How to handle feelings of guilt

Guilt is an emotion we all feel from time to time. You might feel it when you think you did or said something wrong. Dealing with feelings of guilt can be difficult and might take some time to work through.

What is guilt?

People can experience guilt when they have the impression that they behaved in a way that wasn’t right, fair, or true to their real selves. While guilt is often associated with actions, people can also feel guilty for thinking certain thoughts.

In general, there are two types of guilt: healthy guilt and unhealthy guilt.

Healthy guilt

Guilt can sometimes be a healthy emotion when felt in response to a harmful or inconsiderate action. In such cases, guilt can remind us of the value in trying to apologise for it, take responsibility for the negative consequences, and learn from it. For example, if you forget your friend’s birthday, healthy guilt might remind you to apologise and put it in your calendar for next year so you don’t forget again.

Unhealthy guilt

Guilt can become unhealthy when you are having irrational feelings about a situation that isn’t your fault or you have no control over. In such cases, you could be expecting too much from yourself (which is quite common), or you may feeling guilty because someone else has suggested that you are responsible for an outcome that was not within your control.

For example, if a friend failed an exam that you did really well in, you might feel guilty, despite the fact that you had no control over how your friend performed. Alternatively, you might feel guilty for not spending enough time with friends while you are studying for important exams. Sometimes you can expect too much of yourself, or others can expect too much from you. When these expectations exist and you find unable to satisfy them, they can result in feelings of guilt.

What can feelings of guilt do to you?

Guilt can have positive and negative influences on your behaviour. Healthy guilt encourages you to consider the consequences of your actions and to learn from them. Unhealthy guilt, however, may cause you to be overly hard on yourself about ways you should have or could have behaved in the past.

Below are some of the ways that guilt can affect you in your daily life:

Encourage you to take responsibility for your actions

Not accepting responsibility for an issue you may have played a part in can leave you feeling a certain degree of healthy guilt. You can often gain some relief by acknowledging your responsibility for certain outcomes and moving on to make amends, if necessary.

Encourage you to try to ‘fix’ the problem

Healthy guilt can remind you that you did something wrong, or didn’t do something that you should have done. These feelings of guilt may encourage you to resolve the problem as best you can.

After trying to make amends, it is best to accept that people might need time to forgive you if your actions significantly affected their lives. In the meantime, work on forgiving yourself—something which can also take time—and learning from the experience. If you still feel guilty after sincerely apologising, taking responsibility for your actions, and doing all you can to resolve the issue, you may be experiencing unhealthy guilt.

Drive you to take excessive responsibility

Unhealthy guilt experienced over a long period of time can have negative effects on your mental health. This feeling can drive people to take excessive responsibility for situations beyond their control, leading them to blame themselves unnecessarily. You might try to make sure everything is ‘perfect’ for everyone and put substantial pressure on yourself to keep everyone happy. Trying to please everyone all the time or taking responsibility for other people’s happiness is not sustainable, and is likely to take its toll on you and others around you.

Leave you feeling overwhelmed

If you are feeling unhealthy guilt and trying to keep everyone happy all the time, you might eventually feel overwhelmed by the level of responsibility you are assuming. This unhealthy guilt may:

• Cause you to withdraw, avoiding people and social situations when possible
• Affect your decision making
• Leave you feeling stressed
• Impact your ability to feel the full range of your emotions

Cause feelings of anxiety

Feeling guilty for a long period of time can cause anxiety. If you are experiencing anxiety you might feel excessive nervousness, fear and worry. Anxiety can affect you in several ways and impact both your mental and physical health.

If you think you may be experiencing anxiety, check out our article on dealing with anxiety.

What can you do about your guilt?

You can follow some practical steps to help manage your feelings of guilt.

Identify why you feel guilty

By identifying where your feelings of guilt are coming from you can check if you are feeling healthy or unhealthy guilt. There are practical things you can do to help with your feelings of healthy guilt. Unhealthy guilt might be more difficult to deal with and may take longer to work through.

Apologise

If you have identified that you are feeling healthy guilt and understand why, you could start by apologising to the person who you think you wronged. Depending on how bad the issue was, they might not accept your apology straight away. They might need time to reflect, see you making amends and or trying to resolve the problem.

Try to fix the problem

Not all problems can be resolved, and it is not always within our power to “fix” things. However, in cases where a resolution seems possible, consider doing what you can to improve the situation. You may need to ask the person who you have wronged for help. This can be daunting, but in the long run, asking how you can help can avoid making the problem worse. A friend or family member who knows about the situation might also be able to offer advice.

Accept it

Recognise that you made a mistake and that you have done all you can to resolve the issue. Accept that it might take a while for things to go back to normal with the person you have wronged. If you can show them you are sorry and give them time to process this, they will hopefully forgive you.

Learn from it

When you have done what you can to make amends, reflect on what you did or said and why you did or said it. Learn from the mistake you made, the impact it had on the other person, and how the person responded when you attempted to resolve the issue. Ask yourself how you might have approached things differently.

Read more about dealing with conflicts and fights in relationships.

What to do if your feelings of guilt are persistent

If you are experiencing a lot of unhealthy guilt and are struggling to handle it, here are some things you could do:

Check your guilt

Ask yourself some questions about your guilt:

• Have you done all you can do to improve the situation?
• Are you feeling guilty about something that is out of your control?
• Is your guilt based on someone else’s expectations?
• Does the guilt you feel correspond to what you did?

These questions might help you realise that your guilt is unhealthy guilt.

Talk about it with someone

Talking to someone about your guilt will offer a different opinion on the situation and your actions. They might help you realise if you are feeling unnecessarily guilty. Saying a problem out loud can also help you to see it differently and make it seem more manageable. You could talk to a family member, a friend, or consider going for counselling to speak to someone in confidence.

Identify why you are feeling unrealistic pressure

If you are putting unnecessary pressure on yourself, it may be influenced by an external factor. For example, a parent, guardian or friend might be expecting too much of you. Try to talk to them and explain how you are feeling. They may not have realised the effect their behaviour was having on you.

Some external factors are harder to deal with. For example, you might be feeling guilty every time you spend money because your parents or guardians are struggling financially. This can be tricky but discussing it with your guardian(s) might help. They might outline what they see as ‘fair’ spending and what they see as excessive. This way you know what you can spend and don’t need to feel guilty about it.

For further advice on dealing with conflict with your parents our article getting along with my parents might help.

Find out if your guilt is related to something else

You may be experiencing unhealthy guilt as a result of a different problem. Try to identify what else is going on in your life that could be causing you difficulty. When this problem is resolved, you may find that your feelings of guilt may diminish. While the feeling of unhealthy guilt may lessen with resolution of the problem, it’s important to also reflect on why this unresolved problem led to feelings of guilt in the first place. Working with an accredited psychotherapist or other mental health professional can guide you through this process of self-reflection.

If you think you might be experiencing anxiety, depression or another mental health issue, learn more from the Mental Health section of our website.

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