04/21/2014 In Podcast Episodes
Mini Ep – Guilt w/Dr. Guy Winch
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Episode Transcript:
Welcome to episode 169. It’s a mini-episode on guilt and my guest is a returning guest, Dr. Guy Winch. He’s a clinical psychologist and he’s going to have some insights and tips on how to deal with guilt. Before we get to that, I want to read a survey from Shame and Secrets. It has to do with guilt. I’m also going to read some surveys after the interview with Guy and some of them are pretty heavy so…just giving a warning to those of you that aren’t in the mood for that. You might want to not…
This is from the Shame and Secrets survey filled out by a woman who calls herself Ray. And she’s straight—she writes “straight, I think”—in her twenties. Raised in a “stable and safe” environment, never been sexually abused but she has been emotionally abused: “I was bullied and demeaned by the kids in my elementary school, my teacher, and the principal. The teacher would encourage bullying, or ignore, and sometimes would add to it. One day I got kicked out of class for not finishing my math homework and the principal sat me in his office and told me I was ‘playing games’ with him, my teacher, and the school. I couldn’t figure out why not finishing my math homework was such a huge deal that would lead to the teacher screaming at me to go outside in the middle of winter in Canada. I was crying when the principal was telling me what I was doing wrong, and that I was in the wrong. At the time I was really angry and I hated adults so much. I felt like they were all just mean idiots. Now, sometimes I fantasize about going back in time as an adult into my eleven year-old body and telling my teacher and the principal what I really thought of them and making them feel stupid, but this is more for fun than out of anger. But mostly I’m grateful that this was the worst thing I had to face as a child. I don’t hold a grudge against anyone. What makes me feel awful is that I took my anger at the situation out on my little brother. We get along okay now but it still makes me feel horrible that I did that. I wish there had been some guidance in my life for me to deal with the anger from being bullied in a better way instead of becoming another bully and passing on the hurt. I also took some of my anger out on a school friend who was also being bullied. I just remember that I wasn’t as fair to her sometimes. She moved away when I was ten or eleven and it makes me feel awful that I also passed some of my hurt on to her.”
Deepest, darkest thoughts?
“I just get scared that I’ll lose control of myself and do something really awful or disgusting—that I’ll hurt people for no reason.”
Deepest, darkest secrets?
“When I was eight, me and my younger brother were mean to a cat that we got. I don’t remember thinking were hurting it or causing it distress since we weren’t hitting it or anything, but sometimes we were very mean when we were playing. At the time, we thought it was just funny. This is probably the thing I feel worst about myself for. I feel so incredibly awful for what I did. I feel so sorry for that cat. Maybe I had to grow into compassion. I don’t think I would have done something similar by the time I was nine. It honestly haunts me. That cat ended up disappearing and I can only hope she was able to live out a happy life with people who treated her well. I’ve never admitted this to anyone. I love animals so much and it breaks my heart that I caused another being to suffer. Maybe something to come out of this is that I might have a better understanding of how abusers think and act, I don’t know. If there was one thing in my life I could change, it would be to always have been kind and caring to that cat. All I can do now is look the truth in the eye and know I hurt an innocent creature.”
What, if anything, would you like to say to someone you haven’t been able to?
“I would like to say sorry to my brother for being mean to him as we were growing up, but I feel scared to. I did apologize a couple years ago for blowing up at him on a family trip, and I said a lot of the things I’d been wanting to say for years, but I didn’t apply it to our childhood. I’d like to say sorry to my elementary school friend for not being as good of a friend as I could have been.”
What, if anything, do you wish for?
“I wish for the planet to be healed, for violence to end. I wish to be loved.”
How do you feel after writing these things down?
“I feel like I’ve reached somewhere deeper that I need to work on. I need to let go of the past, but it’s hard because I’m responsible for hurting others in the past. How do I let go of that?”
Well you’re in luck ‘cause our episode is all about this.
P: I’m here with Guy Winch and he has a book out called Emotional First Aid, and it covers a variety of topics about common emotional issues that we struggle with, and he has some really great, practical tips on how to deal with those issues. We’ve talked about probably five or six other ones. What one haven’t we talked about that you’d like to talk about?
G: Guilt.
P: Guilt.
G: Guilt.
P: Oh my god. Sweet, sweet guilt.
G: Sweet guilt.
P: What… Talk about it.
G: Well, guilt’s an interesting thing, psychologically speaking, because it’s one of those psychological things—there are many of them—that in small doses are great, and in large doses are terrible. And so it’s about keeping it in a small dose. Because what does guilt do? Guilt is a signal that warns us that we are about to do or have done harm to another person in some way. And then we either don’t do the thing or we apologize for the thing we’ve done and try and repair it. So guilt protects our relationships. That’s its function.
P: In our society.
