Feeling guilty for being alive.

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Yeah I tried to just stop feeling that way but it didn't work so time to make a post about it to see if that helps. So yeah I am not quite as depressed as I have been feeling the past couple weeks but I can't get rid of those feelings. I mean I feel like I really don't have any worthwhile skills or talents or anything.....I can't satisfy what any of my family wants from me no matter how much it varies.

Around my mom and her side of the family its like I have to put on an act and keep my lifestyle in the dark...there are things they would certainly not approve of and the drama would not help anyone. With my dads side of the family I guess I just can't drink enough beer to get over how I feel and move on......and I am not very good at most types of physical labor.

I am going to college just so I can have a little bit of income and fool myself into thinking I might actually get a degree and do something with it. I don't have a very good chance of finding any work at all if I drop out, and untill I get an official diagnoses and even after I still might not get approved for SSI but if I did get approved then I get to feel like even more of a burden...because someones tax money was 'stolen' and is being redistributed in my direction.....I don't wanna cause anyone any trouble that way.

Sure I support things like that.........but that's is only because I probably need them I imagine.......this post is stupid so sorry I just really feel like no one benifits from me continuing to live.

Hi Sweetleaf, your post is not stupid. I think that part of the reason you feel this way is that you care an awful lot about pleasing others & nothing you do seems to make anyone happy. I guess the only advice I have is to stop trying to please everyone else to the detriment of your needs & wants. Life is not all about pleasing others....sometimes you just gotta do what's right & best for you. If your family has a problem with that...well that's their problem!

I know I just don't know how to escape that feeling......I mean its no problem if I am away from certain family members, its when I have to see them everyday that it is hard to not feel bad when I know they would be displeased if they knew certain things or when they find something out or make a judgement and openly express it. I prefer to do as a choose, and sometimes I admit I do the wrong thing even by my standards but isen't it up to me to learn my own lessons in life.....instead of being afraid to even do anything because how family might react....uhh I am 22 I should so be over this.

You sound so much like a younger version of me. if you think it's bad now....if you stay on this path, it'll only get worse. You don't want to live with this kind of guilt for the rest of your life. You don't deserve to feel this guilty. God knows, we all make mistakes! You need to take care of you...forgive & love yourself, Sweetleaf. No one should make you feel bad. And yes, life is all about learning from our mistakes. If we weren't all flawed, we wouldn't make big or small mistakes in the 1st place. Let me ask you this....is your family perfect? Maybe write out a list of things they've done (that you know about) & when they throw your mistakes back at you, throw their mistakes back at them. Sometimes you need to fight fire with fire.

I can remember my mom telling me she was perfect in every way. I calmly told her she was a lousy parent. The look on her face was priceless. She was mad. If she had been a perfect mom, she would have loved & supported me, & given me guidance. Instead, she threw me to the wolves & expected me to do the right thing without any input or help at all. And she was embarrassed & angry because I SCREWED UP. I CAUSED her to be embarrassed. If she would have taken the time to be a mentor, maybe I would have made fewer, less offensive mistakes. Part of her problem was that she was narcissistic, & I was a direct reflection of her. I wish I'd have known that when I was younger, because I would have rubbed her nose in that fact.

lol is my family perfect...hell no....My freaking mom left home when she was 16 because her mother said she could either break up with her 25 year old boyfriend or move out so she married him and left only to get divorced probably dates some more and then eventually met my dad.........she also divorced my dad and now my dad is more messed up than he was. He's an alcoholic and has done pretty much every other drug in existance but after the divorce he seemed to get worse, was in jail for a while and seemed to be doing a little better for a while but last time I talked to him I was not quite sure what to think...

But yeah when I was growing up my mom was not very consistant with rules but she would get mad and scream if me or my siblings ever did anything she thought was wrong and always told us what not to do and tried to shelter us from a lot of things...well what she thought we were never going to see that she had quite the intresting life as well and makes irresponsible stupid choices herself........did she think none of us would be exposed to drugs and alcohol when my dad has problems with such things?

sorry for the rant but this why its so frusterating that i care so much what any of them think...they have done the same things if not worse things then I have in my life and her I am being far too hard on myself because of things like feeling when I first dropped out of college and was doing psychedelic mushrooms every three days it might not have been the best thing to do. Or because I've had one to many alcoholic beverages more than once or because I feel like I have not accomplished much. Yeah maybe they would be angry........but why should I care so much that its painful for me, its my freaking life I am 22 and I should feel like I can live life even if I don't always make the most awesome choices.......maybe I am just in the habit of being pressured to be the responsible one due to being the oldest of me and my 3 siblings. But my parents should have been the responsible ones I had enough problems as a child I should not have been always trying so hard to be the perfect child or whatever. My mom tends to have some narrcisstic traits as well.......but yet I could never confront her about the things I feel she did wrong in raising me or my siblings I feel like it would be too painful for her to remember and feel bad about or whatever.

