Handling guilt the right way.
“Cutting toxic people out of your life isn’t the hard part; the hard part is dealing with the guilt for doing so.”
If you’re feeling guilty that you can not help?
Feeling guilty that you’ve had to stop the kids from contact with their own parents for safeguarding from abuse?
Feeling guilty, you’ve had to walk away from your own parents?
Feeling guilty because you’ve had to block and delete their friends and family?
Feeling guilty about walking away from a toxic person because all they do is bring you down?
Stop feeling guilty now. You’re a good person that’s done your best in challenging, horrendous circumstances. It’s ok.
When you feel guilty about having to do something for your own happiness, it stops you from doing something practical and right to change it.
You end up finding and making excuses that stop you from doing what you need to do to take control and solve the problem.
“One of the worst things about excuses is, within our minds, they are very valid.”
Guilt can be a very self-destructive emotion when it’s not used in the correct way. Guilt is there to stop us from doing wrong things, yet, when people use our own empathy against us, it can keep us locked in situations we shouldn’t be in. You do not have to feel guilty for walking away from those who don’t feel any guilt or remorse for hurting you, you’ve not done anything wrong, you did not deserve the trauma, you do deserve happiness, and you have the choice to walk away guilt-free.
You need to stop finding excuses for not cutting them out; things, like I feel, mean their mother, father, brother, sister, the third cousin twice removed never did me any harm, I’m going to look like a horrible person.
You need to have a different attitude to any mistakes you’ve made, any reactions you made to the narcissist, and you’re far from alone in reacting; you need a different attitude to those misdeeds.
Children are rather practical, those who’ve not learnt about guilt yet, (yes they need to be taught about it, so they don’t grow to harm others.) But you need to teach them and yourself to get realistic about your guilt, for not listening to your instincts, for reacting, for going no contact, for anything and everything you feel guilty about within that relationship and after that relationship.
If you’ve made a mistake, and either you feel ashamed of it, the narcissist in your life had made you feel ashamed, or you feel like others will judge you, and you can not handle that because you feel ashamed and guilty.
You go around protecting your ego, and your pride, for fear of being judged by others.
You need to know, and always remember, we all make mistakes, even if a narcissist will never admit to theirs and lay all the blame on your door, making you feel even worse; we are all human, it’s never a failure to make a mistake.
We all make mistakes; we have no choice in that. We have no way around not making a single mistake or sometimes repeating that same mistake; life happens, making mistakes is all about learning, we can not learn unless we make mistakes along the way.
Thomas Edison, the great inventor’s quote who took 1000 attempts to invent the light bulb, said.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
You must never be afraid of making a mistake, or how many times you change your approach and still make a mistake, just learn from it, until you get the lesson, some of those lessons are rough, they are hard, remember bad times don’t come to stay, they come to pass.
You are doing those things for freedom. Freedom is being allowed to make mistakes. You made mistakes. You ignored your instinct. You tried to help; you’re not alone in this trying to help; this makes you a good person. Still, now you have got to let them go, lose the guilt, lose the ego and lose your pride, so you can learn from your mistakes, change direction in your life and do whatever is necessary for your freedom and happier life.
We are allowed mistakes; we are allowed errors in judgment. We are allowed to take action to protect ourselves. We are allowed to become free from all that guilt, hurt and pain we’ve been through.
Once you have a clear reality of what has actually happened, don’t do it again. Or at least realise sooner what is happening.
You are not alone if you went back a few times, trauma bonding and not knowing reality, you are not alone if you went from one narcissistic relationship, then met another narcissist, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, or you cause it, all that means is you didn’t learn all the facts of what they were, you didn’t truly know you, you were healing scars and deep wounds you didn’t think you even had, now you do you can heal them the right way, be aware and not make the same mistake.
Listen to your intuition; it’s a wonderful gift, even if you don’t know what it’s telling you at the time, as it usually turns out to be right.
The narcissists shaming, blaming and guilt-tripping.
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The narcissists counter-parenting.
Elizabeth Shaw is not a Doctor or a therapist. She is a mother of five, a blogger, a survivor of narcissistic abuse, and a life coach; she always recommends you get the support you feel comfortable and happy with. Finding the right support for you. Elizabeth has partnered with BetterHelp (Sponsored.) where you will be matched with a licensed councillor, who specialises in recovery from this kind of abuse.
Overcoming anger and resentment.
Forgiveness.
Awesome post and you are 150% Correct! Survivors world-wide need to know and remember this!
Thank you.