Feel Guilty About Enjoying Life

[Ami]

I know I can't be alone in this but I feel guilty for having a self, respecting, honoring and giving dignity to it.  *I* am the one putting the screws to my own life with my distortions such as this one.
 Just wanted to hear other's viewpoints on it.  Thanks    Ami

[Gabben]

Hi Ami,

I do not feel guilty much for enjoying life and the reason for that is that I give out a lot in service as well as forgiveness and understanding towards others. Our guilt can get displaced. Sometimes we are guilty for the right reason, because we have done something wrong; I do not want to takeway from the wounds that the NM gives us for trying to take care of ourselves when we were small, those wounds are so painful and frustrating. What I am trying to say is that I have felt guilty in my life for enjoying myself when I am living that from a purely selfish place, when I can balance my self-care and self love between giving out selfless love and care for others, when called to do so, I feel joy, more freely in all areas of my life.

[Gabben]

Also, I can relate to guilt for having a self, just the other day, when I honored myself in allowing myself to explode in frustration, not at others but just out, what was years of pent up frustration that I had never released, I felt guilty and at the same time my child in me felt relieved and honored to finally be free enough to express her rage. So yes, I can relate, I do feel guilty for having a self and for trying to give her dignity when she was raised with so much indignity.

[Ami]

Thank you (( Lise))
My life is finally feeling a little good. I am  afraid to even put my toe in the water of loving myself and having dignity. My M would rage if I had confidence. If I wanted values to define my life like being a virgen until I got married, she mocked me . I remember seeing her smirking face saying 'Who did you think YOU are?"
Whatever she could do to take away the little bit of dignity I was getting as a teen, she would!
I am afraid to feel good b/c she will hurt me ,somehow. Somehow, I am bad when I love, respect and honor myself. That is where I am.
I do get what you mean about giving  love.
Last Sat, at the Messianic Synagogue, I tried to help an old man with a walker get some food. I had on a  dark blue dress with a scoop neck and a white headband. He asked me"What church do you go to?" I said,'Why do you think I go to a church?" He said,"You look like an angel, a nun."
 I will never forget how sweet that was.
         Ami
 

[Gabben]

Ami,

This is a good topic that got me reflecting on the ways that I do not treat myself with dignity. This past two years have been the most painful years of my life but at the same time they have been years of light vs living in the darkness of denial. I'm grateful for much but I realized this AM that I an in much need of healing, so much that I am neglecting the wounds in order to not disappoint others and as well as to care for others more than myself, especially since I was taught in AA that we are to put the needs of others ahead of our own. However, if your leg is broken can you walk on it? If my heart is broken can I love with it? My heart needs time to heal. I've decided, in a huge hug to myself to stay away from all the places that have wounded me in the last two years for as long as needed, it may even take 5 years before I will ever feel ready to be a part of again and ready to give myself in service and love again. I may even be rejected again but if I am healthy in self and less wounded it will be easier to handle. For the first time in my life I have realized that I have not been treated with sincere dignity much, therefore, I am going to give myself that dignity and go away to heal.

This is one of the best choices I could ever make, I am no good to others when I am disturbed and fragile, I only cause and bring more disorder. Better to depart in gracious appreciation for all that I did receive in those places and send well wishes until I am healed enough to withstand the slings and arrows that come with any community and all of life.

[Ami]

I know that Ray, my guitar teacher, is of much more service than I am. He tried to get me to "do more loving service" the other day. I told him that I want to eventually but *I* have to be more filled up inside emotionally. I have given TOO much in my life. I have gotten my sense of self from "giving" and being of service.
 I need to go in the other direction until I heal more. He did understand but I had to spell it out b/c he had a good childhood and does not need the repair  I do.
 In the past, *I* would have felt guilty and less  worthy than he. However, my past is different and that is just how it is. I need more remediation.
 I will have a unique testimony when I get healed probably more unique than his and this is what he said.       Ami

[Ami]

This thread has really helped me. Thank you!
 

[Gabben]

I need to go in the other direction until I heal more. He did understand but I had to spell it out b/c he had a good childhood and does not need the repair I do.

Right. Others who have not expereinced the pain of an N abuse upbringing cannot empathize with our pain and dysfunction, people tend to judge what they cannot understand. Those judgements can be very painful, especially when we are trying to heal.

Since this is a thread about feeling guilty for enjoying life there is a great deal of guilt that I feel for being wounded, just plain in pain and in need of rest, I push myself and push myself out of guilt and fear. This thread was helpful for me to just relax a bit and stop pushing myself so much.

Ami  - I got laid off my job 4 months ago. It was a dissapointment and trying on me. But in the end I realized that God was giving me the rest that I so needed after working a demanding job and the last two years being in so much emotional pain; it was a blessing in disguise. If God wants me to rest then I need to give that to myself.