G: And, because of that, our society at large. That’s its function. And so it’s very heroic in that sense, you know, it’s like a superhero; it swoops in—you know, there’s a signal, it swoops in, it fixes it, and swoops out again. The problem is that in larger doses it goes from hero to villain because, in the same way, there’s that little alarm in your head that goes off, ‘oh, I have to call my mother.’ Ten minutes later: ‘I have to remember to call my mother.’ That’ll go off many, many times until you do. When our guilt is excessive, or when it’s unresolved, the alarm doesn’t go off. And then it’s a real problem because there are people who have guilt that they carry around, in some capacity or another, for weeks, for months, and sometimes for years. And it’s very incapacitating. First of all, it can be, when it—guilt is strong. It’s very, very distracting. You literally have a hard time focusing ‘cause you’re constantly thinking about that thing—
P: And it’s visceral, it is…
G: It’s more than visceral. There are studies that show—because you know we say guilt really weighs heavily on us, so in one study, for example, they had people remember a time when they acted unethically, and a time they acted ethically. And then they said to them, as part of a second, “unrelated” study, you know, ‘we each—our weight fluctuates, how would you estimate your weight at the moment compared to normal?’ And the people who were made to feel guilty estimated their physical weight as being significantly heavier than of people who weren’t made to feel guilty. They literally felt weighed down by the guilt. And then they were asked to evaluate how much effort it would take to do certain things, and the people who were made to feel guilty thought it would take much more effort to do the thing—that very same thing—than people who didn’t feel guilty evaluated it to be. So guilt not just viscerally weighs us down; physically we feel weighed down. It does a dramatic thing to us, so it’s not just that it’s a distracting thing; it affects our concentration, it affects our ability to focus, but it really makes it difficult for us to enjoy life. We really don’t feel—you know when you’re really feeling guilty, ‘oh, come, let’s go do this fun thing,’ you’re going to say no. You don’t want to allow yourself that because you’re not feeling good. And again, some people feel guilty for a very, very long time and it really does weigh them down.
P: Probably one of the most profound experiences I ever had was I went to a mentor’s house—we were in a support group—and I shared with him my deepest, darkest secrets and fears and resentments, and when I left his apartment I felt like I was about six inches off the ground. I felt like I had dropped a backpack that weighed fifty pounds that I had been carrying my entire life.
G: And I think that relationships is where guilt plays out most, and I think getting rid of guilt does make you feel ‘whew!’ It’s an incredible relief. Here’s one of the things that I found when doing the research that I found really amazing about guilt: you would think “alright, well if guilt is about ‘I did harm to another person,’ say, then why can’t I just undo that? I can just apologize and they’ll forgive me and we should be done.” But most of the times what happens is: the person apologizes, they’re forgiven, but the tension is still there. Even if you said ‘sorry’ and they said ‘okay,’ there’s still a little tension and you still remember it and you’re still thinking about it, that is a sign of one thing--
P: Is that even if the person gave a satisfactory response that felt genuine?
G: No, exactly—that’s the caveat—it usually means that you were not given authentic forgiveness, and it usually means that your apology was not effective. That’s exactly what that’s about, you’re completely, completely right. And when we do research about apologies, here’s something interesting that comes up: there are six fundamental ingredients and apology needs to have. We usually employ two. We are stuck at the five year-old level when it comes to apologizes. You know, you drag the five year-old in: ‘say you’re sorry!’ And the five year-old goes ‘fine, I’m sorry!’ ‘Good,’ and they’re forgiven. And that’s kind of how we think of apologies today. ‘Fine, I’m sorry’ may be a little bit nicer, but that’s all we have in there: ‘I’m sorry.’ The most important ingredient an apology needs to have to elicit authentic forgiveness, for it to be really forgiven, for the tension really not to be there is the empathy statement. The other person has to truly believe that you get what you did, you get the implications of what you did from their point of view, not from your point of view. It’s not about you saying ‘I’m sorry but here’s my excuse.’ That doesn’t make the other person understand that you get what you put them through—excuse or no. So if you didn’t show up to their birthday party and you’re their best friend, ‘I’m really sorry I didn’t come to the party’ doesn’t cut it. ‘I’m really sorry I didn’t come because I was working so late on that account etc., etc., that I got caught up at the office’ doesn’t cut it. What would cut it would be something like ‘I’m really sorry I didn’t come, I know how hard you’ve worked at this party, I know you’re my best friend, I know people must have been asking you where I was, I know you must have spent most of the night wondering about it and thinking about it, and I probably ruined that entire party for you. And I just feel terrible about that because I know how important it was and I single-handedly ruined it, I just –’ that would be, something like that would show them ‘yeah that was the impact you had. See, you get it now.’ And then if you’re atoning for it in some way, then if you’re—then the forgiveness, then the apology carries weight.
P: Yeah, that sincerity, and the fact that you have taken the time to picture what it must have felt like in their shoes.
G: Yes, yes. Yes, you must if you want authentic forgiveness.
P: And I would even say that that sometimes can bring you closer to that person because you have that quality that is so important in a friend, which—nobody wants a friend that’s perfect. They just want a friend that they know sees them and can put themselves in their shoes.
G: Who gets them.
P: Who gets them.
