Musing on guilt (second in a series)

[drwex]

Once again, this is a think piece intended both to help me record things in my head for later reference and to encourage the sharing of opinions and experiences by my readers. I found the dialog last time incredibly helpful, not least in showing how I was mis-stating things and mis-reading people.

Thesis: guilt is an illusion. There is no such thing, really. I've been fond of saying that "no one can make you feel guilty nonconsensually" and I still believe that. It requires at the very least collusion if not outright acquiescence on my part for someone else to engender feelings of guilt in me. If someone says "I can't believe you _did_ that!" and I start feeling guilty then I have at least somewhat bought into the hypotheses that (a) I shouldn't have done that, and (b) no one who behaves in the right/proper/appropriate manner would do so. And then I further buy into the judgment that the proper response to committing such a misbehavior is shame, and guilt.

If I refused a or b or the consequent I would likely not feel guilty. I might feel regret, particularly if my action caused harm, but not guilt.

So, why do I/we do this? I think it's because we're not dealing with our angers. Guilt is misplaced anger.

I may be angry with myself for behaving in ways I know I should not. I may be angry at the person who points my bad behavior out to me, or who demands I make recompense. I may be angry with a third party; for example, someone who is harmed or frightened by what I intended as a jest or prank. Because I don't admit, deal with, experience, or (yes, sweetmmeblue I'll say it) _process_ my anger properly it hides itself in clothing of guilt.

Being guilty is a form of self-punishment and we learn (I'm watching my kids learn it now) that punishing ourselves is a way of trying to dodge punishment from adults, or our superiors. Bad behavior is punished, and if people are angry or otherwise fail to be contrite after bad behavior we punish them more. The lesson we learn is to hide angers inside our guilts.

An interesting question in here is: If we _did_ learn to deal with our angers, would we be better at shedding our guilts? I think so. I think this has the potential to be incredibly productive.

Comments

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Hrm. interesting. I'm not sure guilt is always anger. Sometimes it is remorse. I believe it's anger in the cases where we make a conscious decision, knowing the consequences, and then

I think 'guilty' is also misused. I'm thinking about this now, so let me list things I feel guilty about:

I feel guilty that I haven't told someone something that is very important to them. I haven't told them because I want to avoid the confrontation that's going to happen, and so long as I tell this person in the next 6 months or so, there's no more or less controversy. So I'm waiting until an appropriate point in a conversation to bring it up (and there will be plenty of them). Is that anger? Anger so internalized, because I know I should do this?

I feel guilty when I eat things that are 'bad' for me. That's likely anger at myself for making a bad decision when I know better.

When I was poorer, I felt guilty for shopping at Wal-Mart. Because I knew I was contributing to an awful system, but what could I do? I needed stuff really cheap, and they were the cheapest. Is that anger? Me being resentful of class issues? I worked through some of that, feeling that I was in a different class at that point, and would move to another class once I had more $$. Then I felt guilty about not liking the class I was in, because it's not universally bad to be poor.

Am I mislabeling these things as guilt?

3 years ago, my mother bought a new car and gave me her old car. Even though I could take public transit to my job, or bike, I took the car. I felt guilty about that, because of class issues. I'm going back to a T commute starting tomorrow, at my new job, but that's because I live in Watertown and the job's at Lechemere, and I'm not driving that.

To combat that particular guilt, I give people rides even if it's out of my way. And I know I'm going to hate waiting for a bus, in the snow, etc. I will have more outright anger at bus drivers, the subway, and people who get in my way. But I won't feel guilty.

I feel some guilt leaving this job, because they don't have a replacement, and they need me. I did a thorough brain dump, gave them my phone #. Am I angry in some way? Angry at the world for putting this position in my lap 8 months too late, so now I'm leaving my job 8 months after I started?

I think you're somewhat right; guilt comes about when we do something we know we shouldn't, but do it anyway (driving to work, leaving a job after 8 months, delaying telling someone something, eating something I shouldn't).

In all these cases, my guilt is not paralyzing.

I will note, though, that guilt is one of the stages in the cycle of violence. abuse (anger, needing to feel in control) -> making up (guilt, remorse on the part of the abuser) -> calm (neutral) -> tension building -> abuse.

Hrm. From what I see, those things above, guilt, for me, is the somewhat childish desire to make a decision and not have negative consequences.