Abusers have the “seeds of guilt” that they plant in their victim’s brain. Guilt becomes part of their bloodstream. A parasite in their system. A silent killer that no one can see. But it’s there. The victims think that there’s something wrong with them. That they’re going crazy because they feel sick and there’s no diagnosis. Guilt is the abusers’ ultimate weapon to control their victims.
Guilt is what I called emotional cancer.
The negative thoughts are the bad cells. They reproduced in a crazy and nonstop-able way creating tumors in the victims’ feelings and emotions.
While I lived with guilt I believed that everything was my fault and that I didn’t have the right to think about my needs. Guilt hides behind emotions and feelings. It constantly controls you making you blind. It stops you from feeling anything good. It makes you think and feel that you don’t deserve anything good. I always felt that I didn’t deserve anything, and I felt that I didn’t have the right to anything. Living like this makes it impossible to love yourself. Guilt makes you and wants you to live in fear. Guilt has many faces, many costumes, so it contaminates every emotion, every thought and feeling you have. It poisons every aspect of your life, every event, every night, and every relationship. I couldn’t enjoy a nice moment, or a party, or going out to eat, or buying a shirt, or just being on the sofa watching a show or a movie because I felt that I didn’t deserve something like that.
Guilt stops you from taking care of yourself, and protecting you. Guilt spreads like a vine, it traps and strangles everything on its way, it makes everything confusing. Guilt holds you responsible for everything you are not. It paralyzes you, it pushes you down. It doesn’t let you be in your own skin. It stops you from setting boundaries. It forces you to do others’ job even though it’s going to be a failure. It doesn’t allow you to see that the world is a world of possibilities. Guilt steels your life.
Guilt forces you to look down with shame. Shame and guilt are best friends.
Guilt makes you loose opportunities, and to resign to live. It makes you do things out of guilt and not because you want to. When you feel guilt you build relationships out of guilt, and your behavior is repairing what you “did,” so you are constantly fixing something you didn’t do.
Guilt was so fused in my skin, that my life was constantly contaminated by it. The flowers that my husband gave me to make me happy would smell like guilt. The fabric of a new dress would feel like guilt. If I ate an ice cream, I could taste the guilt. The birds that woke me up in the morning would sound like guilt. Guilt can destroy your life; it can ruin even the simplest moment. Guilt makes you feel that you deserve to live in misery and in an eternal punishment.
When living in guilt you are not the owner of your life.
Guilt controls your mind and your emotions forcing you to live behind the bars, bars that are more resistant and cold than the real iron bars. It looks like you can go anywhere, but you’re really behind those bars, in jail. It looks or feels like you can make decisions, but guilt is the one that makes those decisions. Guilt had never let me be compassionate with myself. Guilt had a very loud voice inside of my mind.
If I was happy, how you dare? If I was sad, how ungrateful! Instead of asking yourself what makes you feel good or right, and honor and respect what you feel. Working on loving, respecting, understanding, accepting ourselves it’s vital to brake free from guilt.
Nobody taught me to love myself. It was selfish. I never set any kind of boundaries because that meant to be mean and disrespectful, unloving and disloyal.
Charity, my counselor, taught me an exercise to discriminate the lies and the truths. Every time the guilt tells you something, think, “What’s The Opposite? Because guilt is a liar, the opposite will be true. For example, “I am a failure.” Lie. It’s what guilt says. The truth says, “I am victorious and I will see that when the dust settles.” Guilt says, “I’m a bad person.” Lie. The truth says, “I am human.” When I start feeling thoughts or emotions of guilt I say, “I did my best, and I’m still doing it.”
Working hard to overcome trauma and abuse has given me the strength to fight guilt.
I might have to work on this for the rest of my life. The good thing is that I can see it now. I know when it shows up to try to control me. Now I know how to deal with it. I can see me. Who I’m being and becoming. If I can see me and be aware of my thoughts, feelings and emotions, I can protect myself and make better decisions for my healing journey and process.
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