Guilt and coping with guilt

Hi everyone and happy Wednesday! I apologize for the really late post along with a bunch of late replies to your replies to my forum posts! School is starting soon and I've already been hit with a lot of homework to do and responsibilities for my mental health club. I saw that I was tagged a while ago to write this post though- and I can't believe I've never written about this at all! Guilt is unfortunately so common in self-harming and also just common to feel during one's mental health journey. It's incredibly valid though and I wanted to talk about how to deal with guilt when it pops up in your life in different situations!

(Aesthetic peaceful gif vibes that are being sent to you! <3)

When and why does guilt show up in the self-harm recovery journey?

Guilt is an incredibly common feeling to feel right after a person self-harms. To examine this feeling a bit, we first have to realize that a person who is about to self-harm is most likely feeling really panicked. They might feel really stressed out and overwhelmed with their emotions and are already in a bad state of mind. Self-harming is a final resort of coping for all of these emotions that someone is struggling with. More than not, it often adds to this state of mind by making everything a lot more worse than it already is.

One of the worst feelings might be guilt. Guilt of resorting to self-harm or guilt about previous events are all really common feelings to feel. But the worst guilt of all might sometimes be the guilt of harming yourself. It's hard to explain and might be too triggering, but the guilt associated with self-harm is more than just what we feel about ourselves but also fearing how others may see us. This guilt is often a result of how stigmatized self-harm is in society as well.

Guilt also shows up when people relapse back into self-harming, something which is really common too. The effects of relapsing into self-harm can range from being extremely devastating for those who were clean for a longer period of time and really discouraging for those who fall back into relapse. Relapse can make us feel really helpless, no matter what how long we stayed clean. Guilt can also play into relapse since people feel guilty for going back towards unhealthy coping mechanisms and might even feel guilty towards people they were trying to impress of try and stay clean for.

How do we cope with this guilt?

So now that we've observed why guilt happens and when guilt happens, it's really important to figure out how we can cope with it. A great way is to do the previous step and just gently ask ourselves (when we're ready) why we feel this way. Writing these feelings down or talking about these feelings with your loved ones or friends or even your therapist can be a good way to start confronting feelings of guilt as well.

It's also really important to validate these feelings of guilt. It's just so understandable for anyone to feel completely devastated with themselves and about everything else when they've relapsed or when they've self-harmed again. Often we even deny our own guilt, which can be really counterproductive to confronting and accepting our feelings and what has feeling. No matter what context it's in, your feelings (including guilt) are really valid and really true and it's your feelings (not others to tell you otherwise).

We cope with guilt by accepting and confronting the guilt itself and when we're ready, we can decide to move on and try again. It's hard, I know, it's one of the hardest things in the world to decide to get back up when life continually attempts to push you down for no apparent reason. But we still choose to get back up and try healthier coping methods and still have hope for a better future.

Discussion questions:

💘What's guilt like for you in your mental health journey or your self-harm recovery journey (or both)?

💘How do you cope or deal with the guilt you feel?

💘What's the best way to spend a cold chilly or rainy day?

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