Looking back on my life I started working when I was sixteen. I've been working hard my entire life with very little vacation time, not to sob, but just to acknowledge how good God is and that like a parent He knows what is best for us. If He knew that I would need this down time then I need to heed that and continue resting and healing. If I can go away for a while, a small trip to a retreat somewhere I may take that again, I want complete alone time and time to process so that I can function again. It seems that just when I start to feel better I start pushing myself to get a job, applying mass doses of pressure as well as pushing myself to make myself useful somehow and somewhere. Just being there for my family these days is a wonderful thing and I am so grateful to God for graciously giving me this time off. My dad has cancer and if I was working I would not get to spend so much time with him as I have been and going to him after his surgery. My adoptive dad was a good guy who I am very fond of.

[Ami]

This thread has really helped. I am gonna write more later. I am going through a deep healing of my inner child at the time of attachment. I cried for hours last night but I feel more at peace now and as if I can trust a little more. I will share more later.
I think that God engineers many events in our lives ,such as your job.
My relationship with God used to be more intellectual. I was a student of the Bible and knew a lot for a laymen but my heart did not have a child like faith. Now, I don't study but try to" feel 'my relationship with Him .
      Ami

[Ami]

Lise
 Do you see  your M? Has the nature of the relationship stayed the same(she is still abusive)? How is the relationship with your F now?
    Ami

[DOBA]

I was just thinking about this this morning.  I was awake around dawn, heard the birds, felt the cool morning dew, saw the colors of dawn and just gave thanks.   My son and I moved out of N hubby's on Saturday and everything went like clockwork.  I feel guilty that I don't feel distraught or that I'm not missing him, but I'm walking around with a Cheshire cat grin on my face and feel so calm and peaceful, it's like a dream.  I don't have to wait for the next outburst, look around the house at the piles and piles of garbage (he's also OCD/ Pack Rat).  I'm not listening for the sound of his car in the driveway to run and hide.  I've had a better quality of sleep in the last 72 hours than I have had in 20 years and I cannot believe the difference.  Folks keep coming up to me and giving me a hug and saying"I'm so sorry" and I have to suppress the urge to shout "I'm NOT!  I should have done this years ago!!!!!!!"  N is on his "Victim Tour 2009" and trying to smear my name throughout the town and our church and I really don't care.  Folks who know me know better and those who don't I can't worry about.  I keep thinking I should feel something other than pure joy and contentment, but that not my frame of mind.  N has loaded my email with religious lovey cards (he's rigidly legalistic) and I don't even open them.  This morning's message line read "I know you see these!" (LOL)  Good topic.  I'm so conflicted about acting the "proper emotion" vs "feeling the genuine feeling"...I think it will take a while to trust the actual feelings.

[Hopalong]

DOBA,
I viscerally feel your relief and am very happy for you!
It's never too late to decide to be happy. What a joy to read.
Thanks for sharing this.

Hops

[Ami]

DOBA
I admire you so much for your stand. How did you get the courage to do it?         Ami

[JustKathy]

I never felt guilty for being happy because it was the only real revenge I ever got on my NM. She had tried very hard to keep me living in poverty. That was to be my punishment for not following the path she had chosen for me. I was the only child of the three who was not given help with college tuition, housing, anything. Everything I ever got, I got through incredible hard work, so I could be proud of myself for finally getting an advanced degree, a good job, and a nice home. M went into a rage whenever I got something that I "wasn't supposed to have." I never let her see that I was suffering inside from her cruel words, so all she saw was someone who had defied her, and gotten "stuff," and it enraged her. Living well and being happy was the only way that I could truly get back at her for the things she did to me, so I didn't feel guilt for it.

That said, I do have feelings of guilt over my decision not to visit her before she dies, and I shouldn't. If I were the one who had terminal cancer, I wouldn't get so much as a card from her. Yet it's very hard to turn off the guilt of basically abandoning her in her final months. I have to work towards shaking that guilt off, because she abandoned me decades ago (literally, as I've been given the "silent treatment" over and over, sometimes for years on end). It's a stinky deal. I was abused so badly, yet sit here saying, "but she's still my mother." But then, her method of attack from day one was to guilt me for "hurting her," so some of my feelings may be a little bit of brainwashing that I need to shake out of my head. You know, when someone spends 40 years telling you that you're ugly, or fat, or whatever, it's pretty hard to not believe it, even if just a little. I guess that's how brainwashing works. They repeatedly pound it into your head until it sticks. The trick is getting it out.

[Ami]

The NM is a trip all to herself. People who don't know about N's can never understand. It is awful and VERY hard to overcome. I can hear that discouragement in your voice, Kathy.
 Sometimes, I feel I am making great progress and s/times I feel I will NEVER overcome the damage.
 I do know where I want to go though. I want to feel accepting of who I am--all parts--the primal part as well as the others.i want to have my holes plugged up enough that I don't need first aid from other people to medicate my huge shame.
 These are just a few of the places I want to go.
 Do you have a  vision of yourself ?            Ami