Self-blame is an emotion many people experience when they make a mistake or sin. However in many cases this condition can occur when the real cause is not their fault. This is a negative emotion that causes many impacts on health and life, so it is necessary to find a solution to overcome it soon.
Signs to identify people who blame themselves
Self-blame is one of the common responses to stressful events. This is an unhealthy attachment to one’s own emotions, which is often accompanied by guilt and shame.
In life, when faced with setbacks, guilt and self-pity often only last for a short time. However, if you are faced with overly stressful events, the condition can be persistent.
Instinctively, there are a lot of people who blame themselves and agonize over things that are really not their fault. Others hold on to their mistakes long after they’ve stopped hurting others.
People who often blame themselves often have some of the following symptoms:
- Haunted by past mistakes: They often express regret and self-blame with thoughts and words such as “I should have done this”, “If only I had done differently”, “I shouldn’t have said that”,…
- Constantly worrying about how to meet the expectations of relatives, groups or society.
- Get in the habit of imagining negative or scary things that might happen. Often thinking about “what the hell would happen if I failed myself?”.
- Take your flaws or mistakes seriously.
- Worry in daily activities and in all jobs. They are afraid of being criticized and reprimanded by others and afraid of being isolated by the group.
- Thinking too much about everything, including negative and positive things, important things and things that are not worth it. Their minds can’t seem to rest.
The effects of prolonged self-blame
Self-blame is a negative emotion that causes many impacts on both health and life. Especially in cases where this condition persists without remedial measures.
Tormenting yourself can leave you in a state of fatigue, stress, and anxiety
Some of the harmful effects include:
- Bad effect on mood: Self-torture is often accompanied by other negative emotions. Such as fear, anxiety, stress, pessimism, sadness, and sometimes anger and self-loathing. Unstable mood greatly affects your thinking and behavior, moreover, it affects study/work performance.
- Fatigue and weakness: The brains of people who constantly blame themselves are always present with negative thoughts and emotions. This condition for a long time can cause overload and make the whole body tired and weak.
- Abuse of alcohol: The feeling of self-pity makes you always melancholy, heavy and lose all positive emotions. Many people free themselves from negative emotions by indulging in alcohol and drugs.
- Limited job opportunities: People who blame themselves often think they deserve to be punished. Therefore, some people have turned to low-paying jobs to torture themselves. In addition, thinking and tormenting too much also reduce memory and ability to concentrate. This situation can lead to mistakes when working.
- Losing relationships: Tormenting guilt causes many people to isolate themselves and live separately from everyone around them. Especially for people with psychological instability after trauma, they often become angry and angry easily. This can lead to conflicts with those around. As a result, relationships are gradually lost.
In addition, wallowing in guilt and self-blame can cause you to lose sight of the true meaning of life. The practical value of life is to forgive and perfect yourself every day to live meaningfully. At the same time make up for the mistakes and shortcomings of the past.
Self-blame and mental illness
Prolonged self-blame not only causes fatigue and affects life, but also has a negative impact on psychology. This is thought to be a closely related factor and increases the risk of psychological diseases.
The most common psychological problems associated with self-blame include:
– Depression:
Guilt and self-blame can be overwhelming in anyone with depression. In fact, the tendency to blame and beat yourself up excessively (inappropriately) is a major contributor to depression.
Depression is one of the most common emotional disorders. This disease is characterized by a low mood with the main manifestations being profound sadness, low mood, depression, decreased energy and loss of interest in everything around.
Prolonged self-blame increases the risk of psychological problems, especially depression
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD):
This is a type of anxiety disorder that tends to occur about 1 month after the occurrence of the highly traumatic event. This condition can last for at least 6 months.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is thought to be closely related to feelings of self-blame. In addition, people with this disorder have penetrating flashbacks of past events. Such as thoughts, dreams or paranoia.
PTSD can also cause a person to fall into a state of unease, anxiety, panic, and over-protection. Patients may avoid trauma-related stimuli and are often disinterested in daily activities.
Other psychological problems:
In addition to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), self-blame and negative emotions can also be the cause of many other psychological problems. Such as delusional disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, acute psychosis, etc. However, the rate of developing these psychological problems is usually lower than that of depression and PTSD.
How to overcome self-blame
As analyzed, the state of self-blame causes many serious effects on both psychological health, physical as well as life. Therefore, it is necessary to find a solution to quickly overcome this situation.
Here are some solutions to help you limit self-blame and move towards positive thinking:
1. Share with trusted people
In fact, a lot of people don’t have the courage to admit their mistakes in front of others. Instead, they keep it to themselves and blame themselves for a long time.
