how do you deal and or heal from crushing guilt?

[Depression = 72% of members]

When you finally do gain a small amount of courage to stand up to a mother/father with BPD or npd, how do you deal with the guilt you feel inside? How do these abusive personalities manage to control us even as adults and manipulate? It is the weirdest most frustrating thing to deal with. I just want to be able to let their stuff, be their stuff. Let them rage, let then refuse to speak, whatever, and just go on with my life. Any suggestions on how others have overcome feelings of guilt and self-hatred?

[rebl.brown]

When you finally do gain a small amount of courage to stand up to a mother/father with BPD or npd, how do you deal with the guilt you feel inside? How do these abusive personalities manage to control us even as adults and manipulate? It is the weirdest most frustrating thing to deal with. I just want to be able to let their stuff, be their stuff. Let them rage, let then refuse to speak, whatever, and just go on with my life. Any suggestions on how others have overcome feelings of guilt and self-hatred?

[Moselle]

Rebl.brown,

You ask a very self aware question.  Its taken me a long time to ask the same questions. The anwer is to get it out.  Talk about it with a counsellor, with a friend until it loses it's grip. Guilt is closely linked with shame which is like toxic poison in our bodies and minds. Really its that bad. It sits and festers slowing us down, prevents growth until we get it out.

Ironically when we do,  and give it some perspective we realise most of it is someone else's and we shouldn't be carrying it at all.

This has where I've had some some of my most important growth. 

[HappyChappy]

Hi Rebel.Brown,

It’s great that you’ve realised the guilt you feel may not be appropriate or helpful. Moselle is bang on the money, we need to pull this out, examine it, identify the dysfunctional learning we got a children of a BPD, and then replace this with a more realistic health thought.  We can do this by speaking with friends or therapist or pier to pier help, so many options. There are also some great books on the topic. I used CBT and taping in therapy, as it’s considered the most cost effective way to treat C-PTSD, common among we children of BPD.

So first we must understand why the BPD has this hold on us, the following may help in that:

Emotional Blackmail: Fear, Obligation and Guilt (FOG)

Here’s an free introduction course of CBT:

Free On-Line Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Program (CBT)

But I found just posting on this website, really helpful in getting perspective on what the health thought should be, as well as getting validation on what happened to you, because I imagine/guess it was tough for you, and you had little opportunity to discuss this. But you can here. Better out than in. Hope this helps.

[Moselle]

Hi HappyChappy, thanks for sharing those resources. 

What is taping in therapy?

[rebl.brown]

These suggestions are so amazingly helpful. I went back and re-read the article on FOG. It's strange how you can know something but not really "know" it at all. The controller (my father) in this case triggers such overwhelming feelings of self-hatred, depression and even suicidal feelings that I do not want to try and stay in a relationship if that even what you can call this. The article on FOG gave wonderful suggestions to take your power back. No one can abuse you without your own consent. I am held in this relationship only by guilt and I still don't know what to do. I am going to a trauma therapy intensive week soon and I cannot wait. I want to address this as one of the main issues. Unless I had lived it I would not believe it. If someone else was saying this, I would respond, "just walk away, why do you listen to what he says, who cares?" It's a strange compulsion and is miserable to live with. Thanks again. This message board means so much

[unicorn2014]

When you finally do gain a small amount of courage to stand up to a mother/father with BPD or npd, how do you deal with the guilt you feel inside? How do these abusive personalities manage to control us even as adults and manipulate? It is the weirdest most frustrating thing to deal with. I just want to be able to let their stuff, be their stuff. Let them rage, let then refuse to speak, whatever, and just go on with my life. Any suggestions on how others have overcome feelings of guilt and self-hatred?

I don't feel guilt and self-hatred, but I am struggling to disentangle myself from my family. I find that telling the truth to other people in recovery is the best thing one can do and then listen to what they have to say. This website is also a good place to get the objective point of view.

[tenacity]

You can definitely get on the other side of the guilt. It takes time and practice but is very doable.  You can get to a place where you just kind of feel neutral abou them and they don't really impact your life anymore.