G: Yeah. That’s such an important thing and, yes, when we feel somebody really gets us—especially when our feelings were hurt—and they really get us, we want to hug them and not let go. It’s an incredible, strong thing. So, you know, in the book I break down all these ingredients, I give a lot of case studies and examples about missing this crucial ingredient, missing that crucial ingredient, and what the impact was and how you need to figure that out. So apologies are a very, very important thing because what typically happens when we didn’t apologize successfully, when the tension is there, we’ll start avoiding that person because they remind us, they make us feel bad. And over time, rather than repairing the relationship we’re distancing ourselves. We’re making it worse. And then the bigger problem is when it happens within families. Because then there’s a real divide. And then families often coalesce on two sides of the divide, and it really is—I’m not sure the Hatfield and McCoys started that way, but something like it. You know what I mean? In other words it’s really something, and it’s so easy—I mean it’s not that easy to do that exercise of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Intellectually it’s not and emotionally it’s not, but it’s easy comparatively; spend the ten minutes to do it. Fix it. Rather than live years with this tension and not go there, not go there, because it reminds you and they remind you…
P: So let’s take a more complicated situation, let’s say that you didn’t go to that person’s birthday party because they had said something to you a month ago—maybe they had humiliated you at an outing; they had made some joke that hurt your feelings. Do you just put that aside for another day and suck it up, put yourself in that person’s shoes, separate the two events and apologize with sincerity and putting yourself in their shoes, and then deal with the other thing later?
G: Look, ideally you would contact them a week before the party and say ‘we need to talk. I really want to come to your party. I’m feeling a little resistance because I’m really hurt by what happened at that other time when you kind of said that thing that I felt really insulted by.’ I mean ideally you would take care of that before. And by the way, if you know that you’re carrying around those feelings, too, and it’s a close friend, you want to bring that up. I mean as difficult as it might be, you have to bring it up. And hopefully they’ll be close enough that they can absorb it.
P: And hopefully you will express it in terms of your feelings and not what they did.
G: ‘I’ statements, yes.
P: You know, ‘when you said such and such it hurt me, it made me feel—or I, I felt this way, not it made me feel, because ultimately it is how we decide to let it affect us.
G: Right, and also we can’t assume their intention. In other words yes, we might have taken it this certain way and felt convinced if they said it that way they must have meant it that way, but we say things not in the way we mean them all the time. It comes out wrong, you know.
P: Like one of the most—the least helpful things you could do is to say ‘you’re always being a dick to me.’
G: Yeah, “always,” the generalizations—yeah, the ‘always,’ the ‘never…’ So, but when—friendships that are important, you know, like anything, like any relationship that is going to be a long-lasting relationship takes work. Don’t throw a relationship away, or throw a history away without at least trying to express something that’s going on. Now if the other friend can’t contain it or like ‘yeah well I don’t think that was a big deal, you’re just making a big deal of nothing,’ and they’re being very, very unempathic and they’re being very unsupportive and unsympathetic, some thinking to be done.
P: Yeah. Is this a person I want to be friends with? Is this a person that I will maybe just be in acquaintance with and keep my walls up around them?
G: Yeah, lower the expectations.
P: What are some other tips for…
G: So one of the things we have to look out for with guilt is that it can actually induce us to self-punish. They did one study with college students where they rigged a situation, where they said “oh, we’re going to play this game,” and they told them that they deprived other college students of lottery tickets. Couple of lottery tickets, couple of bucks worth of lottery tickets. And so they made the people feel guilty by doing that. Now these are computerized things, they didn’t deprive anyone. And they wanted to see if they would be willing—the guilty people—to give themselves and uncomfortable electrical shock. So they showed them the contraption, they said “put your hand here. That scowling person over there is the person that didn’t get the lottery tickets.” The scowling person was a research confederate. “Put your hand here. Here’s a switch. If you’re willing to give yourself the electrical shock, flip the switch.”
P: I imagine ninety percent of the people did it.
G: Huge—I forget the numbers—but a huge amount of people flipped the switch. Now look, let’s be very clear—
P: —I want to do it just hearing that—
G: —there was no contraption, there was no electrical shock. Because people say “well that’s a terrible thing,” I’m like, “no, no no, they didn’t actually shock people. The point is to see if they would. They don’t need to hook them up to an actual electrical shock because that’s not the point of the study, to just punish them for… But they, they wanted to see who would flip the switch and many, many, many people did. Now look, that was depriving a stranger of two lottery tickets. Really? You would give yourself an uncomfortable electrical shock? But that’s the power of guilt. It will really make us self-punish. They did another study in the same kind of device and said to people “here’s your reward for the study: you can choose from the prizes. And half the people were made to feel guilty and half not. And the people that were not chose CDs and movies and this, and this, and that—and this is college students. And the people who were made to feel guilty chose notebooks and pens and school supplies. Because let’s go with the thing that’s, you know, not fun. So guilt—and it’s a very, often in very unconscious ways we kind of self-punish, we self-sabotage, because we’re feeling guilty; we feel we don’t deserve it. So this is very important for us, but we won’t make the big effort because we don’t deserve to have it anyway.
P: I always feel, too, like guilt is just a flip side of the same coin--that grandiosity is on the other side because it’s a way of continuing to obsess about oneself. And I think they’re both equally unhealthy because they both make us feel apart from everybody else; we’re either better than everybody else or we’re less than everybody else. And to me the sweet spot is to get in the place of feeling one of many and being okay with that. Does that—it being, having a component of there’s something comforting about continuing to obsess about ourself. Is that, does that ring true for you or is that just my own kind of prejudice and my own theory?
