Guilt

[Ostick]

Does anyone know how to minimize the guilt that eats away at me … I didn’t do enough to help Eve and couldn’t save her at the end. The pain of her not being here and the guilt really are more than I can take. If you have some advice, please help.

[Flower_garden]

Hello, I’m sorry your suffering, guilt is well known to be part of grief, people often say you only experience Guilt in bereavement if you cared deeply about the one you’ve lost.

In respect of saving her, I think we all think we have more power then we do, no matter how much we want to stop a loved one dying it’s out if our control.

In respect of what you did for Eve, I found it helped to sit down with a notepad & write down all the things you did do for Eve, you’ll be surprised how quickly the notepad fills up, then when you feel overwhelmed with these thoughts you can read what you’ve written and it will help.

I felt Guilt was the worst emotion to feel in Grief, but I look on it as evidence of just how deeply I loved my husband & realised by writing it all down that the guilt was just my mind trying to handle it/make sense of it and there was no evidence of guilt, other then being a normal human being with flaws and not being a superwoman

[sue11]

I understand how you feel i felt that if i got him to the hospital faster he would have been ok but my husband keep saying he was ok and did not need to go to the hospital but in the end i could see he was really unwell he had colon and liver cancer when we got to the hospital they sent him for a scan and his liver was shutting down i felt so much guilt for not doing any thing but was told not to blame my self by the doctor who was looking after him he said no matter how fast you got him here it would not have changed what had happend

[Stillhiswife]

Hi @Ostick
Yup guilt is normal but it doesnt mean you are to blame. We judge ourselves by what we know now and it does eat away. I found this helpful

The guilt monster

Hi all, This is another video i stumbled on which, like the sudden death one I shared yesterday, helped me make sense of things. I feel tremendous guilt which comes in waves, and while my rational self believes i did my best at the time, my grieving self feels very differently. No amount of reassurance alleviates it. Again this might not be for everyone but it may strike a cord with others. She talks about ‘magical thinking’ and the relationship between guilt and its role in denial. Its by no…

If the link doesnt work, if you look on you tube for julia samuel the guilt monster you should find it xxx

[Johnch]

Oh, I felt the guilt after losing my wife. It’s a feeling of why didn’t I do any more to help. It’s one of the stages of grief that we have to go through. I still feel guilt after 3 years but is not the dominant thought that plagues me as it did. Hope this helps…