One of These Days

Wallows of Guilt

Prompt: At the end of the play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus blinds himself possibly out of guilt as he realizes he is the one who has bought ruin to Thebes. What do you think makes people punish themselves, knowingly or unknowingly? Is it always out of guilt feelings?



I'll say that I doubt it is always about guilt feelings. There are people that do it either out of needing attention, they're just incredibly dramatic anyway and it's just how they are, or some other weirdly selfish reason. But, I think a lot of people do it because of some level of anxiety or depression. Goodness knows I apologize over real dumb shit because of mine. I'm often criticizing myself a lot harsher than anyone else could and a lot of times over things not even worth worrying about. It's a complex and ridiculous thing I deal with.

Originally, I took a break from here because life had gotten stressful at home. It ruined my creativity and at the time I was a moderator. I was the youngest moderator. I was made a moderator before there was the requirement of being 18+. I took it very seriously. I was proud of the fact that people could come to me for assistance and I could help them. I tried to make myself as approachable as possible because I know what it's like to be shy and awkward. So when everything happened at home, it made it hard for me to be present here in the way that I had always wanted to be and my creativity was shot. I eventually had my modship removed because of it and even though I agree and understand why, it was very hard for me. I ended up taking another long leave because of it, because I felt like I had failed. I had failed SM and SMs, I had failed the site for not being there. I was really rough on myself.

There was a lot of other things that had happened during both breaks. Of which I will save for another entry. It's a lot of drama and heartbreak that would just derail this entry.

Anyway, it is a guilt that makes people do it. Whether it's real guilt is a whole 'nother story. Again with depression and anxiety being factors, whether or not someone is actually propelled by real guilt of something or an imagined guilt of an imagined thing they perceive to have done, they will react with it to punish themselves in some way, Especially if you just continue to think about it and let yourself brew in your self pity. It kind of builds. Which can be easy to do if you aren't in the best of places mentally or physically. You lose a job, your relationship goes bad, you lose someone close to you, etc.

It can be hard to pull yourself out of it. It's taken me a long time to have the freedom to work on myself. There was stress from my job. My living situations. My lack of financial gains. I tried to go back to school, realized the place I went to school was an idiotic place to go to school and then I also got screwed on the major I was going for and I blamed myself for that. I also had to file for bankruptcy thanks to someone else. So I can only imagine how it feels for others who are in worse situations than I was or people that suffer from anxiety or depression that was worse than mine. The lack of proper mental health care in this country (and I'm sure other places as well) don't help either.