Feelings of self-blame and self-pity often occur after you’ve been through an overwhelmingly stressful event or faced with mistakes and setbacks. The best way to overcome self-pity is to open up to the people around you.
When you dare to admit your mistakes, you will be relieved of the burden, sorrow and suffering. From there, you will receive a feeling of relief and comfort from within. In addition, when you share, your friends or relatives will be able to give you useful tips to overcome this situation.
In fact, people who express intense emotions after experiencing traumatic events are more likely to get over it. And those who try to suppress their emotions often beat themselves up and have to deal with long-lasting dull pain. Therefore, instead of trying to be strong, feel free to express your true feelings to relieve your mind.
Take the initiative to share with your loved ones to receive useful advice and relieve negative emotions
2. Take time to rest and relax
After going through stressful events, you always need to have some space to look and reflect on things. Once everything is in order, you should take time to rest and relax at home for a few days. Or you can refresh yourself with short-term trips.
Rest is the key to quick mental recovery. At the same time have a comfortable time to reflect on what happened with a calmer mind. From there, know how to regulate moods and emotions. At the same time, learn from experience to limit mistakes in the future.
However, if you’re going through a lot of trauma, stay with friends or family. Because at this time your mood may be too panic and unstable. Being alone can create opportunities for unfortunate situations to arise.
3. Try to solve the problem
Many people wallow in grief and torment when they experience traumatic events. However, at this point you need to try to revive your spirit so that you can focus on dealing with problems and problems.
In case the mistake is caused by yourself, you need to find a way to fix it to minimize the damage. This is an effective solution to help improve the situation very well. Moreover, it also helps you to leave a good impression in the eyes of those around you.
The way you try to fix the consequences is the most perfect compensation for the mistakes you have made. Everyone can’t avoid making mistakes in life, but you must always strive to be better every day. Through overcoming the consequences, you will learn from experience and become more mature.
Of course, taking the initiative to deal with the problem is more rewarding than blaming yourself and wallowing in negative emotions. In addition, when you overcome your mistakes, you will also feel relieved and easier to forgive yourself.
4. Health Care
Self-blame can be accompanied by stress. Moreover, it also makes the body tired and weak. Therefore, to soon regain balance, good health care is necessary. Moreover, having a good health foundation will also help you to overcome negative emotions soon. Issues to watch out for include:
- Get enough sleep: After a traumatic experience or stressful event, torment and negative emotions can negatively affect sleep. A lack of sleep can worsen emotions and mood. Therefore, you should try to go to bed early. Make it a goal to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
- Avoid alcohol and drugs: Many people turn to alcohol and drugs to relieve their torment and self-blame. However, this can make things worse. Especially increases the risk of depression, anxiety and isolation.
- Eat a balanced diet: You should try to supplement the body with adequate nutrients. Eat several small and balanced meals each day. This will help you maintain energy as well as reduce mood swings. Eat more healthy fats and reduce sugary and greasy foods.
- Managing stress: Torment and self-blame with stress are closely linked. To help ease negative emotions, you need to manage stress well. Maybe try deep breathing exercises, meditation or yoga. Also make time for activities that bring you joy.
5. Regulate thoughts and feelings
Regulating your thoughts and controlling your emotions is a great way to overcome self-blame. However, this is not an easy solution to implement.
At first, it will be difficult for you to control the negative thoughts that swirl around. But instead of trying to stop thinking, reframe your thoughts to events that trigger positive emotions.
If you often think that you are weak and to blame, try to find and remember your own strengths. Also, don’t forget that there are people out there who are less fortunate than you. And there are also people who achieve success in life even though their starting line is not as good as yours.
Once you have released your pent-up emotions, you need to learn how to control your emotions. Don’t let yourself be carried away by negative emotions. Always aim for fun and positive things to overcome self-blame.
6. See a psychologist
As analyzed above, in many cases, prolonged self-blame can be the source of mental health problems. Therefore, when you find yourself unable to overcome the feeling of self-loathing and accompanying negative emotions, you should seek psychological counseling.
Counseling and psychotherapy are essential to help you get rid of negative emotions early. A psychologist will help you better understand the problem you are facing. It then helps you change your thoughts and regulate your emotions and behaviors.
In addition, counseling and psychotherapy also help you get a more objective view of the events that have happened. From there, you can let go of guilt and self-blame. At the same time, towards positive, optimistic and comfortable thinking. Self-blame doesn’t always have negative effects. However, you need to pay attention to good control, absolutely do not let this situation last. If you can’t get over it on your own, it’s important to seek help from a counselor.
