Really need some help with putting guilt into perspective

bna · Post by **bna** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:09 am

Hi everyone. I am moving forward with life and retruning to work after being home 9 years raising kids. I went on a job interview 2 weeks ago and went ok. Yesterday I went to a job fair and a company is very interested in me.

Before I went yesterday the anticipatory anxiety really dug up alot of anxiety and fear of mistakes from my past. I kept telling myself so what, I am moving forward. The job fair went well and this company has contacted me to come to an open house next week and meet with some managers.

Today my anxiety/obessessing about the past and mistakes I have made as nurse has been absolutely horrible. I am feeling really down because I have been doing so well. I feel like the wind has gone out of my sails.

I keep telling myself everyone is entitled to a bad day. I want to talk to my husband about it but he is like you need to work this stuff out on your own. I don't want him to be disappointed in me because he has told me how proud he has been of me recently facing my fears head on.

It is like everything I have ever done in the past since nursing school right up until I had kids has been kicked up. I keep telling myself its just anxiety breathe and float. But its so darn draining. I just don't know how to let go of the past, how to forgive myself for not alswys having the right answers or not always knowing what I should have done or not done.

Today I received call from a good friend. I remember her dad being very sick on our floor when I was a new nurse grad. He was a very difficult patient and several of the nurses used to complain about him. I purposely did not care for him when he was first admitted because
I was close to his daughter. I did have to take care of him a few times because he had been there so long and some of the other nurses didn't like taking care of him. I figured I would be more patient/understanding because I knew him and he did do well for me.

I began to feel guilty over having taken care of this man because I knew him personally. I keep telling myself that's nonsense because I was able to treat him professionally like any other patient.

Then I had a memory of a doctor placing a central line in this man and I don't think he had a mask on. I remember saying it to another nurse and she said I should have given the doctor a mask as this was hospital policy to wear one when performig this prcedure. I was so new to nursing I did not realize it. I only happened to see it as I passed by the room. I wasn't even in the room when this was happening. I have spent the day beating myself up on this and feeling guilty. My friend's dad was so very sick with heart disease and complications. He did develop an infection as a result of the central line the doctor put in.

Now I have not thought of this situition in 20 years, but my friend called me today and I was just in the negative/ guilting/worrying thought process. Now I have the scary thought what if this is all my fault.

If anyone has any thoughts, suggestions, recommendations about letting go of past mistakes I would so appreciate it.

I apologize that this is so long winded. I actually feel better just from having vented. Thank you. Take care and God Bless.

pecos · Post by **pecos** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:02 pm

First of all, your husband is correct, you are doing a great job by trying! It looks like a couple of things are going on, and you have skills from this program to handle them! That’s the good news. The difficult thing is that your feelings are many, and all of them are uncomfortable. You don’t have a crystal ball to see the future, and as much as we would all like to own that magic pen which allows us to rewrite our history, that won’t happen, either. You did not perform the central line procedure, nor did you assist. You wish you could rewrite that whole event. But you cannot. So those old worries are popping up like scary monsters and these scary monsters are trying to convince you not to try. The scary message you are trying to talk yourself into is that if you simply do nothing, nothing bad will happen in your future. But again, no crystal balls for any of us. We just get up in the morning and do the best we can with the information we know and understand. If you ask more of yourself than that, what you will get is miserable suffering. Remember none of us are perfect. Remember that WORRY creates a mental image that your brain responds to as if it were real. Worry is your choice. Worry begins with a thought, something you tell yourself. Most of the time those thoughts that make us worry are not even true. After completing this program it amazed me how much of my life I spent worrying over lies I told myself. Worry exhausts our energy and makes us want to give up, run and hide. But, alas, we are the ones who put the idea/thought into our minds in the first place, and we then choose to worry about those ideas/thoughts.
My mother died last spring. She was in end stage cardiac failure. I did not know this until a doctor mentioned it a few weeks before she died. A lot of doctors could have given me that information over a year earlier, when she was first diagnosed with end stage cardiac failure (while my father was still alive). After my father died, I pushed her to be active, to walk, to exercise. She did not tell me about her condition, and none of her doctors did either. I beat myself up for months over that. But I did not have the information. When I began this program last June I had to work that one out and let it go. Waking myself up in the middle of the night with guilt and sadness over what I did not know in the first place began to look like an irrational thought. It was an irrational thought. You are telling yourself irrational things, too. Examine all these messages you are scaring yourself with. Write them down. Challenge them. And in the end, come back to this present moment. Listen to your Relaxation CD. Listen to it again. Notice that you are moving forward. You are not going to rewrite your history, or anyone elses. And there is no crystal ball for any of us.
You can do this. It is only as scary and as difficult as you tell yourself. So tell yourself it is exciting. Tell yourself the good stuff. I bet the good stuff is the true stuff.

Gman5256 · Post by **Gman5256** » Wed Feb 04, 2009 11:50 pm

Hi Bna,

I am just getting around to seeing this post. I have read several other posts you have made.

Pecos made so many good observations, I think it kind of says it all and many didn't wish to make any additional comments.

I really enjoy Contemporary Christian Music and as I was reading these posts, I was listening to an on line Christian Music station and they were playing a song titled: Its Only the World. Here is a link to the <A HREF="http://www.klove.com/lyrics/lyrics.asp?2599" TARGET=_blank>lyrics</A>

Here is the link to the station: <A HREF="http://www.klove.com/music/listenonline.aspx" TARGET=_blank>Klove</A>

I am not saying that you will find all of the answers, consolation, and comfort you may want or need by listening to this station, but you may find it may be a source of hope, inspiration, and uplifting.

Please try not to be so hard on yourself. Remember that in the instance of the central, you were fresh out of nursing school, and you may have also felt it may have been inappropriate to give a doctor guidance or direction about something inappropriate he was doing. As a society, we make doctor's out to be as gods, and in your mind you may have thought, I can't tell the doctor what to do. Learn to love yourself by not beating yourself up so badly.

I wish you well and lots of luck on your new job.

Hugs,

Gman

bna · Post by **bna** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 2:30 am

Pecos and Gman thank you both so much for your kind words. I have been really hard on myself lately. I am pushing forward and working on my limitations. I am really surprised at how hard my anxiety and negative garbage thinking is pushing me back. I had a particularly anxious day yesterday in which I was working on limitations. I feel like I move forward a few steps and then back a few more.

You kind and encouraging words mean alot. I really appreciate the support. Take care and God Bless.

Zoe_M · Post by **Zoe_M** » Thu Mar 12, 2009 4:01 am

Keep up the great work. I know how hard the little steps back can be. I am in a funk right now and am working through it.

One thing you have to realize (me especially) is we are not our past. We live in the present moment. You are a great person and like so many of us that suffer from anxiety, it's just a matter of loving ourselves that seems to be so difficult. We tend to obsess over our past and our thoughts seem relentless at times.

I am confident that you will have success in your job and with all the work that you are doing on yourself, it will pay off BIG and you will be happier and more in tune with yourself then you ever have been.

Zoe

Gman5256 · Post by **Gman5256** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 7:45 am

Hi guys,

In case you missed this on another thread. sister creepy posted this link. It is great and appropriate for this subject the download is a little time consuming but check it out anyway:

http://jmm63026.edgeboss.net/d...ary/010909_video.mp4

Give it a try what have you to lose? The demon of disorder that is afflicting you? You never know until you try.