[___Shadow___]

Says Have NO guilt!!
Said that being like this means to throw guilt out the door and just try to learn from it.
What do you think?
I've felt guilt all my life, for everything I do how could I stop now?
Is guilt your worst putter downer?

[Monty_girl]

Shadow I don't know how you make it stop.
My hubby always tells me it's not my fault. But there is always that something in my brain that's always telling me nothing I do is ever right and it's all my fault. Feel like everyones problems are because of something I did wrong. Hubby and T could talk till their blue in the face. I don't know how to make that thinking stop. Feel like I have the word guilt going across my forehead.

[wanttoheal]

I struggle with this as well, even though for others, I agree they did nothing to feel guilty over.

[multipixie9]

Advice is easy to hear and hard to implement. I think it is wonderful that your hubs feels that way. Sometimes my hubs is part of who keeps the guilt in my life. I feel like such a failure around him sometimes. He seems to think I should be able to "just get over it". I can't do that.

I do know that things are better with me than they used to be. I have had to begin to learn how to talk differently to myself. I have to practice speaking the truth to myself and practice recognizing and rejecting the lies I was taught by abusers when I was small.

Time is the word. It all takes time to change and I want change NOW. Or I find that its time to change and I then resist the changes.

What frustrates me the most is the changeable way my mind works. Something will seem stable and then shift without warning and it drives me nuts some days. GRRRR

[___Shadow___]

Ya, talking to yourself in a healthy way for u is important, i'm just learning that. Important to say change is in order, yes.
That is what i'm affraid of to, "What frustrates me the most is the changeable way my mind works. Something will seem stable and then shift without warning and it drives me nuts some days. GRRRR " What do we do with all the information when the shift happens,?? eeekk,.
Today i told my hubby another of my very big issues and he said well just say to them, from 9 - 3 is mom/teacher time and after that you'll listen. Everyone quiet thinking about that now except me, if that would work wouldn't i be able to tell myself not to feel all pain and stuff , not to get overwelmed with thoughts, or to behave, how does this work? I do have good hopes, seems everyone inside likes the idea, so is better, just my well if i could do that couldn't i change everything mood, haha, always has to be something wrong, grrrr

[JudeeB]

I certainly agree that you can't wake up one morning and just tell yourself "I won't feel guilty anymore!"

I carried a lot of guilt and shame over the things done TO me. The guilt and shame really belonged to the ones who did those things not me. But it took a long to accept the truth about that.

I also felt guilt over the way my mental health issues affected my loved ones. Yet the truth was they chose how to respond to what was happening with me. Would I have felt guilty over having a disease? Mental health issues seemed different, like I somehow had a choice.

A choice? Not hardly. I had no choice over what I endured as a kid. And of course what was done TO me affected my life, emotions, beliefs and attitudes! Where does guilt fit into that reality?

I'm sorry my issues affected my parenting. I'm sorry I couldn't always be what they needed me to be. But seeking healing and wholeness was my way of getting myself so I could be more there for those I love.

As a kid I always assumed everything was my fault, but I'm not a kid anymore. I can look at the situation through adult eyes and see the way it really was.

I hope in seeking the truth of your life you will one day see you don't need to feel guilty.

Judee

[___Shadow___]

I never thought of it that way before re: would I feel guilty if I had a disease....No
No...guilt doesn't fit into what happened to me as a kid ...it really makes sense that way, but reading this makes total sense , living it doesn't. I will try to remind myself this tho.
That is what I want, to be there for the ones I love-they keep me trying as hard as I can EVERYDAY. A fight that feels unfightable somedays but really cool others. My husband likes the way I am except the very Angry, angry side or the Very very helpless side, I think I floor him, make him feel scared, angry etc. I feel sorry for him yet part of me still rejects him, quickly ahhhh I'm going off on a limb.
I hope we all one day stop feeling all this guilt cause you know with out it, It makes the healing easier and I find giving love easier too, when I'm able to just forget about the guilt for a few hours.

[wanttoheal]

I think it's great that you are able to distinguish between the emotions like that. I struggle with knowing which emotion is which and often do not feel any emotions. The only emotions I generally can realize with some accuracy is fear and anger. T has gone back to elementary learning with me though so that I can learn what each emotion is and how to tell what it looks like (such as body language, etc). Other parts though do seem to hold different emotions, but I do not know if they are aware of what that emotion is. I would find dissociative disorders very fascinating if I did not have one, lol.

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wanttoheal said:
The only emotions I generally can realize with some accuracy is fear and anger.


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Me too!! I think, like you, other emotions are held in other parts of me, and maybe they come out, but I'm not aware of it.

T is helping me identify emotions too. I'll describe kind of how I feel "my arms feel tense, my stomach feels kind of flip-floppy, etc" and he'll help me figure out what the name of the emotion is.

It makes me feel kind of silly to have NO IDEA what I'm feeling....but oh well, that's where I'm at, I guess!

[JudeeB]

I can remember being so clueless about my emotions due to my habit of instantly stuffing them, or an alter holding them, that my t handed me a very long list of emotions. I would read down the list and she would help me or the alter figure out what I/they were feeling.

If I was sad I didn't identify sadness, my response was alway "I'm tired". She would say "stop" that is a physical condition not a feeling.

There must have been over a hundred words on that list. Some days I think I need to find it even now. I can still stuff/repress and numb out or shut down. But at least I can now recognize it.

I had spent so many years not showing emotion I forgot their names!

Hadn't really thought about that in a long time.

Guess it's not all that uncommon..................

Judee

[___Shadow___]

Oh wow, only lately have I realized I have a state which I can't figure the emotion, if it has one. I'm a complete MESS of emotions, not knowing what end is up- one part feels sad the other happy, what to do. When I have two emotions at one time I can't remember much of whats going on, little climpes I think but not a whole. Maybe two parts are fighting-I get that a lot!
hmmm, I wonder why I'm so different than all of you then? It's the emotions That make things hard. I don't know up from down.
I'll go ranting on about how sad I am just as I'm all tearful, another feeling come over me and I wonder what all the fuss was. I feel the tears on my face but don't feel that emotion, at all. I know I did rant on but poof I'm spared of that for a time.

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___Shadow___ said:
It's the emotions That make things hard.

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Yes, totally! For me, I think part of what is so hard is not being able to "name" the emotions. I'll just feel like a big mess of BAD, and it's kind of scary - not knowing what it is, what caused it, what will make it go away. A lot of times, I'll just kind of switch and then I'm not dealing with it anymore. It's when I'm trapped and don't dissociate and CAN'T dissociate that the emotions overwhelm me and I start turning toward other unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Hey! Typing that just now, I just realized how much dissociating really HAS protected me over the years. If I can "check out", then I don't need the unhealthy coping stuff. Huh. I guess it's like Judee B said - we're not "crazy"!

[___Shadow___]

Oh Phew, I thought maybe I was the only one with Messy Emotions and would have to seek another form of help for yet another thing. I do really feel for those of you not able to feel an emotion tho. I do think that would be hard too. Feeling all these Emotions is hard for me but not feeling them would be so hard too. I think everyone has a hard in their life so this is just how we are, heehee