On Guilt

I'm here to talk today about bipolar disorder and guilt.

Guilt is a common feature of bipolar disorder. We're hard to live with and our actions are often completely out of our own control, and that can lead to bad decisions, which can lead to guilt in the aftermath of the bad decisions. We hate, in the rational part of our minds, that we make things harder on other people. But we can do little about it at the time it's all happening.

Some things I've been guilty about: Bothering the people I'm living with by staying up too late with insomnia. Getting reckless and manic and doing things like bustling around and singing loudly when other people are trying to go to sleep. Doing stupid things like hanging up and storming out on people during moments of mixed episodes. Basically anything that makes me come across in public as "crazy" or "mentally unhinged", I also feel guilty about. Making social faux pas during manic episodes, I definitely feel guilty and ashamed about.

Some people have it a lot worse, though. Drinking, drugs, violence, ruinous spending sprees, angry shouted words, ruined relationships. You name it. All can happen in people with bipolar disorder.

So how do we deal with this guilt? Here are some things I've found.

The first thing I do is try to stop and analyze the bad thoughts. I acknowledge the feeling I'm having and then put my brain to it. Is this thought reasonable? (In other words, does it use unreasonable words like "never" or "always" or "hopeless"?) Why am I feeling upset? Is it over something I can change? Can I keep myself from going through that behavior again?

If the answer is yes, then I change my life for the better. No need to feel guilty anymore. If the answer is no, there's nothing I can change, I try to stop feeling guilty over it. (Sometimes healing meditation can help with that -- sitting with the feeling without doing anything about it.)

Because sometimes, that's the answer. There's nothing I can do about it now. It was all in the past, over, done with. Also, I was out of my own control. Which moves me to advice #2.

I try to tell myself I was out of my own control. I was going through an episode. I can't do anything about the fact that I'm bipolar and sometimes my brain gets sick and makes me do stupid things. Just that reminder can make me feel a lot better.

Once I've gone through options one and two (acknowledge and analyze the thoughts and possibly meditate with them, remind myself I was out of my own control) I move on to step three. I distract my mind from guilt by doing or concentrating on something else -- preferably something enjoyable.

This can be something as simple as taking a walk, running yourself a bath, or curling up with a cup of tea and a good book. You could watch a movie or a standup comedy routine. Just something healing and healthy that makes you feel better and distracts yourself from what's troubling you. I find that if you ignore thoughts long enough, they at least temporarily go away.

One additional step is very important to me. I engage in positive self talk. This means that when I do something good, I pretend there are people encouraging me, acknowledging how well I've done. I imagine what they would say. In this way, I remember to dwell on all the positive things I've done as well as the negative ones.

This may take some repeats. The negative thoughts may keep coming back and you may have to engage these techniques against them over and over again. But I've found that with a little time and perseverance, the thoughts start to sting less than they used to. Time, I think, can heal almost anything.

We just have to open ourselves up to the possibility of healing and of life getting better.