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Is it rational? Is it irrational? Is it about control?

Consider what your guilt is all about.

Acknowledge that guilt is a normal grief emotion and don’t let others minimize the validity of your grief experience.

Īs usual, the question becomes what do you DO about guilt? Here are some quick tips for coping with guilt: A perception of control (however inaccurate) is often more comforting than considering that we have no control. As long as we hold on to guilt we have hope that we could have controlled the outcome. If we accept that we never could have known or changed the outcome we must accept that some things that happen are complete outside our control. If we think we could have done something differently that would have changed the outcome of a loss, that can provide comfort that there is a rational order to things and that we have some control. The bottom line is this: without someone or something to blame, we have to accept that the universe may be unpredictable and chaotic. This is a big reason for why we experience guilt and blame, though as grievers we often fail to see this connection. Despite being irrational, this guilt can be consuming. Our irrational brain will find just about anything to feel guilty about. As we have been known to say, grief makes you crazy! We dissect every moment of time with our loved one, we consider every ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’ you can imagine. There are many, many times that we grievers are completely irrational. It could be as small as something hurtful we said, or something meaningful we failed to say.īecause we feel like we did something wrong.Īs our dear cyber-friend Marty over at has been known to say, just because you feel guilty doesn’t mean you are guilty. That may be as large as a grievous error in judgment or mistake that led to a death.

Sometimes we fail to do things we wish we had done or should have done. We make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes have significant consequences. But first and foremost, we need to accept that guilt is a common and normal feeling in grief.Īs much as people are quick to say something wasn’t our fault or we shouldn’t feel guilty, a reality of life is that we all screw up sometimes. So, when it comes to why we feel guilt, it is important to reflect on the reasons for our guilt and then consider ways we can cope with guilt. We can’t stop feeling guilty because someone tells us to – sorry, that’s sadly just not how feelings works. Feelings need to be validated and we need to find ways to accept, integrate, and move forward with these feeling. If you missed it, we wrote a post a while back about why you should never tell a griever not to feel guilty. In case you were worried, that is a totally normal reaction.

#Tormented souls blood bag how to#

If you’re like me, your inner-angsty-14-year-old probably screamed “don’t tell me how to feel, you don’t know me!!”. If you have ever felt guilt associated with your loss and articulated it to someone else there is a good chance you heard some variation of, “oh, don’t feel guilty!” or “you shouldn’t feel that way, it wasn’t your fault”. So today we are thinking about, talking about, and embracing guilt and grief (well, sort of).

We have had a lot of comments about guilt on the blog and facebook lately. In our experience most grievers have some level of guilt associated with their loss – sometimes big, sometimes small. Now, we could just assume I have guilt issues (quite possible) but luckily I have worked with enough grievers over the years to know that my guilt when grieving is the rule, not the exception. I rehashed all the things I felt I should have done, all the negative thoughts I had over the years, and approximately a million other guilt-thoughts that often plague survivors of substance losses. When my sister’s boyfriend died of an overdose years later, my guilt went to a new level. I had guilt that I hadn’t called him more during my first year of college, guilt that in the hospital we had told him it was okay to let go and that we would be okay without him. I felt guilt that I wasn’t a match for a bone marrow transplant, though rationally I knew I had no control over that. Though his death didn’t fit into one of the categories known for guilt, that didn’t stop me from feeling guilty. When my dad died I remember well the intense guilt I had in the months that followed. Is this Normal?, Grief Articles for Beginners, Guilt in Grief