G: I think that’s true for quite a few people but my general approach, in general, is when you have a negative feeling—it can be guilt, it can be emotional pain, it can be loneliness, rejection, whatever it is—when you have a negative feeling, note it, figure out what it’s about, figure out what action steps you can take to deal with it. And then do those. There are very few feelings I suggest “yes, just wallow in that for a while.” There’s none, they’re very—well you know, if you’re thrilled then fine. But I’m saying that mostly figure out—because, and this is the thing about my book—for most of these common, daily things, there are steps you can take that will make you feel better. There are things that you can do that will resolve the issue, so figure out what that is. Resolve it.
P: Well, give us some tips for how to deal with guilt.
G: So, apologies; effective apologies with the empathy statement. That’s one very important thing.
P: What if it’s a person you can’t contact?
G: So if the person is dead or you can’t contact them then there are certain—then you can decide—then it’s about self-forgiveness. And self-forgiveness is not something you can just decide like ‘I’m going to forgive myself. Done!’ No. That would be nice, but we can’t do that; we really have to figure out—and I give a plan in my book—you have to do it step by step, you have to really… To be able to forgive yourself, you have to give a very brutally honest accounting of the harm you did. And then only once you’ve really been clear about ‘this is the impact of what I did’ can you start to figure out, “okay, what will atone for that? What’s a way of giving back that I can use? So I did this, I harmed a person, how many hours of volunteer work do I need to do for me to feel I’ve evened the score? What’s the action I need to do that would make me feel ‘that was a sacrifice on my part.’” Again, it’s not about self-suffering, but giving to others. The way you even the score is not by punishing yourself but by giving to others—donating your time, your money, whatever it is, to others. Obviously someone related, in the same sphere so that it has meaning. You know, there was one girl I worked with—she was a teenager—she would habitually steal money out of her parents’ wallets. She found out that her dad had lost his job six months later, and that they were really, really, really struggling. And she had no idea, and she heard her parents talk about it, and they were like a mess, the parents, and she suddenly realized “fuck, they are struggling like crazy and I’ve been like stealing cash.” And she felt horrible about it, but she also said “I don’t want to tell them.” She said—now her rationalization, which I kind of agreed with, was why upset them more? Now I kind of agreed, I said “alright, but if you don’t upset them by telling them, what can you do?” And she said “I’ll work. I’ll sneak the money back.” I said “all of it?” She said all of it. So she spent the next six months working and sneaking the money back, and that was her way of undoing it, which I felt was like literally “dollar for dollar, fair enough.”
P: Would it benefit her at some point down the road, maybe when her parents became more stable, to apologize for it as well?
G: Absolutely, but when her parents are more stable. And in hindsight, because I think it’s such a testament to her character that she did that, and she did. To me, I mean, that’s such a great thing for a teenager to take that on and to actually to see it through—‘cause teenagers take on a lot of things but they don’t see them through. I that it’s something that would warm her parents’ heart, if told, but down the road. Once they’re not in that danger zone. Once she’s an adult and they can see ‘this is what our girl did.’ I mean that’s kind of a nice story, I think. So yes, absolutely.
P: It’s been my experience that the energy that I apologize to somebody with… When that energy has a sincerity to it, and a humility to it, I can only think of one instance where that person rejected my apology. And I wanted to punch him in the face. It was a guy that I think I’d gotten into a fight with in hockey, and he had actually been a dick, he had a part in it. But I thought ‘you know, I’m just going to apologize for my part.’
G: Not the one who said he loved you?
P: No, no a different guy. You heard that episode.
G: Yeah I did.
P: That guy’s a great guy. But it…it reminded me that it’s important that I just take care of my part in it and triage that part of how they’re going to react, into the area of ‘I have no control over this.’ I only have control over the energy that I bring to that apology. And I don’t—I see that person now and again, and I actually feel sorry for him because I think he must be so emotionally closed off that he can’t connect with somebody else on that level. He must be so stuck in ‘victim’ role that I…my anger for him subsided, probably after, I don’t know, three or four months.
G: Well look, I’ll share with you something I don’t recommend in the book, but it’s something I personally do in those situations. I’m slightly hesitant to share it because I haven’t thought it through well enough to know whether it’s something I would recommend, but I’m just sharing, this is what I do—so listeners, don’t necessarily practice it.
P: This is Guy stepping out of his PhD and just--
G: Stepping out of the PhD for sure. So, I try and practice what I preach. And every once in a while I’ll come across someone like that. You know, someone where I’m doing the right thing, and for all sincere reasons, and they’re being a dick. So I have one of those Moleskin books and it’s an Asshole Book. And if I’ve done everything I think is okay and they’re just a dick, then they go into the book as ‘because they’re just an asshole.’ And then I put their name down there and I kind of like erase them in that sense from, you know, from my life and whatever capacity I can because apparently they’re just a dick. But once I’ve put them—once I’ve documented them as to be official Assholes, it’s easier for me to just not feel bad about the fact that I made myself vulnerable and opened myself up and did the right thing to someone who just took a shit on me in response. I just ‘well, apparently…’ They go in the book. And then when it happens, because I have that book, what I say to myself immediately in that scenario is ‘a new entry for the book!’ And that alone makes me feel better—knowing that I’m going to be putting their name in that book.
P: That’s great, and I think the skin on the Moleskin should be puckered.
G: That’s—there a variety of covers you can put on that, yeah.
P: What are some other tools or tips for somebody dealing with guilt?
