The Guilt Spiral
An overwhelming whirlpool of feeling .
When I was 11, I had a terrible problem with lying about very simple things. What did I have to lie about? Nothing. It was about when I went to sleep at night, what music I was listening to, the books I read and the shows I watched. Simple things that I could lie about while in a very Christian house. Slowly, over the course of about two years, these small lies turned into bigger lies. And bigger issues.
At 13, I started to question whether I believed in God. I don’t remember what sparked this in my mind, but it had something to do with how my childhood went. I don’t want to get all that though. It’s too much to talk about. But I remember being angry with God because he took my father from me before I could even know him. I was angry about everything that had happened in my entire life. I took that anger and wouldn’t let it go. I let it fester and stew inside until I decided that I didn’t need or want God.
Of course, I didn’t tell anyone though. My family would have disowned me for thinking that. At least maybe they would have. But no, I didn’t tell anyone that I didn’t want to be around God. These were the bigger lies I started telling. Pretending that I was fine; That I still loved God. That I was still a good little Christian girl. I was lying through my teeth. Still going to church and Sunday school, bible study. I started dealing with depression during this time, which only added to the lies I told daily. Everything snowballed into each other. The lies made me feel guilty, the guilt feed the depression, causing me to develop habits that weren’t very good. These habits only worsened the lying which started the whole cycle over. This entire cycle of lies, guilt and habits went on for years. Things worsened as I got older.
When I was 17, I got into relationship with a man much older than me and this only fed these habits. This relationship was very abusive towards mentally and emotionally. This form of abuse only fed into a particularly self-harmful habit that had stuck with me for most of my teen years. It would take me many tries and years to break this habit. But during this year long relationship, this habit and the rest of my habits doubled and only got worsen, leading me further into that spiral of guilt and lies that I had been living for so long.
One night, towards the end of this relationship, when I felt rather hopeless, I got this overwhelming feeling of guilt. It was like a house had been dropped on me. I was hyper-aware of everything wrong I had done. I didn’t know what to do. I broke down in tears, wishing that my life would end right there because of this guilt.
In my class we’re reading a book called Blue Like Jazz, and in the third chapter Donald Miller, the author, talks about guilt and sin. This is where my story and Miller’s connects.
Miller’s guilt come from something different from mine. His came from using money to buy his mother a present for himself. But that doesn’t lessen it any. Guilt is guilt and It is an awful feeling. “ The guilt was so heavy that I fell out of bed onto my knees and begged, not to a slot-machine God, but to a living, feeling God to stop the pain.” That’s what Miller said on the guilt he felt.
That night, much like Miller, I begged God to stop the pain. I begged the God I had ignored for years, the God I claimed I didn’t need, that I was too good for, a living and feeling God, to stop my pain. In that moment I didn’t care how. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted this feeling gone. I never wanted to feel It again.
That night I turned back to God. I begged him to take me back, to help me, to save me. I realized the mistakes I had made and tried fixing it. I’m still trying to fix it. I have a long, long way to go. But that is the most significant experience I have with guilt and sin.
