40 years ago was littered with events most of which I forgot about but some have lingered...why? I think I've analysed it as being events I feel guilty about, maybe frightened or potentially dangerous...a "what could have been" senario.

All such memories are held and are unfair to us. We deserve better. But the mind, has a mind of its own.

Maybe normal people control that better?

Tony WK

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Mia001 — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 23:03:43 GMT

Hi White knight,

I just feel so lost. Some days it hurts so much but I just keep up my facade, pretend I'm okay. But I'm tired of it. I just want to fix my life and be normal. But deep down I know I'll probably carry these scars for life. I keep telling myself I can't change the past, I can only shape the future. But I'm scared. Scared that I'll never get over this. It was years ago and I didn't remember what had happened until I starting seeing a counsellor. It brought back all these memories I didn't want, but I can't change it. I never told the counsellor. I just told her I didn't want to talk about it. I guess I didn't want to admit that it happened because then I would have to face my fear.

But I'm tired of running. Now I've got to the point that I just want to move on and I'm ready to talk about it. I told 2 of my friends, and it was kind of a relief just to say it. I guess now they understand all those times I just "needed space". I was so scared, I didn't know how they'd react. At least I know they're here to support me.

I had my first appointment with a psychologist last week. It was the first time I really admitted to myself that it was abuse. She doesn't know anything except that something happened and I don't want to talk about it. Actually, I kind of feel bad because she asked if I had ever been sexually abused and I said no. I guess I was just scared of what would happen if I said yes. But I know that I'm never going to be okay again if I don't deal with this and face it. I have to stop running.

I'm just so scared of what will happen if I tell her. I worry that if I tell her everything she'll have to report it, and then I don't know what happens next. I don't want to go through that. I feel that it was my fault, that I should have done something to stop it sooner. Sometimes I think am I just being stupid about the whole thing? I don't know what to do. Do I tell her everything or just a bit? Can she help me if I don't tell her the whole story? Will she be angry that I lied to her? I don't know; I'm just so scared, and I'm so tired of hiding this from everyone, but I know I can't tell my family. It would devastate them, and they wouldn't believe me. What if she tells them?

What should I do?

Mia

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

quirkywords — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 04:43:53 GMT

Thanks Tony for this thread.

Guilt is my middle name and I feel guilty stating that.

My trouble is how can I forgive myself when a person won't forgive me ever for something that happened over 3 decades ago and still affects people today. So I feel guilty all over again.

Mia, I feel your quandary but I don't have the experience. I think there are threads on a similar theme that maybe able to help you.

Take care

Quirky

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

white knight — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 03:23:53 GMT

Hi, I've been out of range for a few days

Mia, there are some things in life that are your call. Normally I'd suggest telling your psych everything but that could cause you more trauma. Its not my place to advise you exvept to suggest that YOU make that decision. The same with your family. With family ask yourself-

- what benefit would it give you?

- will they respond sympathetically or with doubts?

Quirky, most people have skeletons in their cupboard. If not....they walk around with their own skeleton every minute of the day...

Tony WK

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Mia001 — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 00:41:56 GMT

Hi white knight,

Thanks for replying! I don't mind the delay; at the moment I have to come to the library to use the wifi. Sometimes it's hard, especially in you live in a rural/remote area or don't have the internet at home.

I guess on my next visit I'll just show my psych the post, see what she does and decide from there.

With my family... that's a hard one. If I tell them something happened, they'll put pressure on me until they find out everything and then they probably wouldn't believe me. At the moment, I don't think informing them would benefit anyone. I feel bad about keeping secrets, but I think it would probably be worse if I told them.

Mia

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

white knight — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 06:51:57 GMT

In the security and investigation industries if which I worked there is a saying. "I tell people what they want to know on a need to know basis"

If they dont need to know then dont tell them. Your struggles are personal and if telling them causes issues make your choice based on that.

Tony WK

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Elizabeth CP — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 11:54:19 GMT

Mia, I believe you should tell your psych because she can't help you if she doesn't know what happened. The psych is trained to help & should understand the difficulty involved in talking about such traumatic events. This means the psych should understand why you didn't tell her first off.

Tony, My psych gave me some advice which relates to this topic. I mentioned my overreaction to something my husband did recently. I became very angry, & walked out of the house slamming the door on the way. I felt that if I stayed I would start throwing things & be unable to control my temper. Life has been quite stressful lately hence my reaction was out of proportion to what my husband did. I felt bad about overreacting. My psych told me that that people don't overreact. There is always a reason for how you act. Either my response was justified. (Not true in this case) or the response is due to a build up of smaller annoyances each of which is not really significant but overall add up to being very annoying or I am so emotionally & physically stressed or tired that I am unable to control my reaction as I would normally. The point he was trying to make was to stop feeling guilty about my behaviour when I am trying to do the right thing most of the time. I need to accept that I don't always act the way I want but that I can't expect to be perfect. Feeling guilty about past behaviours isn't helpful. Looking back is only helpful if we can use it to learn from the past.

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

white knight — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:48:06 GMT

Good points Elizabeth.

Thanks for tellling us about your psychs explaination of reactions. That resonated with me and made sense.

Tony WK

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Mia001 — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 00:54:06 GMT

Hi Elizabeth CP,

Thanks for replying. I think you're right about telling my psych. I really want to talk about it because I feel that I have to deal with it and learn to accept it. What I'm the most worried about is her reporting it. One of my friends who's a nurse is going to find out about the mandatory reporting for me. I want to be able to tell my psych everything so she can help me. I just find it so hard to trust people. I guess it's going to take time to fix this and learn to move on.

Mia

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Mia001 — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 01:11:07 GMT

Hi white knight,

I guess you're right. I'm just going to have to accept that I have to keep some things from them.

Mia

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Neil_1 — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 01:26:54 GMT

Hi Mia,

Just thought I’d chip in here … this has obviously been plaguing you for so many years now … but it seems that you’re beginning to want to come to terms with it as best you can, and ‘good on you’ for opening up to your friends about it. It must have been a difficult thing to talk to them about, and would have taken a hell of a lot of courage from you to do so. You also must have felt so much relief with how they responded and now they understand things more and you said that they’ll be there for support for you. An absolute brilliant outcome. I don’t know you at all, but I can honestly say I’m really proud of you for doing this.

With regard to your psych, I honestly think that if you’re to get your full “use” of your psych, perhaps they should know as much about you as possible – your background, in order for them to be able to provide the absolute best kind of assistance, advice and support for you. The stuff I’ve told my psych, I’ve only ever thought about, and haven’t told another person – don’t think I ever would either.

Also I believe that due to their profession, they under a confidentiality clause where they can’t tell anyone else … without your absolute permission, so that should help with your fears that your psych would tell any family members. They’re forbidden to do so. I’m pretty sure I’m right on this.

One last thing, great that you’ve been able to come here and post.

Would love to hear from you again.

Neil

Blame, guilt and being fair to yourself

Mia001 — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 06:29:16 GMT

Hi Neil1,

It's good to hear from you. I find it great to be able to discuss things anonymously on the forum. Everyone has been so supportive and caring. It was hard, but a relief, to talk to my friends. I didn't know how they would react, but they have been really sensitive and compassionate which is great. One of my friends who is a nurse is finding out about the mandatory reporting for me. I'm just not sure if the psych has to report it because I'm under 18.

Mia