Re: Carrying a Guilt

[memzak]

Guilt, I have struggled with it all my 58 years. With guilt came apologizing for everything, even for being alive. I have listened to guru after motivational speaker, read countless books all supposedly to help you feel in control and feel good about yourself and nothing worked. I felt guilty for saying things, I felt guilty for not saying things. About 4 months after my ADD epiphany I was done. I realized why I had felt guilty about being alive and realized that I really didn’t need to feel guilty about anything. I let it go, for good. It took a while for the bad habits to disappear and I do occasionally catch myself apologizing for stuff that I didn’t need to apologize for but the guilt for what I was apologizing for just wasn’t there. It was gone. I have let it go for good.

It has left me with a feeling of freedom I have never had before. I can’t change the past but I can make my future better. I can change my relationships and make them better. This is a good thing.

It has also left me with nothing to motivate me. This is not such a good thing. All my motivation had come from fear and anger and panic and guilt and I used my husband as a negative consequence. “Can’t let him find out about” and fill in the blank. I ruined my marriage but I am determined not to let the relationship suffer any more. We haven’t lived together for 9 years but I discovered that I do still love him and now I feel I can do things to make the rest of his life better. As good as it can be while living in a nursing home on dialysis.

I do occasionally have regrets but it doesn’t last. When I think of the things that I regret it is usually about events of the last year and really falls under the guise of self-medicating with crying. When I cry, it is almost always when I am alone, in the morning, and I have already had my 2 cups of coffee and I still can’t get moving. Then I start thinking about something that makes me cry. Now instead of going into a half hour pity party I can stop myself in less than a minute, wipe my eyes and get on with my day. Works better then Welbutrin I can tell you that. Crying releases endorphines and makes me feel better. This is still such a bad habit and I have been doing it most of my life. Getting it down to less than a minute is an achievement and not doing it everyday is another achievement. I only realized in the last 2 or 3 months that that is what I am doing. My daughter pointed it out.

Does anyone else use crying for self-medicating?

REPORT ABUSE