You Wear Guilt
You wear guilt like a noose around your neck. There it hangs, just waiting to be yanked by me and the tightening ligature around that slender neck will bring you back into line. I can then allow the noose to hang about your neck once again, ready to be used as soon as I decide that it is necessary. You do not even try to remove this noose, you would, of course feel guilty if you tried to do so and as a consequence it will always remain with you, on you and about you.
There is no slow squeezing when this noose is called into action. It is immediate, painful and chastising. It allows the sudden and instant exertion of control. What better way than to achieve this than relying on something that is intrinsic to another person. This noose burns, it constricts and it chokes and you know that it is not going to go anywhere. The only way to deal with it is to comply and then the noose will slacken but it will not grant you release.
You have carried this noose for a very long time. Once upon a time it was only a few strands thick, yet for all of that apparent fragility, it could not be cut nor broken, neither snapped or torn. As time went on, the strands multiplied so that the thickness increased until now it hangs about you, sturdy and effective. Nobody else wove those additional strands into it. You did. You brought it all on yourself because of the twisted delight you have to wear this noose. You regard it as an obligation. It is part of who you are and whilst the pain it causes you is something that you would prefer not to have to suffer, you know that when it makes you suffer, you gain comfort from its presence and effect.
You know that not everybody has such a noose. There are those who do not even have one. You wonder often what that must be like. Not to have the yoke about you which weighs you down, restricts you and governs you. What must such freedom feel like? Then there are those who have such a noose but they seem to be able to lift it off and leave it behind when it suits them. Others still find that the noose is weak and it snaps apart when it seeks to apply pressure against its wearer. No such release for you.
This is the noose that has you always compliant. Sometimes you fight against it, hoping that you might perhaps once, just once, be able to exert such strength that causes it to break, but it never happens. No matter what resistance you exhibit or how much you strain to tear it apart, you fail and have no choice other than to comply so that the pain recedes. It leaves its mark about you. There is no doubt about it. Even though the searing pain may have lessened, you can feel that tight grip still and you know that others can see where it has left its mark. Not all have this ability to recognise the mark of the noose, but a certain group do and they always want to exploit its presence. Oh there have been times when you have sought to hide this noose, mask its presence in the hope that you escape the attention of those who recognise it. Even if you manage to conceal the noose, the mark that it has left about your neck is like an indelible stain. You cannot remove it and it is the stamp that tells those who know these things that you carry such a noose.
You may not realise that it is you who has added those additional strands over the years, causing the noose to thicken and strengthen. Those strands are bound together, layer upon layer, wound about one another, so that they become more than the sum of their parts. The strands which are fashioned from your pervasive, deep-seated guilt, are added to because of those things which you say and do. Each time you think a certain way, which you cannot help but do because of who and what you are, another strand is added, then another, until soon the noose becomes thick and heavy. Each time you think the following
It is my fault; I did not listen.
I need to do more to help.
He cannot help it.
I need to ensure I understand.
If only I could be stronger.
If only I knew what to do.
I should be getting home; he will wonder where I am.
I should not be doing this.
I should not speak ill of him really; he is my husband.
I should not think these things, I do love him, I just feel so weak and this is when I have these thoughts.
I ought to have realised.
I must listen more.
I have to keep trying.
I owe it to him to help.
He isn’t as bad as people say.
If I just keep going it will become better.
I have to try because if I don’t, who will be there for him.
It is my duty.
I made my vows and I shall abide by them.
I must be doing something wrong to make him feel like this.
I just seem to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.
These thoughts and words, plus many more, cause the noose to become stronger. Thus it tightens and I yank it, pulling you in my direction so that you remain under my control, bound by this guilt to serve, to support and to fuel. An ever present burden which you add to yourself each and every day. A method by which you are manipulated, cajoled and coerced to fulfil my needs.
This noose is not there to hang you. No, there is no desire to bring about your demise. You are more effective to us functioning. Your guilt will not bring about your end, but instead it acts to maintain your imprisonment.
You make the noose grow.
I make the noose control you.
Can it be escaped? We think not. It is for life. Even though it may not tighten or constrict for some time, even years, it is always there and with the mark so prominent, another may come and utilise the control that the noose affords even though we may not be able to.
We will not lift it. It matters too greatly to us.
We will not lift it because it is your burden, perpetuated by you.
But it can be lifted. It is not simple or straightforward and we ensure we do not allow you the opportunity to address this chance to relieve yourself of this noose of guilt. It can be done. It is quite the task to achieve but for you, that journey begins by answering one question.
Who put it there in the first place?
