Guilt – The frustrations of an overthinker

Guilt, Only I can set me free ….

Guilt is my leach-like companion, the vicious little bastard. It’s always there, lingering about, ready to pull me down at any moment. When I’m happy enough, it’ll give me a reminder by doing shit like making me compare myself negatively to others or ask me self-doubting questions.

She’s such a pain that I try avoid her or soothe myself sometimes in good ways and sometimes in less than good ways. ‘Doing’ is a big avoidance and self-soothing strategy. It serves so much. I’m distracted, thinking less and can self-righteously tell myself that I’m ok especially if I’m doing something like cooking or working as this of tangible worth.

Failing doing stuff, because I can’t ‘do’ stuff all the time (although the crazed psycho Guilt would say that I fucking can be doing things of worth all the time tbf), there’s Guilt’s good ol buddy who’s ever ready to support her, Alcohol. Yeah, alcohol is fab for self-soothing, having a break from it all and fooling yourself into thinking you’re the coolest fucker in the entire world. Guilt loves alcohol as it can take joyful power from you having it ‘ha, you fucked up again – you talked like a twat, made yourself ill, spent too much money …..’

I’m told we should move towards the parts of us that make us feel uneasy or bad so maybe I should befriend the annoying twat. But then, I avoid annoying twats in life because they’re annoying fucking twats.

I did find once that if I smother them (with attention, not a blanket although that would be a more enduring solution), they fuck off, so maybe I should embrace and rejoice in guilt. I may run around pronouncing to the world all the things I do that fuel the guilt. If you see me walking about shouting stuff like – ‘I did fuck all this evening other than look at shit on social media’, ‘the kids drove me crazy today and I stopped them playing Xbox’ or ‘I got pissed last night so have slept in but still feel horribly hungover so I have little time or energy for my family’. Maybe quietly owning my behaviours and reassuring myself that I’ve made these behavioural choices (possibly fuelled by guilt in some way anyway) would be a little more dignified?

On reflection, beneath the guilt is most probably shame and this drives the guilt. Maybe no matter how much I manage the guilt, the driving force still remains, creating more and more like an unstoppable crazy wind turbine caught in an infinite hurricane.

Resolve the shame and the guilt will go? Shame can live within us all so very easily and we carry it unknowingly from our childhood into adulthood and wonder why the fuck we behave so ridiculously sometimes. Self-sabotage is a big indicator of this.

‘Things happen for a reason …… therefore I can do what the fuck I want’

I did something bad this morning. Not intentionally and not bad bad like stealing a child’s sweets or feeling boobs in the nursing home (not since the ban anyway). So, I got my brilliant car cleaned and felt the need to zoom about to dry her off a bit. She likes to zoom about a bit as that’s what she was made for and I feel her pain when the Nazi speed laws restrict her. It wouldn’t be fair to enforce a sprinter to only ever jog now would it, but the road police think it’s ok to restrict my car – one rule for one ….

Anyhoo, I was accelerating and a learner who is turning right out of a road, pulls out across the dual carriageway in front of us (me and the car) and manoeuvres into the left-hand lane. In their lane, there was a parked van which meant they had to stop or pull into my lane. I was inconsiderate in that I didn’t slow down meaning they had to stop, but they didn’t! They started to move into my lane and I had to do an emergency stop then safely passed them. I was pissed off with the instructor for allowing this shit to happen especially without any indicating. So, as I passed the learner, I noticed that there was a test examiner in the passenger seat. Fuuuccckkkk. I’ve fucked up somebody’s day. They would have failed their test.

As a I drove, I tried to push away the feelings of guilt then sought to justify my actions in some way. As part of my process, the thought ‘things happen for a reason’ popped into my noodle. Yes, they fucking do. Maybe my actions mean that this person fails her test and the consequences of this is that she doesn’t get into an accident next week and in some way, I have saved lives. Fuck, maybe I should drive like a twat always if it saves lives. I could single-handedly relieve the NHS but then also contribute to over-population? Hmm, it’s a tricky dilemma? My actions could also cause a negative effect where the failed-test-examinee goes home and murders her partner. But then, that would happen for a reason – maybe it was his/her time?

So, generally, the concept of ‘things happen for a reason’ is often used to allow us to feel better about the bad things that happen to us. It soothes us and helps us come to terms with stuff. However, and most brilliantly, it can also help us to do what the fuck we want. ‘Sorry I bit into your burger as you held it, but things happen for a reason’. ‘Sorry I just felt your nan’s boobs, but things happen for a reason’.

As a group and as a society, we should accept and embrace this concept. Let narcissistic sociopathy flourish, yeahh.