Guilt Sucks

Fucking Catholic guilt.  They must have really sunk their hooks deep when I was a child, because I can’t believe how effectively guilt makes life suck.  The thing is, not everyone reacts the same way to guilt.  Some people seem to actually be completely devoid of it.  HOW?!   I would pay any amount of money to reconfigure my brain so that I didn’t have to be eaten alive by the vicious expectations of other people.  I don’t want to give a shit about what other people think.  I just don’t know how.

Example #1:  My parents.  My mother is fond of saying that she doesn’t TRY to make me feel guilty, but if I DO … well, there must be a reason.  Really, mom?  Well played, lady.  All my parents have to do is sit in their house over there in Omaha and breathe, and I start to feel guilty about not going over there more often. 

 

Example #2:  Not even MY parent – my in-law parent.  I didn’t go to her extended family Christmas fete on Christmas day (we had just celebrated with her two days prior with dinner and drinks and gifts) so she sent me a note in the mail saying that the gift was “to be opened at her family’s Christmas!”  Are you kidding?!  Forgive me for wanting to be indulgent in my pajamas with my children on Christmas!  And since when are gifts conditional?

Example #3:  My brother is a piece of work.  I don’t like him.  I am made to feel guilty by just about everyone for not liking him and not tolerating his bullshit all the time.  I don’t understand why people think that just because two people are blood-related they should share some deep bond.  Some family is just people you happen to be forced into social interaction with more often than others.  That doesn’t necessarily mean I like them.   (Such sentiment, of course, makes me a bitch)

Example #4:  People who don’t understand what the word INTROVERT means try to make me feel guilty for not wanting to be a social butterfly.  I suck at small talk.  I don’t want to do it.  I don’t want to entertain people or try to keep up repartee about the weather under any circumstances.  It’s exhausting to those of us who aren’t chatty beings. 

Example #5:  I can’t even be a proper drunk.  I’d like to just go off the deep end like Hunter Thompson or Ernest Hemingway or Scott Fitzgerald (or even Zelda Fitzgerald) or Dylan Thomas, but the guilt gets to me every time!  I feel bad for drinking too much and then try to repent.  Stupid.  Maybe I should have gotten myself a crippling heroin addiction years ago when I had the strength.  Too late now. 

There are dozens of other examples, but it’s kind of just pissing me off when I write them down, so I’m going to navigate away and work on my screen play for a while.  (Another source of guilt, because I always feel like I should be doing something academic rather than whatever else I’m doing.)  Good job, Catholic priests and educators.  I can see how you managed to rule the world for a short period of time.