G: So I’ll just mention one more: the survivor guilt is a big thing. Parents of children who’ve been disabled or are chronically ill feel well, you know, ‘my kid’s suffering at home with this and this and this,’ or, you know, ‘my kid’s going through a year of chemo. How can I go out and have fun?’ You know? But in fact, to be a good caretaker for your child you really have to be able to go out and have as much fun as you can. Mind you, don’t, you know… But, so, you know—and so survivor guilt is something that’s difficult, or loyalty guilt, or separation guilt, they’re all of the same ilk. It’s like, what happens with those situations is you didn’t do anything wrong but you’re feeling guilty nonetheless. And so there you really have to find reasons to rationalize for yourself why it’s important that you allow yourself to put that guilt aside, to do the thing that would keep your life happy and satisfying. And with meaning. And you have to come up with that rationale, you know? So yes, you were in a support group for breast cancer survivors and your best friend in the group died, and you just don’t feel like doing anything. And so one of the things you can think to yourself is ‘alright, but then you’re letting cancer claim another victim. Do you want to do that? Is that what you’re saying? That even though you didn’t die, you’re going to be another victim to cancer?’ Or, you know, the wife died and the husband is left with the kids and he’s too depressed, he doesn’t want to do anything, he doesn’t want to reengage in life. And then it’s like kind of, but your kids can tell and now it’s like they’ve lost both parents. So I give in the book a lot of—lists of a lot of things that you can think about to help you kind of get your way through that thicket. Because it’s very difficult with those kind of things; you have nothing to atone for or apologize for, you’re just laden. And so there are ways you can try and unburden yourself somewhat.
P: I would imagine because the feeling of having joy in your life would feel like you were betraying the camaraderie that you had with that person.
G: Yes, it feels like a betrayal.
P: As if you’re insensitive to their pain. As if you’re…as if the two have to be mutually exclusive—you experiencing joy and the other person experiencing pain.
G: Right, and if you then think about it from the other person’s point of view, I cannot think of a situation in which the other person would indeed want you to sacrifice that, to give that up, to be in solidarity in suffering with them for some kind of reason. I mean, it just—if that person wants that, they go in my book, by the way—and so it’s not the case.
P: Yeah. And it would be different if that person was constantly out having a great time and neglecting being there for you as a friend or a caretaker.
G: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, right.
P: So is there practical advice for how to go about that even though it feels disingenuous or like betrayal?
G: You have to find the rationale that works for you and, you know, in the book I give a lot of case studies and rationales and you need to read through them and find—or come up with—the one that really works for you. Because it doesn’t serve the other person that you suffer alongside them; it’s not what they want, it’s not what they need, and it will deprive you of really being able to caretake, if that’s your situation. I mean, it’s just not necessary.
P: And, you know, I would add that giving comes from a reservoir and if that reservoir is depleted it can really have disastrous effects when you feel like you have nothing to give—but then you’re giving from a place of you’re afraid you’re a bad person if you don’t continue to give. The idea is to just build that up so that you have some abundance to give from, and often times the only way to get that is by feeding yourself—by doing things that are nice for yourself.
G: Right. Otherwise it’s going to be resentment and burnout, and that’s not helpful to you or the other person.
P: Yeah. Anything else on guilt?
G: I think those are the main points. I’m good.
P: You’re an awesome guy.
G: Thank you.
P: Awesome guy, Guy. Guy Winch’s website’s guywinch.com and the book is Emotional First Aid.
Many, many thanks to Guy. And, as I warned you before, some of these surveys—I think I’ve got four of them that I’m going to read—are pretty heavy. And um…I got a nice one at the end—nice, upbeat one at the end. But speaking of guilt, I watched a documentary last night that was so interesting. It’s called Inheritance and it’s about the daughter of one of the worst Nazi perpetrators. In fact, it was the guy who the [Ralph] Fiennes character portrayed in the movie Schindler’s List, and it’s her daughter wanting to meet with one of the victims—one of the Jewish girls who had worked in his villa when he was in charge of that concentration camp. And it was about her guilt, and her wanting to be absolved of her guilt even though she did nothing. She was—she never even met her father; he died when she was like a year old. But it’s called Inheritance and um...I dunno. I just thought it was really moving and really well-done, and um…anyway. Let’s get to the surveys.
This one is from the Shame and Secrets—I think they’re all from the Shame and Secrets survey except for the Happy Moment one we wrap it up with. This is filled out by a guy who calls himself ‘Lesionaire’ and he is straight, in his twenties, raised in a “pretty dysfunctional” environment, was the victim of sexual abuse and never reported it.
“While sleeping off a night of heavy drinking at a friend’s house, my male friend performed oral sex on me. I was unconscious so I only learned of it after the fact when he shamefully confessed this to me. At first I was a little hurt and felt taken advantage of, but I quickly forgave him. We are still very close. I don’t think it has done any real, lasting damage because I don’t actually remember the abuse.” He has never been physically or emotionally abused.
Any positive experiences with your abuser?
“Many positive experiences with him, but it simplifies rather than complicates my feelings. He struggles with alcoholism and has a history of sexual abuse, and I would rather greet him with empathy than judgement or ridicule. He has otherwise been a great friend to me.” Boy, you sound like a really compassionate person.
Deepest, darkest thoughts?
