Guilt?? How do you make it go away?

I am diagnosed with bipolar, anxiety, panic attacks, Agoraphobia, and one doc diagnosed me as BPD.

What do I do when I know I have done something that is wrong and need to quit feeling guilty about it and move on? Im obsessively thinking about it and cant stop.

I feel so bad I just feel depressed and anxiety.

I don't know what the heck to do... how do I make it go away?

In my case I find what I think is guilt really isn't guilt but some thing else. What i do is analyze the reason I am feeling "guilt", and you have to be totally honest with yourself. No one is listening so we can be totally honest with ourselves. 99% of the times I can identify the feeling I thought was guilt was really some thing else. Let me give you an example.

I cut in front of another car that could have caused an accident. I feel bad, I think I feel guilty but being perfectly honest with myself I discover the reason I felt bad was if I had caused an accident I would loose my license and have to pay a lot of fines. But before I really analyzed that I thought I was feeling guilt.

When you do some thing wrong, ask yourself what is really bothering you. Is it embarrassment? How about fear of getting caught or discovered? May be regret because there could have been a better less risky way to accomplish the same thing.

If it turns out to be actual guilt, I can't help you. Usually I found the reasons to be more about SELF.

what i do (or try to do anyway) is always think of a worse sinario... so, 1 of the things i'm constantly guilty about is my wasted life- but i always try and think... well, hey- my life may be wasted.. but hey at least i did this, or that, or the other... maybe the other person never did this

yeah..

that's how i try do it

I would check my wrongness meter If you have hurt another person (because they say so, not because you think so; you are not them!), you can apologize and see what you can do to fix things. If you wrong yourself, have let yourself down, you can do the same; that is very helpful when you are trying to help your self esteem, get to know yourself as a friend. We all make mistakes and it is necessary to make mistakes; that's the only way we can learn! So, you can try to get into the spirit of really liking when you make mistakes, LOL, and seeing if you can identify lessons/good things you learn from having done so.

as an extention to my previous post, i sometimes even think of other people who are currently my situation...

like, 1 of my problems is that i'm agoraphobic- so when i start feeling guilty aboutt not going out, missing out on really nice experiences, i try to think of people who are in hospital, or the elderly who can't perhaps can't get out as easily.. and start feeling less ashamed

Thank you! Really great!! Good info!

I am also diagnosed with being agoraphobic. But I have been stretching myself throughout the years. I am actually going to school that is a HUGE positive on my part. I have panic attacks in class and have to leave for a few minutes or sometimes I don't go back in. My professor is totally understanding. Its hard!! Good luck to you.

No matter how you look at it, guilt is nothing more then about SELF. We feel bad and we want to feel better. So by apologizing we feel better. I'm convinced 99% of the time, guilt is about self. Woo-is me, I feel so bad, what shalt I do to remedy this despair?

I would say to just fess up but I know that's noy always easy so what I do sometimes is just write what I did down on a paper and rip it up. I'm not saying this will defiantly help you because we all cope in different ways but I find this rather affective. I hope I could help.

Explain why you did whatever it was ....to the person(s) you've hurt and then apologize. If the harm caused was of a serious nature, prepare to apologize profusely and offer to do something good for the person or on behalf of the person, you've hurt (let them make a suggestion if you have nothing in mind). A sincere act of kindness is a good start to mending fences that are severely damaged. If you don't confront what happened, you will always be guilty for it. One of the steps in AA is to make amends to those you have wronged. Makes sense.

Thank you that made me feel so much better..really....grow up