Tuesday 3 February 2015

Welcome to my world, part 1- guilt



The image has nothing to do with anything it's just a random NOTD lol.

So i said i wanted to get back into posting about mental health again. The problem is i can't think of anything particularly informative to say and my brain is a bit too mushy to construct a serious post anyway.

So i thought I'd be wildly egocentric and do a series all about ME hehe. I mean i know the subject well enough afterall :p. I want to do a few posts on what the most significant effects of living with mental illness are got me personally.

And i thought I'd start with guilt, since i have a pertinent example from just recently.

This is one of the biggest things for me and a lot of my thoughts, feelings and behaviours stem from it. I must never do anything wrong, day anything wrong, behave in any way that could conceivably hurt anyone ever. I am completely and entirely responsible for other people's happiness...i must never make them unhappy and if they are unhappy it's my job to fix it. I feel guilty of i can't make things better for people and even more guilty for being ok when they're not.

I feel guilty for things i have done, haven't done, will do and could do. Things from years and years ago or things that haven't happened yet ams night never happen. I feel guilty for small everyday things and for crises in the wider world. Things that i am legitimately responsible for and things that cannot possibly be connected to me in any way. I feel guilty hearing negative stories on the news, bad news from friends, ambulances going past. I feel guilty for the way i think, feel and behave.

Everything is my fault. Because I'm just that important :p lol.

And of course i feel guilty for feeling guilty.

It becomes a vicious cycle. The more guilty i feel the bigger impact it has on my mental health. And the more my mental health deteriorates the more i feel guilty. Simply for being depressed or anxious. Because of the way it makes me feel and act and because of the impact it has on others. Particularly if i use crappy behaviours to deal with it because i know how much that worries people. More guilt= worse mental health= more guilt= worse mental health ad infinitum.

Example. As i mentioned in the 31 day challenge, i was ill last week. I went out feeling fine and ended up throwing up on the way home. So i called in sick and had Friday off work a. Because i felt like crap and b. Because i work with elderly, vulnerable service users and didn't particularly want to pass on any bugs to them.

Reasonable? Yes. I would think so.

Except the ridiculous part of my brain disagrees. For a start i shouldn't be ill that's pathetic and week. Then if i am ill i should get a grip and deal with it not have time off and inconvenience others. Then next time i see them my ladies complain about getting calls at the wrong time on Friday. So that's my fault and if i wasn't so rubbish they would have been fine. And im useless and worthless and just a failure as a person.

Apparently. Because i was sick.


Well wasn't that fun?! Lol. I think this is probably one of those continuum things that most people can relate to to some degree so hopefully it's been informative. I will probably add a similar post on a different topic next week. x

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