“I hardly feel guilt or remorse for the terrible thoughts that I have. I think it is normal to have fucked up scenarios or fantasies playing in your head as long as you don’t let them haunt you, but I am also insecure and people-pleaser and I would be too chicken-shit to admit I’ve thought about pedophilia , murder, rape, or suicide. I’m mostly terrified of being disliked or rejected and it cripples me emotionally.”
Darkest secrets?
“I’ve been getting cold sores since I was an infant. It was never really explained to me that it is herpes and it can be spread to the genitals. I’ve been tested and I don’t have the virus on my genitals as far as the tests are concerned. I first became sexually active at sixteen, and ended up giving it to my then-girlfriend after going down on her. I didn’t have a cold sore but still managed to spread the virus. We broke up later that year for other reasons. Seven years later, we stayed in contact off and on and dated other people. Recently, she unfriended me on facebook and sent me a very angry message saying she had just been rejected by someone she cared for greatly, and she is ‘damaged goods’ because of me. I feel guilty for ruining her chances at having a relationship. I feel guiltier still because I have lied by omission to nearly twenty other partners, and while I don’t think I have given anyone else herpes, I think it’s fucked up and selfish to risk their safety and not give people the truth about me, but I am so very afraid of being rejected.”
What, if anything, would you like to say to someone you haven’t been able to?
“I would tell my father he should never have had me because sometimes I’d rather I never existed than to live with the emotional fallout of being abandoned by someone who can’t love you because they don’t know how to love themselves.”
What do you wish for?
“I wish I loved myself more, cared less about what others think, and weren’t so terrified of confrontation.” Oh my god, do I relate to that one.
Have you shared these things with others?
“I have, but not the people I need to share them with, or the ones that need to hear it.”
How do you feel after writing this stuff down?
“Still like I am not enough, like I am broken.”
Anything you’d like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences?
“I’d like to ask them how they cope.”
Thank you for sharing that, and, you know, one of the things that stuck out to me as I was reading that is I know probably a half a dozen people who have confided in me that they have herpes and they all have partners, they’ve been honest with their—you know, were honest with their partners before they got into the relationship, and are in committed relationships. So I think people have an idea that once you get herpes nobody’s ever going to want to date you, but as I said, friends of mine are proof that that is not the case. I don’t think that that means that it doesn’t have its hurdles, but..
This is…Same survey, filled out by a woman who calls herself Lauren, and she is bisexual, in her twenties, raised in a “pretty dysfunctional” environment.
Ever been the victim of sexual abuse?
“Some stuff happened but I don’t know if it counts.”
Deepest, darkest thoughts?
“That I am worthless and everyone knows it and talks about it.”
Darkest secrets?
“I had an abortion a year ago. I feel relieved because my boyfriend and I still have our lives and the paths we planned, which included being childless, but I’m excessively guilt-ridden at least two days out of the week. It wasn’t the baby’s fault we were not ready or that we did not want it. Only my mom, boyfriend, and best friend know, and it pains me that only my best friend is okay talking to me about it and making sure I’m alright. My boyfriend and I haven’t talked about it in months, which hurts more. I feel like it doesn’t bother him, and my mom only mentions it when I sadly pine over babies of people I know, and just mockingly says ‘aren’t you glad you didn’t have yours?’” I admit I’ve wanted to even have my tubes tied just so this doesn’t happen again, and because I feel like wanting a baby eventually is greedy and hypocritical when I killed a perfectly fine and innocent child just because I wasn’t ready. Deep down, I know that I could not have carried to adoption because it would have ruined my family and my just-graduating-college career. And that child’s life, had I kept it, would not be what I would want or be able to give my child, and I probably would be jobless, alone, and living with my parents—if my dad would be able to live with a mixed, bastard grandchild.”
That is one of the longest motherfucking sentences I have ever navigated my way through. I think if you should feel guilty about anything, it should be for unloading that sentence on me. And knowing there was the possibility that I would ever have to read that out loud. Sweet mother of god, I want like a—like the people that greet you at the end of the marathon finish line. I want them there with Gatorade. Oh, that was…that was…I didn’t think I was going to make it. My heart almost stopped halfway through that thing, I was like ‘you can’t go back again; you’ve already stopped five times in the middle of it. Just keep going. Keep going!’ Sweet mother of god. Anyway, back to the survey.
“I’m stuck in this tug-of-war of relief and guilt. Thankfully, most days are relief, but the guilty days are dark.” Well, I’m sending you a hug because that, um… I don’t know what that must be like and, um…just sending you some love. But I do know there’s a gazillion listeners out there that probably know exactly, exactly how you feel. In fact, if we don’t have a thread about that on the forum, we should create one.
This is from the Shame and Secrets survey, filled out by Lissy. She is bisexual, in her twenties, raised in a “totally chaotic” environment.
Ever been the victim of sexual abuse?
