Guilty 24/7

Has anyone ever felt this way? Let me give a quick example. My dad got this thing for our cats that he only uses during Christmas to make sure that the cats don't go under the tree and eat it and tear the ornaments off the tree. Well he pulled it out one day and found out that the batteries corroded the inside of the battery place so it can't conduct. This made me feel terribly guilty. Like I should have known that this was going to happen ahead of time. I have no idea why I get these guilty things washing through me but I always do. For instance if you were to go see a movie and not like it I would feel guilty for not telling you it was going to be bad even though I have never seen the movie before. It's a horrible cycle and no one seems to understand in my family but myself. Help please!

Oh, yes! Guilty for everything. Responsible for everything. I can't claim to understand the phenomenon, but I experience it to an unhealthy degree. My mind has the ability to "rationally" prosecute me for just about any event to which I am remotely -- or imaginarily -- connected.

Goodness, I sometimes experience waves of sadness and guilt over events which predate my birth.

My current best guess as to why I am this way is that family dynamics shaped me to assume responsibility for my parents' happiness. Consequently, the roots of this problem are anchored in early childhood.

[old, related post]

(...runs off feeling guilty for not having a definitive answer or remedy...)

The guilt you are feeling is not irrational, as you have nothing to feel guilty about; however, I know that you have probably been told this time and time again by friends and family. So I know that telling you that probably won't help anything. I'm sure that this relates to some deep psychological trauma. SOMETHING happened in your past that was not in any way your fault, but that you blame yourself for. I'm sure that it must have been something quite traumatic. Its probably manifesting itself in this irrational feeling of guilt that you experience. This is something that would best be worked out with a professional therapist.

The true guilt/false guilt dichotomy: http://www.letsgrow.org/articles/index.asp?s=7&post=147
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archive...ng-with-guilt/

better to have no guilt at all,, but it's not a choice, either way,,, maybe anxiety reductions skills would be useful to you, flawless ? sure hope you find a way to minimize those feelings,, they must be a terrible burden~~ Best wishes,, Gus

I feel that way all the time... everything that i do... say, always so guilty...
its such an awful feeling too. I hope things get better for you! I am still just trying to tell myself i really have nothing to feel guilty about, it kinda works sometimes.. but i usually have to wait the feeling out, or wait for something else to make me feel guilty and obsess about. Huggs

That happens to me! Especially the movie thing! Whenever my friends want to see a movie, I always make them pick because if I pick the movie and it sucks, I'm going to feel REALLY guilty for "making" them see a bad movie, even though clearly we all agreed on it and I didn't know it was going to be bad ahead of time.

I don't know how to make the feeling go away, but I do know I can decide whether or not I'll listen to my guilty thoughts. I try to figure out if there's a rational reason for feeling guilty, if I really did anything WRONG. The best thing for me is to pretend someone else did whatever I'm feeling guilty for, and then to decide whether I'd blame them for it. For instance if my friend suggested we see a movie that turned out to be bad, I wouldn't think it was their fault for a second. If I don't blame them, then I try to remind myself it's irrational to blame myself.