I can remember feeling so guilty it made me physically sick. Near the end of my relationship with my BPD/npd mom I was feeling very suicidal. I have been nc for 5 years now.  Try to remember that they have in a sense programmed you to feel this guilt. They count on your guilt feelings... .that way they can manipulate you and get what they want from you. A little bit of de-programming is what is needed to get past this. There are many great articles out there about neural plasticity... .which is the brain's ability to learn new responses and get out of mental ruts. Basically just re-training your brain. Imagine an old record and the way the needle gets into the groove and plays the album. Your brain is like this, and the grooves are the neural pathways. What is really exciting is that you can create new ones by behaving differently. This is so hopeful and can definitely lead to a future without the guilt. You can retrain your brain/your responses so you don't default into the old patterns/grooves. It takes time and is similar to learning something new or creating a new habit. It helps to keep a journal while you are working on this.

I wrote down every encounter with my parents in my journal for a while. It was always so handy to be able to go back and look at it. That way I knew what I had experienced had indeed happened and it was just nice to have a hard copy of all that was going on, for reference. In doing this I started noticing patterns with them. How they tried to make me feel guilty for so many things. As time went on I was able to see just how ridiculous they were behaving and how their guilt trips had no legitimate bearing. An example... .they got mad at me after I had cancer because I couldn't be there for them like I had been before I got sick. MAD at me? I was going through treatment and dealing with a lot. They couldn't appreciate that and were lashing out at me because I wasn't there for THEM. At first I felt guilty but as I worked with my journal and took the time to understand myself for the first time in my life... .and my own needs for a change... .it became clear that the guilt they tried to lay on me was completely unfounded. There were many more experiences like this. Our relationship with them can almost feel like an addiction. So when we change and try to mentally move away, there are going to be withdrawal like feelings in a sense and they are painful on several levels. It will be uncomfortable when you start moving away from how things are now, but it does get better as the new healthy behaviors and reactions replace the old.

I was finally able to stand up to them. The guilt feelings were still there but they became less and less. Over time more often than not they transformed into feelings of anger. Like why did I let myself get treated this way by them? Repeatedly. Even if they were my parents, what they were doing was wrong. It also helped to talk it over with a therapist and have my feelings validated. Also this forum is amazing for being understood and validated. All of this gives you power to see the situation in its truth and not the way your parents are hoping you see it so you continue to play their game. I would recommend reading anything you can find on detachment too. It helps to see that we don't have to react to the things they are saying and doing to us. It is about them not us. We can learn these healthy behaviors and then the false guilt becomes a thing of the past. We get our power back. 

[HappyChappy]

We can learn these healthy behaviors and then the false guilt becomes a thing of the past. We get our power back.  

Totally Tenacity.

What is taping in therapy?

Tapping is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). I believe it’s closely linked to “Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing” (EMDR).Tapping ,EMDR and CBT are the only approved therapies for PTSD available on the NHS. Which means they have a high success rate and solid empirical evidence to back that up. More details:

www.staffs.ac.uk/news/alternative-tapping-technique-good-for-mental-health.jsp

I remember being shamed for taking a regular beating. “Why do you wind him up  ?” , “You know what he’s like, so why do you make him jealous”. Even though I knew the deadly sin was to be jealous, I had been convinced I should hold the guilt. His nick name as kids was Psycho, “why is he like that ?” they would all say. Took me half my life to figure that one out. Bit of CBT and that nonsense thinking has gone.

[Notwendy]

I think if you examine the guilt, you might discover that it is shame. Shame is an issue in narcissistic families and it can be intergenerational. Parents with NPD see their children as reflections of them. They also project uncomfortable feelings- which includes shame. They tend to only accept a perfect facade of themselves, and any mistakes on the part of their children are not acceptable.

One thing that has helped me is to identify that shame feeling. My H can trigger this in me ( his family shamed him too so he can do it when he feels criticized ). When I do feel it, I can say " this is something my parents raised me with- nobody is "doing this to me". It is something I can take care of" . Once I learned ( with help from a T, 12 step groups) that I can change my own reactions and feelings- this rarely happens. When it does, I recognize it and can manage it- it is much less of a reaction than before. I also learned to not be reactive to it.