“Yes, and I reported it,” and “yes, and I never reported it.” So clearly there were two—at least two instances. “I was repeatedly raped by my mother’s younger brother when I was preschool age. I eventually told my mother about it. He was basically exiled from the family, but he was never reported to the authorities. I have almost no memories of this, but I remember being in therapy afterwards and talking about the dreams I’d have of him chasing me about him chasing me around our apartment. A few years later I became convinced that I didn’t have many memories of the abuse because it didn’t happen, and I became consumed with shame because I thought that I had ruined his life over a lie. I am now positive that it did happen. When I was in college I went to a New Year’s Eve party and met a guy who was very aggressive with me physically, kissing me at midnight against my will. I got drunk and spent the night at the host’s apartment, sharing a bed with my roommate. I woke up in the middle of the night to the guy undressing and beginning to have sex with me. After he finished he went to sleep in the bed with us, and in the morning he initiated sex again. I didn’t refuse. Afterward, his friends made fun of me because he told them that I was ‘desperate’ for him to do it.”
She has been physically and emotionally abused—“My mother regularly beat me to the point of injury when I was growing up. She also talked to me about her marital problems, starting when I was very young, and often threatened suicide.” Wow. I am so sorry that you had to experience those things.
Darkest thoughts?
“I have frequently obsessive thoughts about flesh being cut or torn. I have intense fear of blood so I would never purposely cause a flesh injury like that, but I have those thoughts whenever I have to use a knife or scissors.”
Deepest, darkest secrets?
“When I was six, I started to act out the sexual abuse I suffered on my sister, who is four years younger than me. When it started, I thought it was a normal thing to do, but it went on for seven years. I am deeply disgusted by this. I’m not a pedophile, but I’ve done a terrible thing. I feel like I don’t deserve to feel like a victim of childhood—a victim of sexual abuse because I went on to become an abuser myself. She and I have never talked about it. She went on to have sex very early, and is a really angry person, and I know that it’s my fault. I don’t know how to get over it because it’s not something for which I can grant myself forgiveness. Sometimes when I am having sex or masturbating, a memory of it will pop into my head and I will become filled with a combination of shame and arousal that disgusts me.” You know, my first thought is people who have been sexually abused, their scar tissue often lays in their fantasies. And don’t judge yourself for that.
And I want to read what, to the question ‘have you shared these things with others?’ She writes “my husband knows about my kinks and we act them out in a loving, safe way. He knew almost all the details of my childhood early on, but I didn’t tell him about what happened with my sister until about a year ago. We’ve been together for seven years. He told me that I’m not a bad person, that my sister was merely another victim of my uncle’s predatory behaviour. It’s the worst thing about me—that knowing that he knows it and accepts me anyway is really beautiful.” And after writing it down, she feels “unburdened.”
Anything you’d like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences?
“We can be okay.”
Well, it sounds like you understand—it sounds like you have a great husband who is helping you see that you’re a good person. And um…you know, I don’t think that any of us get through life unscathed—you know, either hurting somebody else and feeling guilt about it, or being hurt, ourselves, and having resentment or fear. And the other thing that stuck out to me about your survey, too, was how completely emotionally abandoned you were in your childhood, and, you know, that thing that happened in the apartment when you were an adult, with that guy, um… I see that time and time and time again—people who, as children, were given the message that their needs didn’t matter by their parents have such a hard time advocating for themselves, have such a hard time feeling good about themselves. And, um, anyway…sending you a hug. Sending you some love.
This last one really, really touched me, and this is from a woman who calls herself Kill Me Now, and she is straight, she’s thirty-five, she was raised in a “pretty dysfunctional” environment. Never been sexually abused, although she qualifies: “I chose no, but not so sure. My gut makes me think something happened at some point, probably around fifth grade. Everything changed—my grades, my attitude, and hypersensitivity went bananas. My brain has this wonderful way of blocking out what I don’t want to deal with and leaving me with only the mildly bad, and a skewed version of memory—with the bonus of mental scars, unsure why they are there. Thank you to my older sister for filling in some of the blanks of our past, which just reaffirms to me that I can’t trust my childhood memories at all.”
She has been emotionally abused.
“My father was a raging alcoholic but I was the favourite, and the son he never had—lucky me. He wouldn’t physically take his aggression out on me. He actually only ever hit me once, but would unload all of the hate of his life on me every day after school, which was directly the fault of my mother, and my sister by association, because I think my sister reminded him of my mother. My sister was older so she could go to friends’ houses after school and I got stuck with a lunatic after a shit day at work. I wouldn’t stand up to him when he talked about my sister and mother like they were worthless pieces of shit—‘stupid,’ ‘whores,’ ‘cocksuckers’—you name it, he called them it for hours. I was terrified to disagree for fear that I would end up in their category and hated, so I would patiently sit and listen to him blame his miserable existence on my mother and sister, waiting for him to wear himself out and be too drunk to keep interest and need a nap. Ugh, what a selfish dick. My mother’s emotional abuse was a selfish neglect; too wrapped up in my father’s alcoholism and their problems to deal with us. Thanks, mom, for leaving me alone with that lunatic every day. I know you had to work, but you could have left and taken us away from that madness. To sum up my mother would be: I love you, go away. The phrase most used in my house when an idea was presented? ‘What do you want to do that for?’ in the most negative, ‘are you stupid?’ way possible, even if it were to start a savings account for all my birthday money ‘till I was eighteen so I could buy my own car and get the fuck out of there.”
That one might be in second place for second most difficult sentence to get through.
Any positive experiences with your abusers?
