Guilt

[01010]

From what I can gather from various sources it's natural for an INTP to have quite a dark streak in them (almost black in me) and I know that for myself this manifests itself quite a lot as depression but also guilt. Does anybody else have feelings of overwhelming guilt when you are in a dark mood?

I try to quanitfy it in relation to myself but I can never quite put my finger on it. Has anybody else got a better handle on their guilt?

 

[Ermine]

If anything, I don't feel enough guilt. For me, it's an overwhelming feeling of stupidity when I know I could do better.

 

[Chimera]

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For me, guilt is completely situational. Sometimes I feel overwhelming guilt about something, and sometimes I feel nothing. I've had times when I feel consumed by it. If I don't see a reason to feel guilty, then I don't. My guilt is pretty easy to deactivate...since it's triggered by actions I've taken, I just have to figure out how to fix it enough to make myself feel better. Apologizing about something, paying for broken things, etc, etc...
Every now and then I might feel guilty about nothing. Then I just go do nice things for people. I guess my absence of random guilt is made up by random hopelessness/fear. . .and those are more difficult for me to get rid of.
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[flow]

I don't know how you can generalize guilt. I think you'd get a better handle on your feelings of guilt by figuring out the source of the guilt itself. What is it your feeling guilty of? Opportunities missed?

 

[loveofreason]

It's all my fault.

 

[Jennywocky]

It's all my fault.

For some dreadful reason, I feel responsible for you saying that.

I used to feel a lot more guilt. I think it comes with (1) expecting more of myself than others and (2) being able to see the outcome of so much before it occurs... so I was left feeling like it was my job to stop it from happening.

Guilt probably comes through unhealthy Fe as well -- all the things society says we should do to make and show our commitments to various people in our lives, but even if we do it, we often don't feel like we actually care so it still is sort of a lie and shows a lack of integrity at a basic level.

Once I had better self-acceptance, a lot of the guilt went away. I'll assume then that most of it was because I was holding myself to extreme standards that I had no way to meet, and once I relaxed those standards and accepted I was human and thus it was okay, the guilt left.

 

[Agent Intellect]

i tend to remember very clearly little stupid things that i've done, even shit i've done fifteen years ago that nobody else would remember, but they re-emerge in my mind and then i have an overwhelming sense of guilt. i know i shouldn't, but for some reason i can't help it.

 

[NoID10ts]

I'm the same way. I'm a train wreck of guilt. Early on in my marriage, I accumulated a lot of debt and we are just drowning in it now. It feels like I will never be out from under it and it just eats at me.

 

[01010]

There are a lot of things. I tend not to feel too guilty for things I have done as i know I'm not a bad person really. I think it may be tied to the fact I tend to get depressed quite a lot. I find it very difficult to be happy a lot of the time and get caught up thinking about the same things over and over, I feel a great sense of worthlessness a lot of the time this happens and that's when I usually feel overwhelmed with guilt too.

But then I feel guilty for stupid things other people do too. For example if someone does something stupid but not necessarily bad I can't help but feel guilty for them too like I in some way could've done something to stop them looking foolish even when I couldn't have.

Once I had better self-acceptance, a lot of the guilt went away. I'll assume then that most of it was because I was holding myself to extreme standards that I had no way to meet, and once I relaxed those standards and accepted I was human and thus it was okay, the guilt left.

I can relate to this to a certain degree but I'm not sure I hold myself to many standards. Certainly I feel I have a sense of integrity that I have to try to maintain and I think this causes a lot of problems with people in my life (to the point of ending a relationship of 6 years) but that's a personal thing. I feel like it's my duty to walk the higher path when the world around me seems to be (for want of a better description) falling into shit. But it's very difficult and I can't help but think that ultimately it's going to leave me deeply alone and unappreciated for what I attempt to do.

It's difficult to explain to people but I feel compelled to try to live a life that leads me to be ostracized a lot of the time and not because I want to particularly but because I feel I have no choice. To do anything else would leave me equally in the mire and at least this way I have the satisfaction of knowing that I stood for what I stand for and was unswayed (this is what I mean by integrity I guess).

I don't want to be a martyr, but I want to try to be something that maybe it's impossible to be, I want to be a good person all the time in, what feels to me, a world that encourages the worst in people and I find that a real struggle. I think it would be too easy to let myself be like everyone else around me and ultimately it would leave me feeling hollow.

Wow, sorry for the long post. (GUILT)

 

[Artifice Orisit]

From the whole good/evil perspective
I don't understand this guilt, but then I follow morality for the sake of conveniance and whole-heartedly embarace the darker aspects of myself. Actually I don't understand what you're talking about, is it the regret of failure and hindsight, or something else?

Edit:
After carefully reading your post again I think your talking about a high sense of social responsibility. You said you feel responsible for the mistakes of others and you dispair at the state of the world, at your inability to "fix it".

I don't have a golden heart like yours, and because of that I live with a liberating disregard for others, more detached.
If you wish to change yourself in order to achieve this liberation I suggest: watching horror movies, playing FPS games, reading politicly incorrect jokes and giving a careful study of Darwins theory of evolution and it's relation to social responsibility. Generally just open yourself to your darker side.

Or you can continue being a kind hearted person who feels obligated to "save" the world. Really it's your choice, either way is completely vaild.

 

[Fedayeen]

If anything, I don't feel enough guilt. For me, it's an overwhelming feeling of stupidity when I know I could do better.

I feel guilty BECAUSE of my stupidity.

 

[Ermine]

That could be classified as guilt, but it's a guilt all its own, so I keep it separate. For me, guilt would be feeling remorse and wishing I did something differently, instead of torturing myself for my occasional stupidity.

