Guilt

Over the past few days I’ve been struck with the realization that I seek “Father Figures” in my relationships with people (men in particular) but I also choose the more nurturing, outwardly caring, “mothering” women to get close to as well. I am becoming conscious of all the times I willingly gave up my sense of self to someone else. I am becoming conscious of every decision I wanted to make, but never did, allowing someone else to take “control”. I am also becoming VERY aware of my lifestyle choices and WHY I have chose to live the life I do.

Today in one of the sessions the topic was GUILT. The warm up was to describe how you interpret guilt, how you do or don’t use guilt, and what your experience with guilt is. I answered with “The first word that comes to mind is manipulation. I manipulate other people to feel guilt, and I manipulate myself to NOT feel it” The rest of the group went around and indicated how they feel and then the group got underway.

As the conversation was developing it came around to this:

Person A said “I don’t really feel guilty for borrowing things without telling people because I always return the thing I borrowed”

I jumped into the conversation and replied with “This is like looking into a mirror with my childhood. My sister and I were always in and out of each others closets and rooms borrowing whatever we wanted without asking. We used to fight like pro- wrestlers about it. My mom actually put deadbolts on our doors to keep us out of each others rooms”

Therapist asks “So, you don’t ‘steal with the intent to return’ things anymore?

I said “well no, everything in my house is mine. I don’t need to ask permission to use any of it”(at this point I am thinking “oh how clever! I one-upped the therapist!”…I should’ve known it was my first mistake)

Person B enters the conversation and says “So you pay for all the music you have downloaded onto your mp3 player?”

I said “Umm…no. I use the free peer to peer sharing programs for that”

Therapist asks “So, why don’t you pay for music?”

I replied with “Well, then I would have to buy the CD which only has one or two good songs on it, and it would be a waste of money”

Therapist asks “So, you feel entitled to receive something someone else created for free? And you feel no guilt in downloading music?”

I replied with “Umm… maybe not entitled, but if everyone else is doing it, what’s the harm in me doing it too?”

Therapist replies with “What would you have to look at if you acknowledged that you did feel guilty for doing that?”

I then stopped and looked at him like he had three heads, all the while thinking that I have truly never felt guilty for downloading free music…I never felt guilty for having a computer that was made out of completely illegally downloaded programs, I used to brag that it was a “hacked” system that a friend of mine had put together for me…then I thought about it a little more. I did feel better about myself and my use of the computer when I bought a new hard drive in December. I remember installing Windows Office from a disk rather than a zip file and thinking about how much easier it was, and how I had all of the options it comes with. I remembered feeling like I was now using something that someone else had created in the way it was supposed to be used. At that point I entered back into the conversation.

I said “If I acknowledge that I feel guilty for misusing something then I have to acknowledge that I am dishonest, disrespectful, immoral, and really not entitled to the things I think I am”

Therapist looks at me with a smile and says “And then what?”

I look back at him and I can almost feel my facial expression go “huh?!”

Therapist finally realizes that I am working my ass off trying to understand and he asks me “Christine, what are the emotional differences between Guilt, Shame, and Remorse?”

I quickly replied the logical answer of “Guilt is the initial feeling of having done something knowingly wrong... which would lead to shame, for knowing better than to have caused yourself guilt...and then remorse out of guilt, because fundamentally that is how we feel when we've done something wrong”

Therapist smirks at me and gives a dry laugh and says “I wondered how long it would take before your brain took over again”

I look at the therapist again with a “huh?!” expression and reply with “Well, to acknowledge those feelings as valid, then I would have to admit that I truly want people to think I am honest. Not just upfront, blunt, someone that tells it like it is, uncompromising in my beliefs…but rather, someone people will say ‘yes, I know Christine, she is honest’. In acknowledging those feelings as valid, I would also have to face that I have never heard that. I have heard all the other things I mentioned, but never has someone said ‘I turn to you because you are honest’.”

Therapist asks “And how do you use these feelings in relationships?”

I look blank for a minute and then say “I don’t ask for what I need. I don’t ask for what I want. I simply take what I want and feel entitled to it. I get cold and distant until the person figures out for themselves what I need. I make people responsible for my happiness, successes, failures, everything. I transfer all responsibility of myself to someone else.”

Therapist smiles again and says “What do you feel you need or want that you have never received from someone you really wanted it from?”

I stare at him with eyes that I could feel popping out of my head and mutter “Christ, I use guilt to make people into Father Figures. I knew I manipulated people into guilt so I could always get what I wanted without me having to actually ask for it, but I didn’t realize that I was also creating a personality for them to encompass and act like when they were with me.”

Therapist then says “we have to end there, have a good weekend”

Now I am trying to figure out HOW it ALL seems to tie into Father Figures and what exactly I feel that I needed and wanted from my dad.

I know what I wanted and needed from my dad. I am now old enough to understand why it was an impossible task for him to accomplish. Understanding unfortunately does not always mean acceptance. This is where I am struggling. I always used to say “guilt is an emotion I don’t feel…I am a very hard person to make feel guilty” now the big bitchslap I recieved from irony is having the last laugh.

How do you come to terms with, accept, that you never got what you wanted? That someone never cared enough to give you what you needed?

All I’ve gotta say is I’ve still got a lot of work to do….thank god it’s the weekend…and psychotherapy still sucks.