…self blame and/or excessive guilt…
Do I have to write about this Ghost?
I shouldered the blame for just over four decades. My thoughts were I was guilty, am gulty, always will be guilty. Somehow that was okay with me… until last year… when the weight of the self blame and excessive guilt crushed me.
I felt guilty for failing. For hiding. For fighting. For conceding. For objecting. For not speaking out. For speaking out. For quitting. For persisting.
Perhaps carrying the guilt of my boyhood mistakes is bearable but the mistakes of an adult are unbearable. Perhaps the burden of failing to protect a sister, a brother, a cousin, and a mother is bearable but failing to protect your children is too much. Whatever changed inside, I am thankful. Thankful for being crushed.
Over the course of this past year, my therapist would ask me, “Why can’t you carry this?” [all the blame and all the guilt] After about ten times in as many sessions she asked me to stand up and hold out my hands. She took a book from the shelf and said, “This is not protecting your sister.” Then another book and another failure. After each book, she asked again. “Why can’t you carry all this, Ric?”
After about a dozen books, tears . “Its too much,” I admitted.
Its funny how we can know the gospel but not believe it for ourselves.
A look of finally washed over my therapist’s face. So I completed that statement in my mind without voicing it, “for me” … which is a good lead-in to the next ghost.
Filed under: Faith, Family, Learning, Life, mountains | Tagged: abuse, Ghosts, survivors
What an awesome therapist you have!
I pray God can use me as effectively when I start practicing.
“It’s too much for me.” What a humbling acknowledgement of having no control ourselves and God having ALL of it.
Tougher to put into action and practice in our everyday lives but the acknowledgment is the first and most crucial step.
Congratulations on making it.
I meant to say taking it but the “making it” serves a purpose too, huh?!
Hey Braveone, I think God is using you pretty effectively right now.
‘Its funny how we can know the gospel but not believe it for ourselves.’
strike out ‘funny’ and insert ‘human’.
Guilt (for things we have not done or manage to convince ourselves was our ‘fault’ somehow.) sucks big time.
Same goes for ‘blame’ for things we have not done or were not personally responsible for.
Blaming a child in their innocence is particularly disgusting
<B.
ah yes. Abuse destroys the fabric of identity and lays all the blame of it’s own actions on the shoulders of its victims. Guilt. I hate it.