RE: Psychology Addict # 61 | Talking About Guilt.
what a fascinating post! One of the things that i really enjoy reading your posts is that i face these kind of cases each and every day so i either confirm my own thoughts regarding these issues (because previously are just thoughts and conclusions i made without any scientific background) or learn new and better ways to deal with them.
So let's begin because i have as always an example to share regarding Guilt!
- I have a very good friend who lately had some rough days due to others. That guy nowadays have 2 close friends me and another one. I have to say at this point that when he was younger he chose many bad people as his friends so in the course of time he lost many of them, either because they left him or because he understood that they are toxic for him.
Now that are other friend he got, i always considered him a little bit of a weird guy both me and my close friends who met him but i can't say much in front of him cause obviously they are very attached and feelings>logic (sadly :p).
One day that guy decided not to answer to messages calls and stuff for about 1 and a half week. You can tell how sad and disappointed my friend was and i started to witness the guilt pattern
He started "i lost so many friends so maybe i am the one at fault" "maybe i do something wrong and he stopped talking to me" "i will lose all of my friends" "am i that bad of a person?" "what i do and keep on losing friends" etc etc. So i told him "shhhh let's use a bit of logic because i know that guy quite well too". If there isn't a health problem that he or his family has then there is no excuse for not giving a 5sec answer via social media in 1.5 week. As adults if you actually did something to him, he could just tell you, "you know what you did this, which i don't like let's talk about it or worst case scenario, i don't want to be friends anymore" He acts with total immaturity and this isn't your fault and you will see, he will answer and tells you something stupid. (At the same time i had seen him playing an online game because i was sure he is that immature :P). At last he talked back to my friend telling a stupid story............
Ha! How well you fitted that instance into the cycle. A lot (a lot) of people succumb to mental agony because of distorted thinking : magnification/overgeneralising ("i will lose all of my friends"), labelling ("am i that bad of a person?").
I like very much how yo approached this instance though: "shhhh let's use a bit of logic because ..." This is precisely the whole premise of cognitive behavioral therapy: applying objectivity and rationalization to our thoughts. And from there, learn that our emotions don't really reflect the reality of things.
Thank you my dearest, for always interacting so meaningfully with my work! <3