15 thoughts on “You Wear Guilt”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I have uncovered every mask with my Marc. The cheating, porn, gay chats, stealing, lying ,the con artist, the low class whores, the drugs, all of it but he still comes back for more of what I got. Seems he is searching for fuel all over the place but now me being an empath , I have come to see my narc traits as well. I can’t wait to have no expression on my face when he comes to me , since I got in the car a just left him another state! Very empowering. I am Grade A supply, he will seek me in another, but I promise he will never find me. That HG is my Karma. I’m in love with the knowledge! I’m glad my searching brought me to you! A narcissist can be beat with knowledge alone. What book of yours do you suggest I read?
I would suggest Fuel, Manipulated, Fury, Sex and the Narcissist, No Contact and Exorcism.
We are subjected to gaslighting, denials, fabrication, word salad, triangulation, blame shifting, projection…..we are horribly viciously punished if we try to hold the narc accountable….it is the narc who put the guilt there.
Brilliantly explained HG thank you. Also glad to see that the noose can be broken. That little bit of hope that it doesn’t have to be permanent.
You are welcome and thank you.
Ooh, ooh…I know that answer! My mid range narc mother and probably-greater narc father when I was a wee youngster! Set me up good for my greater narc ex husband. My guilt noose is so heavy I walk slumped over.
So how do we lighten our nooses? We can go no contact with our toxic abusers, but those long-practiced guilt patterns still affect our current relationships and our social interactions.
S. Grace
Guilt nooses are made out of our own emotional thinking. We can use logical thinking to cut thru them, then wear our logic like one of those spiked dog collars to keep new guilt from settling around our necks.
Windstorm
Great visual.
Wind Storm! Spiked dog collars?! Who would of thought! 😂 Actually as always words of wisdom! Guilt is my worse enemy!
Windstorm,
It sounds so great in theory. When life’s stressors batter me around, it is sometimes difficult to tuck away that annoying emotional thinking and substitute it with the steady and reliable logical thinking. I need a switch or knob that could do that. Instead I struggle as a super sensitive being to harness the wayward emotions that consume me. I wish I was a normal. I wish it was easier.
Agreed. Excellent visual.
Hello H.G Tudor
Who’s to blame for feeling guilty? Obviously, in my specific case, I am. Why deny the evidence. hahahah.
And you are absolutely right. Because I must feel guilty, of something that I have neither done nor have control over the matter in question?
Possibly, as you say, to find a justification and explanation for unpleasant events and facts.
Because a normal person and above all empathics must and must find a justification for the facts.
To a certain extent it is logical that he really should not feel this guilt.
But why do we think so unconsciously?
Maybe our subconscious really ask these questions and affirmations because in reality we are guilty because although not consciously.
As Newton said in his third law
“With every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: it means that the mutual actions of two bodies are always equal and directed in the opposite direction.
Indeed, every action has a reaction. The lack of emotional attention to the narcissist. It will always create its usually negative reaction (positive or negative) towards its victim. So that we react more virulently, incarnated and bestial. and we pay them more emotional attention, obtaining with it their much needed fuel.
I have been thinking about sentimental relationships with the narcissist.
What for me is a “toxic and harmful” relationship, for the narcissist is a satisfactory relationship, because he gets what he wants from it. Until he stops getting what he wants. By exhaustion of the same victim, “Broken Toy”.
Therefore, I suppose that if I put myself in the narcissist’s shoes, this relationship would be fully satisfactory for me. Because I would get what I need. It only becomes unsatisfactory for the narcissist, when the relationship stops getting fuel from us. And so, they leave us or push us away, because they do not get what they need from us.
It is curious to observe and analyze, think or place ourselves in their place and the whole narcissistic and empathic world.
Tudor says that our feeling of guilt is our rope. And that this guilt is somewhat fictitious. But, I don’t think so at all, following my reasoning.
The narcissist has to have a zero-counter relationship. And we empathics cannot give a cumulative sentimental relationship. So the fuel decreases and we end up painted black by the narcissist, going into devaluation.
I believe that the fault of this whole process is of the two in narcissist not to speak and of the empathic for not seeing the evident.
But in order to maintain a relationship with a narcissist, one should have done a master’s degree in psychology and this is not possible…
And what do you think of my reasoning, that they don’t come to any solution? hahahahahaha.
My mother.
This is where I have improved a great deal . I don’t let people use guilt on me any more, guilt kept me a prisoner to myself for years for things I haven’t even done , I felt the responsibility of the world especially those around me was on me that it was my duty to make them happy and if I didn’t do it I would fail I’m starting to be okay with failure in that area