“I should not like my dad but I favour him sometimes to my mother, but they are both nuts and I should really dislike both for many reasons. I favour my father because he has no excuses; he never claimed to be a great dad, and I remember him feeling embarrassed when I bought him a coffee mug that said ‘#1 Dad.’ We both knew it wasn’t true. He never pretended though. My mom, ‘till this day, talks mad shit about how my father made our lives hell—mainly hers—but if we complain she acts completely shocked, like she has no idea what we are talking about, and acts like we didn’t have it bad. Guilt is a bitch, and makes you deny to save face I guess.”
Deepest, darkest thoughts?
“I fantasize about being in a physically abusive relationship with someone controlling and obsessed with me, to the point of legitimate fear. It’s messed up but I think I would finally feel really wanted.”
Deepest, darkest secrets?
And this is the part of it that I really wanted to read: “I was sixteen and didn’t know I was pregnant. I think I knew, I just chose not to believe it. I went into labour watching Letterman, with my mother, before trying to go to bed for school the next day. I screamed into my pillow all night long until it subsided for a bit. I got up, got dressed for school—both parents went to work already, sister still home. My water broke in my bedroom and panic set in. Reality set in but still not a hundred percent. I felt an enormous pressure and went into the bathroom, grabbed a hand-mirror, and saw the top of a head—hair and all. That’s when it became real, and there was no ‘maybe I’m crazy or imagining this.’ I sat on the toilet and pushed until my baby came out into my hands. I moved to the tub because she was still connected to me, and the rest came out—which felt like all of my insides fell out of my body. I cut her cord, not knowing if there was a right way to do it, hoping that I wouldn’t hurt her, and wrapped her in a towel and brought her to my room after cleaning the mess I made so my sister wouldn’t see. She didn’t cry or make a single sound. Nothing. She was very much alive and alert and healthy, but not a peep. While I was scrambling to think, she started to cry a bit and I remember my sister saying ‘what are you doing? It sounds like a cat meowing.’ I said ‘it must be outside’ and she left for school. I called my mom and faked sick, and she called the school to say I wasn’t coming. Alone with my daughter, I stared at her precious, quiet face. She was so beautiful. I’m not proud to say the rest of this, but I swaddled her in a sweatshirt and placed her in my black JanSport backpack, put the placenta in a bag, and dropped it off in a random garbage can and walked about 1.5 miles to the church where I left her on the doorstep. I chose not to leave her on the steps on my school’s church, but to go to that one. To this day I don’t know why, because I could barely walk. It was February 24th, 199? Thankfully, it was unseasonably warm that day so I knew she would be okay. I remember walking up to the statue of Mary outside the church and kneeling down to pretend to pray because someone was coming out of the rectory and I felt I looked suspicious pacing around, trying to say goodbye to my backpack—at least that’s what it looked like. I said goodbye, kissed her beautiful face, placed her on the steps, and walked home. It made the news. She was found right away and brought to the hospital. They named her Mary. I wonder every day if she is okay—if she looks like me and, god forbid, takes after me. I am a monster and selfish for assuming she turned out okay because it makes me feel better. No one turns out okay from this. It eats me alive wondering if she was abused in foster care, and that I wasn’t there to protect her. I threw her away because I didn’t want to deal with my parents and was afraid of inconveniencing them. Fucking weak and shameful. I bear many scars from this, and my unhappiness I justify as deserved because I need to pay for this quietly—and I do every day—so please don’t send me hugs for this in any way. I just thought I would share, since it hasn’t been a subject yet. And yes I’m a shitty person, but surprisingly outside of this I’m not too bad—I’m just really fucked up. I would give the shirt off my back, but put my daughter on a doorstep—take that as you will. Wow, I am repulsive.”
And I have to say, fuck you; I’m giving you a hug. And I’m going to slop some love on top of that, and I think any person that heard me just read this is probably choking back tears for your pain, for what you’re feeling. And they’re not thinking you’re a bad person, they’re thinking ‘that poor sixteen year old girl was trapped, had no tools at her disposal, was not living in a safe house…’ You know, I think we’re feeling nothing but empathy for you and, you know, this moved me so much. I sometimes share with my wife—I try not to over-share—but when I read a survey that really moves me, I’ll share it with my wife. And I read this to her and she just looked at me matter-of-factly and said “that woman’s my fucking hero.” So suck on that! And my wife is not an overly maudlin person. You have made it through a lot, and…there you go. There you have it.
Let’s end with a Happy Moment. And this is filled out by a trans-male who calls himself J. Martin C. And he writes: “last week I was having heightened anxiety, and on Friday I knew I didn’t want to spend the evening alone—but also couldn’t handle crowds. I put a call out to my friends and went to dinner with a friend that I hadn’t had a deep talk with before. We gossiped, talked about our problems—a nice mixture of chat and real talking. It was the first nice night of the year and we decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan. Part of the way across, my friend remembered he was afraid of heights, so I held his hand and we talked about who we would make out with in our group. It felt so good to be able to support my friend so soon after he had supported me. I went home completely relaxed; the emotional stress of the week was completely gone.”
Thank you for that. And um,
Any comments to make the podcasts better?
“I love the mini-episodes; they have all been really useful and I have been using Dr. Winch’s tips pretty frequently.”
I’ve been getting a lot of really, really nice feedback from people that are loving the mini-episodes and digging his book. And I just love that image of two friends walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, gossiping and holding hands; that’s so beautiful. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, and we’ll see you on Friday.
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