Guilt

I know I have to work at getting better, at coping. I have to put effort into the right way of thinking about things. Part of that effort is recognising what is a help and what is a hindrance and, thereafter, not only focusing on ways of thinking that help but also awareness of ways of thinking don’t help and, importantly, addressing those hindrances.

Of course, there are negative feelings aside from guilt that I have to address as they occur- anger (rarer than I had feared in the early days, fortunately), alienation, self-centredness- but guilt, as I have recognised it in others, is particularly dangerous to one’s mental health. 

I have allowed myself pleasures almost whenever they have shown themselves in the last year. It has been an essential act of recovery to allow myself these little peaks of happiness spiking their way through the plateau of sadness. I have been very consciously aware that many people can feel a gradation of guilt from a creeping insidiousness to full-blown, overwhelming destructiveness. As a mental health nurse I have met patients who appear to crumble and fold in on themselves because of guilt as if acid had dissolved their bones, their human structure. Guilt has an immense destructive power and I always felt it important to aggressively reject “guilt-creep” so if I have ever begun to notice those type of feeling rearing their ugly head I give myself a good kick up the bum and remind myself that I will allow myself pleasure, I have earned the right to enjoyment, I give myself permission. 

I tell myself, even when I am sad, I should expect fun times and grasp them when they happen. That way I am not taken aback when I find myself laughing. Good times, even if they are very few and fleeting, are a foil to the grief. The laughter might feel a little barbed and misplaced but it is laughter nevertheless, it is well-meant and natural, and is essential to feeling normal again (whatever my new “normal” may become). It has been an essential component of getting better and I refuse to let guilt mess that up. I refuse.