- Username
- c444tmommy
- Date posted
- 4y ago
Guilt is a normal emotion to have a normal amount of. Compulsions which cause the guilt to linger are not fair on you. The last thing you need on top of everything you're already dealing with is a new real-event guilt OCD. Because you say "my mind is making me", I'm going to respond to the post on the assumption that you've been developing guilt OCD of repeatedly thinking about all the stuff you feel guilty for and it making you feel worse. You/the OCD may have put him through stuff that wasn't fun, yeah, it sucks but it happened. You could feel guilty about it, but it wouldn't change it or fix it. You could analyse exactly what bits of it were your responsibility or down to your choices or the precise impact on him, all to know exactly how guilty you ought to feel. But it wouldn't help. It wouldn't undo it or give you closure or enlighten you. Guilt never helps except when it is accepted, felt, and used to guide future behaviour away from repeating mistakes. Dwelling on guilt helps nobody, makes nothing better, keeps you stuck and dooms you to repeating the same situation. My recommendation is to let yourself feel all the guilt you have built up, even the stuff caused/increased from the obsessing. Feel the emotions in your body only, DON'T do mental compulsions like ruminating, analysing, problem solving, looking for places you could've made better decisions, remembering good or bad memories, etc. Do none of that. Concentrate on the sensations of the feelings in your body. Do that until they're gone. It can take hours if you've built a lot up. After you've done that, you'll feel better. Less guilt-ridden thoughts, less urges to dwell on or solve them. In future, feel guilt before trying to solve it/analyse it and instead of doing compulsions, as often as possible. If in fact you haven't developed OCD compulsions around the guilt and you're just feeling pretty guilty about stuff it makes sense to feel that amount of guilty about, then what I said about feeling it instead of obsessing over it, is still what you should do. Feeling guilt gets you to the point of being able to accept what happened, forgive yourself and do better, as well as being able to identify what stuff is probably not your fault or what things you can't change. If you stay drowning in guilt, you'll feel so extra overwhelmed with that, that the stuff you know is a problem will inevitably continue. Feeling feelings brings you a clear mind, flexibility and an understanding of your options and can even mean you get really cool epiphany ideas about creative solutions to some of your problems. Continuing in your OCD may feel like you're scratching an itch but in truth you're digging a hole through your own flesh. It may be scary to stop doing damaging compulsions, but it makes our lives better: clarity, lower stress, more sense of choice about what we do/say and how we treat people.
I understand completely. I feel the exact same way when it comes to my family and boyfriend. I feel so guilty and ashamed because of my issues and everything they have had to deal with due to my mental health issues.
exactly and sometimes i feel like why would my bf wanna be with me when he could be with someone else that’s more neurotypical
I feel guilty too for what I put my boyfriend through. I love him dearly and he’s one of my biggest motivations to seek treatment and get better for the both of us. Guilt is a normal emotion to have, and it’s important to make space for it because we know what happens when we try shove emotions away ? One thing that could be useful is opening a conversation with your boyfriend about how he feels, how he’s dealing with this and so on. Supporting each other through hard times can be really helpful.
I didn’t realise this before but I do now. I’ve been emotionally abusive to my boyfriend and I feel physically sick about it. I can’t forgive myself I just can’t. I’ve never felt this low.
anybody ever still feel a guilty feeling in ur chest kinda like anxiety even if u didn’t do anything wrong? i told the truth to my bf about smthng and my brain keeps making me feel like i lied even though i haven’t. im honest with him about everything, but my brain is telling me the only way to get relief is to admit to lying but i didn’t lie so it wouldn’t even make me feel better at all. i was uncertain about a message i had sent to someone and my brain is saying i lied to him bc im uncertain but i told him i was uncertain. my brain is always making me feel guilt and shame and ive felt like this before and it passed but this feels like it’s never going to go away and i see him in 2 hours and im scared im gonna ruin it
It feels so terrible to doubt whether he’s “good enough” and stuff like that. I hate fighting with my thoughts. I love him and want to stick with him and I am getting immeasurable guilt to the point I’ve harmed myself :(
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