Dealing with guilt from past wounds

How many of you have experienced relationships that ended badly? How many times did your significant other blame everything on you, your faults, your mistakes, and made you feel like the lowest person on the totem pole? I mean truly made you feel like you were the scum of the earth.  We make mistakes in relationships, we have flaws, and yes sometimes we can make people feel bad, none of us are perfect. The guilt that I'm referring to is, guilt that comes from wounds of failed relationships. Those wounds cause you to feel as though you failed to do what needed to be done to make the relationship successful. You begin to evalutate what you may have done wrong, especially if your significant other always told you that you caused them to be angry, and that's why they hit you, or that's why they called you out of your name. You tend to believe that things are your fault, and that you are a burden in life to others. This is a form of emotional abuse, it's used to control you and to destroy your self-esteem.

I had a relationship years ago, and initially it started out very pleasant, I thought, I had someone in my life that was good for me, and, I thought they were from a God fearing loving family. Well, not so. I didn't think I was being controlled, nor did I feel as though I was being emotionally and physically abused, until I got out of the relationship. He would tell me not to walk to the store and they he wanted to take me where ever I needed to go, he would slap me if I was looking in the direction of men so I had to turn my head or look down while riding in the car. I couldn't converse with anyone of the opposite sex, not even if they spoke just saying hello. If I did it would be an argument or fight. Eventually as time went on I started realizing that he was the one that was stepping out and trying to make me feel that I was the problem. He began to put me down about my weight, and tried to get me to use drugs so I could lose the weight. I had always been small, until I got pregnant with my son, and once I had my baby, he wouldn't let me go anywhere unless he drove me, so I couldn't leave the house until he got back home. I was always active, I walked just about everywhere or rode the bus, so naturally I gained more weight due to being a prisoner basically. I began to feel guilty for not being who he wanted me to be, I was guilty for making him feel as though I was looking at other men, I felt guilty about being over weight. Its amazing how emotional abuse can cause feelings of guilt in your mind and you're the one that is the victim. The sad thing is that you don't know you're the victim. I really did not know I was a victim.  

Guilt can make you stay in situations longer than you should, and cause you to change your whole outlook on who you are or who you were. I didn't know who I was, I felt guilty and ashamed from perceived offenses that I never made. I began to think that I was the cause of all my problems and the problems of others. How did I even get to this point? My self-esteem was so low, I had no hope. But, one day a light bulb came on, I realized that I needed to get away from the abuse, the ridicule, the sadness and I got angry to the point I fought for my freedom as if I was an animal in captivity. The last straw for me was on July 4th of 1992, we were riding in the car and he started arguing with me, he hauled off and backhanded me right in the face, I proceeded to fight back as I always had done, but this time I decided to jump out of the moving car to escape from him, my two year old son was in the backseat of the car and he jumped out after me, I had to catch him.  There was an older gentleman sitting on a porch who witnessed all of this and he came to assist me. He asked if I needed a police officer and I said no. You would think that after all of that I would at least call the police for help, but my mental state was so jacked up. I started feeling guilty thinking that it was my fault. I told the man that it was my fault. He just looked at me and said, no sweetheart, no man should ever put his hands on a woman no matter what, and that I didn't deserve to be treated in the manner to which he witnessed.  

He helped me get myself together and I called someone to come get me to take me to my family. That was the end of that relationship. It took me years to get to a place to feel comfortable looking at men or woman. I was still being emotionally controlled by someone that was no longer in my life, guilt and shame of what I had been through made me think that people could see my scars. I wouldn't go out, I was afraid to talk to people, I was nervous all the time looking over my shoulder as if I was going to be captured.  Guilt made me feel like I was a loser, a failure, I was everything that I was told, I was nobody. 

How to deal with guilt from past wounds. First realized that as a human being we will make mistakes. Guilt is a part of our lives, because we all have done something or said something to someone and had remorseful feelings. You may feel guilt for lying about something, or guilt from breaking something and blaming your sibling for it, or maybe you cheated on an exam and you knew it was wrong. Guilt is a part of our moral code that helps us determine good and bad behaviour and helps us to not keep making the same mistakes over and over again. 

My guilt came from an irrational thought process that was derived from past wounds in relationships. I assumed that I was the problem, and I needed to be fixed. What does your guilt come from? Is it rational from perceived or imagined offenses? Are you feeling as though everything you do is a burden because of what someone has told you? Is your guilt coming from an emotional abused state that you are unaware of? 

Take a deep breath and focus on where the guilt is coming from.  Ask yourself if you caused an offense? If you find that you did, then by all means apologize, we all make mistakes, but do not allow guilt to make you feel like you are the worst person in the world. We learn from mistakes, make amends for them and we move on in life. Don't beat yourself up constantly thinking about past mistakes, it can cause you to take a trip on guilt boulevard and you'll find yourself down in the dumps again over something that happened years ago.  How I deal with guilt may not be how you or anyone else deals with guilt, so if you find a healthy way of dealing with guilt that gives you peace of mind, then do that. Just remember that mistakes happen, guilty feelings will happen, but don't allow someone to guilt you into doing something that you would not normally do, and don't allow people to manipulate you using guilt tactics to control you.