^^^^^^This is your core issue! Yes, your parents SHOULD have been MORE responsible for you & your siblings. That they have made you responsible is all WRONG. You are only responsible for you (not your parents & definitely not your siblings!). Can't change your parents or their problems....you can only change you or your problems. Please stop feeling guilty for stuff you can't do anything about. I dunno...maybe they see you making the same mistakes they have...or maybe they just don't want you to end up with as many issues. Who knows if they have good intentions behind their behavior. All I can say is that your parents' behavior is destructive. Yours' may or may not be depending on how much you drink or do drugs. But I can tell you this....if you keep going, you may very well end up in a place where you're even less happy. You need to learn to feel better about yourself....ditch the guilt! Use baby steps if you need to....you didn't get like this over night.

I'm sorry that your dad is an addict. Your mom's story even sounds similar to mine. You should not have to fix them...in fact, you can't! Only they can fix their own problems. Don't let them make their problems yours...it's not up to you to change or fix them. At 22, you have so much potential. I do hope you find your way out of this mess. It's not a good place for you. Let me ask you this...do you use drugs & alcohol to numb the pain & escape? If so, you may need to look into other things that would be less destructive & help you move on.

I already have just as many if not more issues then both my parents put together...I used to drink more I have cut down, but I admit sometimes when I drink it's not because I'm in a good mood and just want a drink, it might be because I am in a bad mood and would rather not be. With most other things its more of a mixture of curiosity and being impulsive and yeah escapism at times, like I mentioned I got kind of carried away with the psychedelic mushrooms I just wanted to experiance it then I was using that as a way of escaping as often as possible. Then of course there is cannabis which I have smoked daily for over 2 years to decrease anxiety/depression it seems to help and does not seem to interfere negatively with life.....other than the fact I am not comfortable mentioning it to my mom.

Just be careful with MaryJane, as it can be addicting too. I dated a guy once who swore up & down that he wasn't addicted to it. Somehow he equated smoking it at least 4 times a day (every day!) as not having an addiction to it. When I brought it up & told him to make his choice, he chose the MaryJane. LOL If addiction runs in your family, it can be harder to resist, especially when using it as a coping mechanism (as my ex-boyfriend did).

Well I don't feel that I am addicted.....I honestly feel like it helps with the anxiety and depression or at least decreases the discomfort it causes and there have been a couple of times were instead of acting on suicidal thoughts I just smoked a bowl. When I go without it then I just feel like I did before I started smoking....anxious and depressed with no relief. So I will admit there is some dependancy as without it I don't really have much relief from the anxiety or depression but I am not going to have a bunch of hellish withdrawl symptoms if I go for a period of time without it.

I see. Well please be careful with it. I can understand why you use it...but it's still a type of drug. Never cared for the stuff myself (can't stand the smell of it-tried it once & had a really really bad asthma attack-quite the turn off), but I can appreciate why you use it since I have issues with anxiety & depression too. The older I get, the worse it gets. I use photography & photo editing as my anxiety & depression relievers. We all have our drugs of choice. And trust me, I get called out for neglecting my hubby & the dog if I spend too much time with my special interests.

Well I know its a drug, I am not one of those people who tries to justify it by saying 'its a plant not a drug.' I mean yeah its a plant but its also a drug. But yeah I am as careful as I can be.......and eventually do want to try and get the medicinal license so its even safer as far as laws go.

At least you are aware. That's a huge step in the right direction. Here in Cali, it's legal if you have a prescription. But you still have to deal with all your guilty feelings. That's something that you really need to work on, especially if someone is laying a guilt trip on you.

Well know one that would guilt me about it knows about it.....at least as far as I know, otherwise they have not said anything. But yeah I don't feel like its wrong.......I guess I'm just more worried about some peopels reactions.

I think most parents can't help living vicariously through their children. If they they had certain issues then they feel extremely bad when they're afraid their daughter/son will make the same mistakes. It is partly love even if it's hypocritical at the same time or feels like an unfair guilt tripping on you. Even so, it isn't right that you feel like you have to live to please them. After a while that becomes a burden that's the opposite of motivating. It's much more rewarding to set your own standards and work towards those.

Last edited by Samarda on 01 Oct 2011, 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

well I feel a bit better about all this.....main thing is I just need to quit worrying so much about what everyone else especially my mom thinks or would think. That is what it comes down to always wanting to be good enough and refusing to ever break the rules because 'my mom might get mad.' But I actually will have to confront this maybe sooner than I thought...lol I recently met up with someone I was talking to on Okcupid(thats embarrasing I probably wont tell anyone in my family that is where I originally met the guy.) but anyways I this little issue is so bad I am even nervous about just straight up telling my mom I am hanging out with a guy I met........its not like she has any reason to be mad about that but I still obsess over it.

But yeah I can't just abandon the chance of a relationship or anything else in life I make the decision to do, because of such obsessive worries. so I have to confront this, so it won't have so much control of my thought process.