My Lifelong Relationship with Guilt

I have ‘blogger’s block’. Its been over three weeks since I posted anything and I am not happy about it. I’ve been unwell - nothing major, just a virus, but its left me low and lacking in energy. This means I have reverted to daytime telly and comfort eating. Which also means that I feel lazy, fat and useless. And guilty. Guilty that I have kept my husband awake with my coughing. Guilty that I haven't done anything productive. Guilty that I have put on weight. Guilty that I have let my tennis buddies down. Guilty that I haven't blogged. Guilty that I cant even think of anything to blog about.

Comfort or guilt inducing?

I googled the definition of ‘guilt’ and Collins Dictionary gives this: Guilt is an unhappy feeling that you have because you have done something wrong or think that you have done something wrong.

There you have it - ‘think that you have done something wrong’. I constantly think that I have done something wrong, or could / should have done something better.

Born guilty!

This is not a new feeling for me. I was born guilty on 17th February 1956…because two years earlier, on 17th February 1954, my sister died. She was ten, and had leukaemia. I was born on the one day my Mum didn't want me to be born. Typical. It wasn't even my due date. 1956 being a leap year, I could've contrived to be born on 29th February. Maybe then I would've felt special rather than guilty. 

Now logically I know that babies have absolutely no control over when they arrive, but this really has blighted me for the past 61 years. My parents were amazing, and would have been horrified if they had known how I felt, but odd comments about me being born on the wrong day, and them feeling that they would never be able to have birthday parties for me resonated far more with me than the ones about me being the most wanted child ever (don’t know how that made my siblings feel - oh God, something else to feel guilty about). Thinking back, they probably over compensated. I had amazing parties and birthday presents and I was truly loved. I’m not really sure if this feeling of guilt was a conscious one, but as an adult, during a hypnotherapy session, I suddenly found myself staring at my sister’s gravestone, crying because it had my birthday etched onto it. So each year, on birthday, I also reflect on how my parents and my older brother and my sister felt on that day two years before I was born. I can not, and do not really want to imagine how they felt.

Reason to celebrate or reflect?

While this sort of explains why guilt is not alien to me, the feeling doesn't seem to serve me any purpose. The logical, intelligent and reasonable me understands that it is a wasted emotion and that I am not responsible for everything that happens, but the under confident, anxious and low mood me still feels this to be true. All my life I have felt as if I should be able to change things for the better and that not being able to is my fault.

Ridiculous I know, but that’s how I roll! It’s all part of this complex maelstrom that is ‘mental health’. I save my most miserable self for my closest friends and family (aren’t they the lucky ones!), presenting a more balanced front to people who would be mortified to be confronted with my guilt ridden presence. But then I feel guilty that I am making the people I care about the most miserable too. I’m buggered, basically!

But, for those of you who live with someone like me, someone who is able put a brave face on to the outside world, but needs to retreat to how they really feel in the safety of their own home, don’t get sucked in by us. My lovely hubby said this morning that he feels that he is failing, because he should be able to make me happy. This simply isn't true. Someone once told me that, to help someone in a hole, the worst thing you can do is jump in the hole with them. Offer support, a helping hand and eventually they’ll get out - they may even be able to climb out on their own! Patience is probably the key, in the face of the most frustrating of circumstances.

It weighs some of us down

Sorry - this has been a cathartic, stream of consciousness rant. But at least I don’t feel guilty about not blogging any more!