Episode 13: What Your Guilt Is Trying to Tell You

In this episode,

Lizzie covers guilt: everyday guilt versus traumatic guilt, how to tell which is which, and why everyday guilt can be helpful in understand ourselves better.

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Post-pod questions to consider

When is the last time you felt guilty for something? What do you think this emotion was trying to tell you?

Episode Transcript

Hey. You are listening to Midnight Philosopher with Lizzie. Thanks for tuning in. I'm sorry my voice sounds slightly raspy. I have a slight cold. 

Anyway, today, I'm going to talk about guilt. At its core, guilt is the feeling that lets you know when you did something wrong or something that went against your own moral compass. However, many trauma survivors often feel guilt for things that were, to be extremely blunt, not their fault. These feelings of guilt often come from the woulda, coulda, shoulda. If only I had done this thing instead or if only I had known better. 

And while normal guilt is helpful for keeping you on the right track, traumatic guilt often keeps trauma survivors stuck. Trying to blame trying to take the blame for something that's not your fault can erode your self esteem and not and make you feel not super great. I felt guilty many times in my life. Um, in my early twenties, I went through several traumatic events, and I felt guilt for them. I felt that they were somehow my fault when they really, really weren't. And that guilt kept me up at night. Literally, I would feel I would blame myself for things that happened. I would I went through the woulda, shoulda, coulda, But, in reality, it wasn't my fault. 

This traumatic guilt was not helping me. Instead of helping me figure out what I believed was right and wrong, this guilt was more of a way for me to try to control the past. For me to say, like, I had control over this situation, when in fact, I really didn't. Because I couldn't control the past. I couldn't control it when it was in the present time, and now I certainly can't change the past. Traumatic guilt is often an attempt to control the uncontrollable. 

I've also felt guilty other times in my life. I felt guilty about lying to my best friend, Ben. We used to throw parties at my house in high school, And for years and years, I lied to Ben and told him I was recycling all the cans and the bottles that we consumed. I did this because I knew recycling was extremely important to Ben and because I didn't want to disappoint him with the truth that my town didn't offer recycling at that time and everyone in my family was too lazy to drive the recycling somewhere else. 

And I know this was wrong on many levels. Ben was really disappointed when he learned that my family didn't recycle. But, he was much more disappointed and annoyed at me for lying to him for years. And rightfully so. His annoyance made sense. Here, my guilt was trying to tell me I was doing something that went against my moral compass. And that was my moral compass knows that my relationship with Ben is so important to me, my friendship with him, and I don't wanna hurt someone I care about or one of the friendships that's closest to me. And so, I went against my moral compass to hurt Ben in this way. Now, Ben and I have since moved past this and and even joke about it now from time to time. Excuse me. But, the guilt I felt was real and was valid and made sense in this situation. 

Another time I felt guilty was not coming out sooner as bisexual. To not be my authentic self was going against my moral compass because a strong value of mine is to be true to myself. And so, when I wasn't following that value, it was going against my beliefs. I know I had my reasons to keeping it to myself, but the guilt was letting me know that something in my life needed to change. The guilt I felt about not living my true identity was good motivation to help me accept and love myself and come out. Values are really, really important and guilt lets you know when you're not following your values. 

And I think that's just another reason why it's really important to figure out your values and to figure out what you believe in and to figure out what you believe is right and wrong because that'll help you know when guilt makes sense or when guilt is traumatic guilt and doesn't make sense. So, to recap, traumatic guilt can be quite harmful, but regular guilt can actually be kinda helpful. Regular guilt can tell you when you're doing something against your morals or it can help guide you in your decisions to live a truer and more meaningful life. 

Traumatic guilt, however, is often an attempt to control a situation you had no control over. And this kind of guilt can keep you stuck because, think about it, if you are blaming yourself for something that was not your fault, that is keeping you stuck in the mud. You are not able to walk out of that mud because you are sinking in your traumatic guilt for believing that what happened was your fault. You are literally stuck. And, I think it's important to remember that trauma is not your fault. Trauma is never your fault. No matter what happened to you or with you, trauma is not your fault, chances are you were doing the best you could at the time. And so, when you hold this traumatic guilt, it's heavy. It weighs you down. It makes you sad and and stuck. It makes you lethargic. It gets trapped in your body. And so it's important to remember that traumatic guilt is not help is not helpful, you know, thinking about the would've, the could've, the should've is not helpful. 

And I think it's important that when you start thinking about what I could've done, what I should've done, what I would've done, that you just literally ask yourself, is this helpful? Is this a helpful thought for me to be having? And if you come to the conclusion that it's not a helpful thought, then it's best to try to change your thinking. And the way you can do this with, again, you know, my favorite, go back to it. But, you can do this with compassion. You can say to yourself, no. It wasn't my fault. And I wish I could have controlled the past. I wish I could have controlled what happened, but I couldn't. 

And that is really hard to hold. That I had no control over this horrible situation is hard to hold, and I'm still a great person with great values and morals, and I did the best I could at the time. And look how far I've come. I think being proud of yourself for how far you've you've come from something is also really important and can also be an antidote to traumatic grief. Like, being proud that you survived what you did is, um, kind of the opposite of blaming yourself for what happened. 

So this episode was about guilt and it was about guilt and traumatic guilt and, um, kind of how to, uh, handle and deal with both of those things. I would love if you followed me on Instagram, the midnight philosopher, um, and I would love if you checked out my website. The link is on Instagram and you can check out reviews and, um, there's, uh, episode transcripts. So if you're more of a visual learner, you can look at those instead of listening to my podcast. 

Well, thanks so much for listening tonight. I'm gonna go steal a cookie from someone now. Just kidding. I'd feel guilty about that. Have a good night.