Guilt! That dreadful feeling when you have not done something to the standards of another person. That is not the dictionary meaning, but my meaning. It's what it means to me.
Living with guilt most of my life has caused me to retreat, hide, internalize, self-hate, have low self-esteem, and not good enough. Guilt has become such a normal and unnoticeable emotion for me. Since the beginning of my recovery, it has been on the table. I have been told more times than I count that I need to stop feeling so guilty, especially over things I can't control. So a huge part of my journey is learning to separate guilt from reality.
I don't think that I completely know what that means yet, but I do know that I have been standing up for myself more lately. It is times when situations happen that I am forced to either retreat or stand up for myself that I can now recognize more what guilt is and how it has played into who I am.
Not anymore! I don't want to live with this feeling of guilt hanging over my head all the time. I no longer want to ignore my own feelings and emotions because it doesn't fit into someone else's plan. I have feelings. I have emotions and I will not let anyone tell me otherwise. I am not going to apologize for having feelings.
The process of becoming who I am and who I want to be is hard, but I can now understand more and more of what that means.
No comments:
Post a Comment