 

[Fedayeen]

That could be classified as guilt, but it's a guilt all its own, so I keep it separate. For me, guilt would be feeling remorse and wishing I did something differently, instead of torturing myself for my occasional stupidity.

That is what I am talking about. I consider myself as having done something stupidly if I should have done something else instead

 

[Ermine]

Maybe I feel so guilty that I've made different variants of guilt and defined them as different thing in order to alleviate the agony. *shifty eyes*

 

[Bufferkiller]

I've never felt guilt.

 

[Dissident]

Not sure about guilt, but I do have the flashback episodes where I go "Why the HELL did I say/do that??!! Am I stupid or what? Fuck!" But I think its more embarrasment than guilt.

 

[loveofreason]

Guilt can't really manifest unless one has a sense of responsibility first. That, I think, is very dependent on upbringing.

Unless they have some innately unassailable sense of self and boundaries, children given an unhealthy and unrealistic sense of responsibility by the adults in their world will most likely grow to be guilt-ridden.

Children given a burden of responsibility beyond that which they can carry will fail, and with failure frequently comes blame. Unhealthy cycles. Toxic families.

I identify with a lot of what 01010 has said.

 

[Artifice Orisit]

Not sure about guilt, but I do have the flashback episodes where I go "Why the HELL did I say/do that??!! Am I stupid or what? Fuck!" But I think its more embarrasment than guilt.

I can relate to that perfectly

 

[Ermine]

Thanks for wording that feeling of stupidity correctly, Dissident.

 

[01010]

Guilt can't really manifest unless one has a sense of responsibility first. That, I think, is very dependent on upbringing.

Unless they have some innately unassailable sense of self and boundaries, children given an unhealthy and unrealistic sense of responsibility by the adults in their world will most likely grow to be guilt-ridden.

Children given a burden of responsibility beyond that which they can carry will fail, and with failure frequently comes blame. Unhealthy cycles. Toxic families.

I identify with a lot of what 01010 has said.

This makes me very glad, to know that I'm not the only one that has these feelings. I try my hardest to accept that I am just a solitary man and that the responsibility for what I perceive as wrong does not lie with me. I try to live a virtuous life (though not holy or puritanical by any means) and I try to care about the impact that I have in the world at large and minimise the negative effect I have. I don't particularly want to change, I like being a good person, but I do wish that I didn't feel that I carry the weight of the world as a burden.

Ideally what I think I could do to reduce the feeling of guilt is try to educate people around me as to what they could do in their lives to make the world a better place for everyone, but I think that maybe that lies outside of my capabilities.

Maybe I'm a little crazy (aren't we all) but sometimes it feels like the guilt and the depression is natures way of saying "wake the fuck up, look at what is happening to the planet you are living on, you have to help" because at times that is what it feels like.

 

[loveofreason]

The world's damn heavy for one.

Sometimes being super perceptive adds to guilt. If you can clearly see the result of a course of action that no one else around you seems to notice, and you know those consequences are negative both for yourself, all involved and a multitude... well, you probably feel like you have to point out to all and sundry that they're about to walk off a cliff. Or somehow avert them.

If you feel that privileged knowledge requires super-human action, eventual failure is a matter of course. But owning the failures of others as well as one's self is a bit greedy, don't you think?

I think us uber-guilty types have an omnipotence complex.

 

[sagewolf]

I feel guilty, mostly, when I let someone down and they don't realise it. Apparently, I have a very competent, controlled, and capable image around other people (especially my teachers). In reality, I couldn't give a damn about school and I only do the minimum amount of work needed to get by without getting in trouble. So when I don't finish a project or completely f*k it up, I feel terrible because that's what I'm actually like: they think it's just a one-off. I don't know if this is actual guilt or just me worrying that I will indeed eventually be unmasked for the apathetic procrastinator I am, though. My darker moods don;t manifest themselves as guilt, either: when I'm in a dark mood I wind up really confrontational and bitter.

 

[01010]

The world's damn heavy for one.

Sometimes being super perceptive adds to guilt. If you can clearly see the result of a course of action that no one else around you seems to notice, and you know those consequences are negative both for yourself, all involved and a multitude... well, you probably feel like you have to point out to all and sundry that they're about to walk off a cliff. Or somehow avert them.

If you feel that privileged knowledge requires super-human action, eventual failure is a matter of course. But owning the failures of others as well as one's self is a bit greedy, don't you think?

I think us uber-guilty types have an omnipotence complex.

I completely understand what you mean there. Sometimes I do think it's a very selfish request. I want the world to be better cause then it's a better place for me to live in, a nice consequence is that it's better for everyone else too. I think it's selfishness certainly but it's a selfishness everyone should possess because it can't help but be benificial.

 

[Ermine]

This is the biggest reason why I hate it when people don't understand me. I see, or would like to think I see, what is really happening and that it could and should be better.

 

[shadowmouse]

Guilty. Yes. It's all my fault. It has to be all my fault otherwise I'm missing something. In which case it's STILL all my fault. I find it easiest to just take responsibility for everything bad and no responsibility for anything good. That way I can at least try and fix it. And If I fail it's because I missed something in which case it's, once again, all my fault. And of course anything good isn't my fault because I'm always missing something and it just occurred by random probability confluence.

Needless to say it's a nasty little cycle and I really wish I could say I was joking about this being my usual train of thought........

Sometimes it's just best to turn on your favorite background noise/music and wrap yourself in a big down comforter, try to forget, and hope it all goes away.

(Apologies for the rather depressing state.)

 

[Jordan~]

I have a tendency to never feel guilt, or never do things that would make me feel guilty. Determinism, I guess.