Taking care of my own co-dependency traits- need to people please has helped. It has also helped to be able to accept that, I'm human, doing the best I can. Mistakes, any mistakes- like "talking back" to a parent, or not being submissive to them was considered the crime of the century. I would be "punished" by them with the silent treatment for even the smallest of slights. I was actually a really good kid, but you wouldn't know it from some of their reactions. I learned though that their approval was contingent on me making them happy. One slip up and I would be punished.

The silent treatment is horrible to a kid- it is considered a form of verbal abuse. It is actually abandoning the child and is terrifying.

Although I have done a lot of personal work, some things are still difficult. I get rattled if people yell at me, but that is a result of how I was raised.

Once you can see the shame as a learned reaction, you can start to unlearn it !

[Moselle]

Shame is an issue in narcissistic families and it can be intergenerational. Parents with NPD see their children as reflections of them.

Once you can see the shame as a learned reaction, you can start to unlearn it !

This is so true. It is handed from generation to generation and is taught thrugh cruelty. The antithesis is kindness. 

[Fie]

One way I have learned to handle my feelings of shame, is talking to a picture of me as a little kid. Maybe that sounds funny 

Probably like a lot of other people here, I used to *really*not like myself. Up to the fact that I could almost not  look at pictures from when I was a child. Not so long ago, I rediscovered an old picture of me as a kid. I  was looking at it and I realized that I  was not this stupid, ugly kid that I  had always thought I was ! I was actually looking a lot like my daughter is looking now, and I love her so much.

So I started this habit of talking to the picture. It is in the middle of my bedroom now, as a reminder that I should like  myself. And  somehow, this has  helped me a lot. I also say things to the picture as : 'ok, you were small than, and helpless, but you are an adult now ... and not helpless anymore.'

Does that make sense ?

[Moselle]

Fie, that makes alot of sense.

My therapist asked me to do the same thing. I have 4 pictures of me. As a toddler, child, teen, and young adult.

I haven't really engaged with them yet. They were a bit sore to look at. I guess I must have been in pain as a child living in the swamp of dysfunction I now recognise as my family of origin.

'ok, you were small then, and helpless, but you are an adult now ... and not helpless anymore.'    I like this- I like this alot. There's no reason to be a victim as an adult. We can act to protect ourselves and those we love.

[Fie]

'ok, you were small then, and helpless, but you are an adult now ... and not helpless anymore.'   I like this- I like this alot. There's no reason to be a victim as an adult. We can act to protect ourselves and those we love.

Moselle,

There is a similar excercise I  did once  and it helped me so much. I read it in the book 'fear' from Thich Nhat Hanh.

He describes to put two  pillows on the  ground, face to face. The one pillow is for the child-you. You can go sit on it, and 'be' the child you were. You can speak out your child fears, with a child voice, etc.

After that (and this can take a while because of course it can become pretty emotional), you go sit on the other pillow. Now you are an adult. You look at the empty pillow, where the child-you was. You talk as an adult now, and you address the child-you, compassionately. You say things as 'We are an adult now, it's all over, life is good now, we are not powerless anymore, etc.

For some reason, this was a very powerful excercise for me. I have  started to heal from then on.

[Moselle]

Thanks Fie. I will try that.

Have you seen the movie "The Kid"? It shares a similar story about going back into childhood and meeting ourselves as the child. If you haven't seen it. it's a must watch.

[khibomsis]

rebl. , I think it is a process which is never really over but does get easier with time. The more you move past the guilt the more you will find yourself looking back at incidents in your life and shaking your head in disbelief.

When my alcoholic zombie brother knocked me down I was unconscious for ten minutes. And the thing that will never leave me is waking up to the sound of my nephew, then 11, crying and screaming for his father to stop. I had gone up to help since my mom was in surgery that day. When I told my uNBPD mom about it she said 'why did you provoke him?'. Today I told the FOG to go f--k itself. Yay me!  , Khib

[Fie]

Thanks Moselle for the movie tip, I will watch it !

If you want, keep me updated on how your excercise went, I'm keeping my thumbs up for you !