Guilt and anxiety

[Sunflower151]

How do you get over extreme anxiety from guilt? 

Recently I'll just suddenly remember something that I regret doing and I'll get incredibly anxious about it because I feel like a bad person and I'll always just make mistakes or have bad intentions or something. I try to do my best and I have a strict moral compass so when I do something either by mistake or knowing that it is wrong then I get so so so anxious about it. 

Everything I am anxious about can't be fixed now, but I know I can change who I am going forward. Some things were genuine mistakes, others I knew it was wrong, some were due to peer pressure l, some would have had big consequences, some little. 

I just feel like if I don't get extremely anxious about it and punish myself and let it eat me up then I don't get what I deserve and I feel like it's just me normalising doing wrong things and experiencing no negative consequences. 

I don't know how to move past this. Nothing I've done is illegal (not to say that people who have done illegal things can't forgive themselves) but I just let it eat me up so much and the anxiety from the guilt is extremely immobilising. It makes me think I'm a bad person and I don't care if there would be no consequences or that there haven't been consequences because I'll know in my heart that I did something wrong.
 

I am also obsessed with wondering if I have done something wrong. I will think about it for so long if I think I have made a mistake and think I am a bad person and it's so difficult. Even if I haven't done anything wrong I'll suddenly have a thought and go back to check if I did make a mistake or not depending on what it is. Either real or imagined wrongs just consume my thoughts and make me feel so bad about myself 😞

Please help this feeling is awful and I hate myself so much because of it 

[On The Road]

Hi Sunflower151,

I'm sorry that you've been feeling this way, it sounds quite overwhelming for you from what you've described😞. I have a similar issue due to my childhood, teenage experience, and cultural background as well, it's been impacting me until today but really can't compare it to your situation. 

Have u ever talked to someone such as a friend you trust or a counselor? I used to talk with someone about struggling with guilt, they use psycho-drama to recreate the scene where I regretted doing something, it's sort of like a play, I was reluctant to do it but it seemed to be helpful to certain degrees. They helped me to think about something like: "If you could do it all over again, what would you do? Would it be better to do this? What could you do differently in the future?", and try to find a way to shift the focus from negative thoughts to more realistic, positive ones may help to shake off feelings of excessive irrational guilt.

To me, this did make me feel relieved to some degree, but shifting the focus of guilt embedded deeply inside to positive thinking is not easy. So I accept the feelings of guilt and focus on the present moment. Of course, in the quiet nighttime when I was alone, these feelings came back to bite me, but at least they were not as bad as before.

So I suggest that if you reach out to a therapist, reframe the situation if you are comfortable recalling those events, that would be beneficial. 🙂 

[therising]

Hi Sunflower151

I feel for you so deeply, experiencing that sometimes brutal emotion we know as guilt. With emotions being such a physical experience, guilt can become literally sickening. Not sure if the way I've come to manage guilt will be of any help but I'll offer it up in the hope that it does help in some way.

As a 52yo gal who's managed to reach a number of conclusions when it comes to how I tick, I've found guilt to largely involve 2 significant factors

1. What is emotion? A brilliant definition I'd heard comes down to it being about 'energy in motion' within the body, so e-motion you can feel moving through you. Every different emotion has a different charge or feel to it. For example, pure joy has a high positive charge, which is why you can feel it putting you on a positive high (putting you positively in charge). A depressing comment someone throws our way can have a very low heavy negative charge to it (one we can definitely feel), which is why such a comment can put us into a sudden negative low
2. When I redefined guilt, I redefined the charge behind the emotion. It became a positive one. Btw, doesn't mean I don't sometimes feel certain negative elements behind it. My overall mantra for guilt became 'Guilt is asking me 'Who do you want to be from this moment onward?'' I redefined guilt as being a call to consciousness. Whenever I feel it, it's a prompt for me to ask that all important question. If I've done something that's led someone to upset, that question remains a constructive call to greater consciousness. Do I want to be someone who allows that person to remain in upset or do I want to be someone who takes action, in an effort to lead them out of it? Who do I want to be?

I like to believe that guilt does not exist to cause us sufferance, it exists to lead us to evolve beyond our actions, beyond who we were. We're designed to change, to evolve, and sometimes that's just not possible without guilt there to push us in the direction we need to head.

Of course, if someone's leading us to feel guilt, that always needs to be questioned. Is such leadership there for the purpose of growth or is that person simply using guilt as a tool for manipulation, a tool that serves only them and no one else?

[OpenThought]

Hey Sunflower151,

That's an experience I and many others have handled within our lifetimes and it's a terrible feeling to bear. I have found especially whenever I deal with those feelings it's very easy for me to isolate myself and avoid social contact. These are also moments when you can very easily spiral and throughout these moments it takes a lot to get yourself out of there.

So I want to begin by saying that the first thing to take care of with these thoughts is how are you responding. If you can step back, you may be able to pick up certain things. This can also help to see if there is anything currently going on to trigger these feelings or make them worse although I want to focus more on figuring out how are you responding. As these feelings are immobilising, have you found within the past few weeks you haven't spoken to your friends much? Have you been able to go out and do things with people you love? If not, it may be worth beginning with that because not being around people and speaking to them can make these feelings even worse. 

Accepting it however can be much harder. Dealing with past mistakes is one of the most difficult things to handle simply because it takes time to process. Throughout these times I recommend seeing a counsellor and trying to reframe things. It may also help to see if you can make amends with some people however amends can be daunting and take a while to truly do.

I wish you the best and hope you take care of yourself.

Thanks, OpenThought