Got Guilt?

Guilt, so common during grief, yet such a taboo

In this article, I want to speak about guilt while grieving. What is it? Why do we feel it? And how can we cope with it?  I share my personal story of how guilt almost devoured me and how I finally was able to break the shackles. Today I can say I am able to identify guilt and successfully cope with it. 

Let’s start by labeling guilt.

Guilt is an emotion. Emotions need to be validated for us to be able to move forward with them. The more we ignore them and push them back, the more strength we give them. Like any other emotion, the best way to work with guilt is to see it, acknowledge it, and understand where it is coming from.

We feel guilt during grieving because we are not taught that death is part of life.

We want to believe that there must have been a way to save this person. By them dying, we did not do everything we could have done to save them. In our heads, we dissect every moment, thinking over everything we could have done differently to have this person in our lives today. In my case, after my brother died, there was a massive shift in my emotions. Before he was sick, I was very carefree, the world was my oyster, and I felt there were no consequences for my actions. I was a senior in High School; my life was starting.  With his death, my world was turned upside down.  I thought his death was somehow my fault; maybe if I hadn’t snuck him a burger at the hospital, he would still be alive. 

After blaming myself for his death did not bring me peace, I became a control freak (a term I use with love). My comments to myself became, “why are you writing with this pen and not this one?” “How could you be so insensitive?” how, why, when... At this point, I started dissecting all my actions. If I could control my life, I could control the survival rate of everyone around me. When I realized this was the coping mechanism I was using,  I felt... you guessed it GUILTY. How could I ever become a control freak? Did I not know better, that control is not possible; nobody can control death. 

Guilt expressed by family members

So guilt continued to follow me. Some years later, I was in the car with my mom, and she shared how GUILTY she felt about how she hadn’t cared “enough” for my brother. Mind you, she did not leave his sight for the whole year that he was sick. She was 100% dedicated to him. So yeah, I thought her guilt was incredibly irrational. At that moment, I pointed out how wrong she was to feel guilty about her past actions. However, telling someone not to feel guilty is very dismissive. Guilt cannot be erased by someone else telling you, “do not feel guilty; you did everything you could.”

This conversation with my mom was the start of a change in my perception. Later, when my uncles passed away, and I was not able to be there for their burials, I decided not to feel guilty. Yes, I did miss my uncles. I felt sad, angry, you name it. Instead of feeling guilty because I was not able to be with my family for the funerals, I worked through my guilt and sat down and talked it through. Why was I feeling guilty? I did not kill them. Yes, I couldn’t travel to be there, but I also couldn’t go to friend’s weddings, or my be with family for their birthdays. I decided that my life cannot be controlled by feeling guilty for all of those moments I had no control over. 

My coping mechanisms for guilt while grieving

My coping mechanisms to work around guilt were tested with my mom’s death. We were spending the holidays with my parents, and my mom was complaining heavily about her pain in her back and abdomen. When the pain began, I pushed her to see a doctor, but she refused. She would complain of sharp pains when the car hit bumps on the road and even when she had to walk!  I felt frustrated that she was not taking care of herself, and I complained to my father so that he could do something about it. Her reaction was to stop complaining. Did you notice that my controlling side came out? I thought that if she saw a doctor, we could solve this problem, and nothing could happen to her. 

One month after the holidays, my dad called my sister and me to tell us our mom had pancreatic cancer, and nothing could be done to cure it. Imagine how I felt, knowing that there had been something wrong with my mom and I had not done enough to save her.

We flew back to see my parents and say goodbye to my mother. At that exact moment, I had just taken a new job, and my sense of responsibility to my job was powerful. I was struggling with the idea of being there for my job and my mom.  I decided to organize my schedule to be with my mom as much as possible. I managed my schedule to help her with everyday tasks. I also decided to work from her room to spend as much time as possible with her.

Later, when she passed away, people thought that I might be feeling guilty for not being there for her “enough.” In reality, I had already worked it out in my mind. I had made peace with my guilt, and I had a plan of action. Yes, my controlling coping mechanism was back, but it did not matter because it helped me organize myself and avoid the gutting feeling of guilt. Could I have done more? YES, ABSOLUTELY. Should I have done more? It depends on who you ask. Today, two years after she passed away, I feel at peace when I think of those moments and my decisions. 

Conclusion

I want to make sure to state that every story is different, but banging our heads against the wall because we messed up before does not help. Let’s learn to identify our feelings, label them, and give them the space they need. I see these moments in my life as a great lesson. The lesson depends on what I am trying to learn. Today I wanted to share how I overcame my feeling of guilt with the loss of my loved ones. It does not mean I do not feel guilt, because I do. It just means that I am not so hard on myself. I sit down and look at the facts, and the fact is that that burger I gave my brother a year before he passed away did not kill him. His leukemia killed him. I need to understand that I did my best, and I need to understand that he would have passed away no matter what. Why feel guilt when it was out of my control? This is what I tell myself. I hope my story helps you with your guilt. We can all do better, and I hope we continue doing better for ourselves.