When Guilt Is Really Grief
By: Megan Brewer, LMHC
When Guilt Is Really Grief
Grief and guilt can blend together inside of us when we lose someone or something important to us, particularly when we lose a person and the relationship with the person was complicated. We can sometimes replace the painful feelings of loss (grief) with thinking about things we could have done differently (guilt) to feel the loss less intensely and gain some sense of control over emotions that feel out of control.
What Is Grief?
Psychiatrist Curt Thompson defines grief like this: “Grief is our emotional inflammatory response to loss. It is an interpersonal neurobiological event with which we react when we are deprived of something—anything—to which we have a significant emotional attachment, to which we have ascribed salient meaning. It could be a relationship. An object. An event or experience. A job, a title, a savings account, an expectation or hope.”[1] Grief is our heart’s natural response to losing something that was important to us. When we grieve, we acknowledge in our mind, heart and body that something important was lost, but this also involves acknowledging a certain helplessness.
What Is Guilt?
Guilt involves us thinking about a specific wrong we believe we have done and not just the general feeling of being wrong that is more associated with shame. Often people will use the world guilt to describe how they feel when they are not actually guilty of anything. True guilt is felt when we believe we have done something wrong and acted contrary to what we believe is right. This feeling is not to be confused with shame, which involves the feeling that there is something inherently wrong with us and not just something wrong with an action we committed. We can appropriately make room for guilt in our collection of emotions when we reflect on our actions and thoughts and know we have acted in a way that was inconsistent with the more redeemed self we are becoming. But sometimes we can feel guilty because someone else has required us to hold the guilt for how they have failed to engage in relationship with us. Other times we feel guilty because guilt is a way to feel like we gain some level of control within a reality that is out of our control—as in the case of loss.
For example, when we lose someone we love, whether by death or by a broken relationship, grief is often the largest and most consistent natural emotional response. But grief feels painful and can stir up complicated dynamics in the relationship with the person we lost. This can lead to feelings of guilt about the disfunction that was part of the relationship and can keep our mind occupied with what we should have or could have done differently. Now, there are places in loss where we appropriately evaluate the relationship and name ways we could have engaged differently. But in order to do this, we first have to understand well the dynamics within the story of the relationship and how they contribute to the feelings of guilt.
Grief Acknowledges Reality
When we grieve, we are acknowledging the connection we had to what was lost. This is simple enough to say, but the capacity to allow this feeling to be true without trying to run from it, fix it, or control it can be painfully difficult. The realness of loss (without something that can be done about it) can feel like more than we can manage to bear and sometimes guilt steps in to help us lighten the load.
For example, it is easier to reason that you didn’t have a better or more idealistic relationship with the person you lost because you did not do enough or try hard enough. It is important in these moments to pause and consider the story of your relationship with this person, remembering our definition of grief and guilt. It is possible that you avoided spending more time with that person because you were complacent or did not prioritize time and you would like to be better about that in the future. But sometimes we don’t prioritize time or deeper relationships with someone for a reason. What might have been that reason for you? Sometimes what is more real is that the person was difficult to be around or caused you harm in some way and you found ways to keep the peace by minimally engaging them in relationship. It could also be that the person made it difficult to care for them well or difficult to engage them at a deeper level. These relational dynamics are important to unpack as you work through your grief and will sometimes lead you to a place of acceptance that what you have really been feeling all along is the experience of grief, not primarily guilt—and not just grief over the loss of a person; but maybe grief over the loss of a better, more connected relationship because the person you lost could not engage well relationally; or even the loss of a relationship because of something that was out of both of your control.
It will take work to unpack the story of your grief and guilt because it will require unpacking the relationship you had to what or who was lost. A helpful place to start is to name and unpack the feeling of guilt in order to untangle it from your grief:
1. What do you feel guilty about in your grief?
2. What is it that makes you feel guilty about this?
3. What kept you from doing what you felt you should have done? What was it about your relationship with this person that caused you to engage them in a way that now prompts you to feel guilty?
4. Is there something in your relationship that is really worth feeling guilty for doing or not doing?
5. What is it like to acknowledge these feelings as aspects of grief?
[1] Thompson, J. (2020, April 21) Inflammation of the Heart. https://curtthompsonmd.com/inflammation-of-the-heart/
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