Bad Conscience?

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I discovered that I have a guilty conscience, and an illogical one at that. You see, like so many others, I have very few friends. I feel very guilty about it, and didn't want to reveal to people how friendless I was. As such, I remained withdrawn from other people, and filled in the loneliness with school, work, and other stuff to keep me busy. I see hard workers around me all the time, and felt bad that people were mean to me all the time. My solution was to work harder, be smarter, all so that I didn't have to feel the pain.

And now I am burnt out. After a long conversation with some loved ones, I realized I was on an unsustainable path, and became far too busy to stay healthy. I don't know where I will go from here, but I now know that I can easily get wrapped up in that cycle.

Anyone want to share bad conscience stories?

sorry but i don't understand why anybody would feel guilty about not having friends. i do understand about overworking oneself so as to push bad feelings out of one's mind. at least you have loved ones, a lot of other folk on this forum and elsewhere have to make do without.
as for having a guilty conscience in general, whenever i have failed somebody else for whatever reason, i feel a twinge of guilt only because i have violated the golden rule. even for people who have been evil to me, i feel guilty that i have not been able to awaken in them some basic decency. but if one never felt guilty about anything, that is sociopathy which is the royal road to perdition, and IMHO the lions' share of humanity is going to be knocking the bottom out of that place soon.

I used to feel so consistently guilty that I would apologize for existing pretty much, and apologize for apologizing, etc. I'd frequently try to take responsibility for stuff I hadn't even done, or that was nowhere near as bad as I saw it. I do that less now but I still often figure I've done something wrong before realizing I haven't.

My most recent source of guilt and shame were the first months of my current job, and it still lingers a little now. I didn't feel that I deserved it, and really struggled with anything beyond the most basic social interactions for a while - which was a big problem, because I was supposed to be part of a team. What made it so bad is that most people were completely friendly and nice, so the fault lay entirely with me and my anxiety. I'd overanalyze everything I said or didn't say, then come home and beat myself up over all the little blunders I'd made throughout the day.

Thankfully, things improved over time. If nothing else, I at least seem to have proven myself with the quality of my work (getting plenty of praise and recognition), so I don't feel quite as unworthy as I did before. I still feel like I'm straining everyone's patience at times, though.

The hostility people had toward loners in school was enough to make me feel guilty about it. I don't really feel that way today, but it's still not something I'd readily admit to someone outside of the anonymity of the internet.

I've had many experiences where I knew I should have said or done something and which haunt me for years afterward.

I used to have a conscience that would give me a compulsion to do the right thing (morality and OCD). Now its mostly logic (or rather what makes perfect reason to me).

Man, can I ever relate to this. When I was a child, probably in Cub Scouts, we were returning from some Scouting event in Mexico, and the border cops asked me if I was hiding anything in the car. I wasn't, but the way I denied it made them suspicious and they delayed us for a thorough search. All because of my ever-present guilt.

It was in my early twenties that I learned how different I was from everyone else. I interpreted this as inferior to everyone else, and I suffered excruciating bouts of guilt, apologizing for my inability to please, apologizing for my lack of any ability, ultimately apologizing for what I was, for simply being me.

I look back on those days with relief that I'm no longer like that. It took about fifteen years of therapy before I learned that everyone out there was uncertain and making it up as they went along. There was no wrong way to be, so long as no one gets hurt. I adopted a simple philosophy: Do no harm. I've lived it ever since, to be sure I'm okay.

dp

My past mistakes still haunt me, from time to time. I know enough to keep my past three years of darkness from haunting me. However, some of the things before that, do haunt me. Things around behaviours and special interests about America, countries, hockey, The Dukes of Hazzard and The Beatles. The interesting thing is that The Kinks don't seem nearly as haunting, as the other special interests that I've had. They almost seem pleasant, as far as memories are concerned. Other memories from my past haunt me, and I have my conscience, to remind me of them. My bad conscience is different from my good one. The good one is the Cockney accent that I speak with. My bad one sounds like my mother some times, and my father, half of the time.

I constantly feel guilty and ashamed, without being able to specify a reason. I am nervous of police, security guards and other people in uniform, and I am usually anxious that people are going to turn around and blame me for something. It affects going out and shopping a lot.

I reality (when I try to analyse this with my psychologist) I do not get blamed for things and have never been in trouble with any authority, or done anything worth being in trouble for. I was blamed a lot in childhood and my psychologist suggests that, combined with social awkwardness in adulthood, the memory keeps triggering the same fear responses in social situations.

I can understand the OP's reluctance to talk to others about loneliness. I never thought of it as guilt before.....but I guess it could be called that. Loneliness isn't a thing people wear on their sleeves. It's something of a heavy trip to lay on people in real life, same as depression.....depends on the people but I think a lot would feel awkward because it's so difficult to know how to help. I don't mind admitting it round here, but I'd be careful who I mentioned it to otherwise. I'd probably mention it as an aside comment rather than hit anybody with it directly and wait for an answer. I'm not ashamed of it though.

As for general guilt feelings, I get a lot of those, mostly about deserting friends and partners over the years (though if they'd really wanted to keep in touch, they could have done, just that I didn't really reciprocate). I also feel quite guilty in my current marriage for not being more like the person my wife wanted me to be. I feel guilty about every day that I don't really work hard (which is weird because I hate the work ethic and believe it's a real curse). Mostly I feel guilty that I've not really done enough for people on an emotional level, not being able to express to them that I care.....there's so much I don't do and say just because I don't want to risk looking sloppy or vulnerable, so rather than get involved I've just played everything safe.

I carry around lots of feelings of guilt and shame, linked to my troubles interracting with others and the way I can treat others because I have a hard time dealing with them...or because I am stressed out and numerous other reasons....not to mention bad things that I have done.....not out of intentional malice, but due to my heavy handed-ness due to poor coping mechanisms....and so on...I will not go into specifics....

I was like that as a child. I'd often take responsibility just to make the hostility go away. I must have been a sensitive child.

I feel guilty about my loneliness because it affects other aspects of my life. I constantly interact with people at work and at school, and while it doesn't bother me, I need to appear friendly. People ask about my friends, and that makes me feel nervous and guilty.

Othertimes, I load the loneliness factor onto loved ones. I only have a few people close to me, and always talk about my loneliness. That makes me feel bad, especially with my boyfriend. We have a new relationship, so I sometimes wonder if I am inadvertently pushing him away.

I was feeling guilty about all the years that I was lonely, from my second year in high school, until I've started going to Stepping Stones, in 1998. I was really feeling guilty about it, one day last week, and I was crying about it. That prompted me to set up my DVD player, for my big day, next month. May 18th is the day that a DVD will be coming out, that I want to buy.