#5 - That Time I Had Survivors Guilt

I sat down to play the piano, and all I felt was guilt.

I had always wanted to learn to play the piano, but for a long time I did not have the capacity for new hobbies. Instead, my mind and body had been in survival mode. For 15 years I lived with suicidal ideation, and now I didn’t. I thought I would feel free, but instead I was plagued by guilt.

I had spent the last six years healing from sexual trauma and the devastating impact it had on my life. I spent years running from and fighting the voices in my head. Some of these voices told me I was unworthy, my life was not worth living, and that I was the most horrible person, and other voices taunted me with flashbacks of the worst things I had survived.

I hadn’t realized how debilitating living with suicidal thoughts had been. I had been fighting a war, but I was fighting both sides. I was the one fighting for my life and also the one trying to take it.

So, when my suicidal thoughts left for good after an unexpected but powerful meditation in my weekly yoga class, I felt as though I had been given a second chance.

At first, when I was freed from these thoughts, I started to embrace life more fully. I danced down the sidewalk. I chatted with everyone I met. The once dreaded small-talk was now an opportunity for me to connect with others. This is when I began playing the piano. At first, I would sit down every day with a smile on my face. I even finished a beginner’s book for children where I learned how to play songs from my youth. I was in awe that I got to enjoy life rather than dread it. But, was this too good to be true?

The more I began to question my new way of being, the more the initial joy I felt turned into something else, a nagging sense of guilt.

As the weeks passed, I started to be consumed by thoughts of a girl I once knew. She had died by suicide several years earlier. I found myself sitting in my room and obsessively reading her obituary and the kind things people said about her. I hadn’t seen her for years before her death, but I looked at her pictures and saw a beautiful, kind young woman who was missed by so many. From her pictures, you’d never know she was struggling, but she was, just like I had been.

She and I shared a similar story.  Not only did we experience something so similar with how we were both raped, but we both struggled with thoughts of suicide. The only difference was that she had taken her own life, and I was still here. I felt so guilty for it.

I felt like a soldier returning from war. I had barely survived, and now I was highly aware that not all survived to tell their own story. I returned a changed woman, but no one seemed to notice. No one else seemed to realize how many others were still in the middle of their own war and fighting for their lives. I had come out the other side a free woman, I should have felt free and victorious, but instead I felt guilty.

Why had I been given this second chance? Was it right for me to be happy and free while others still suffered?

These questions plagued me with guilt. I knew I had been to hell and back, and worked hard to be where I was. I gave my sweat, blood, and tears to be here. I deserved to feel happy. I deserved to feel free.

But, I felt guilty for being happy.  I felt guilty when I smiled. I felt guilty when I laughed. I felt guilty when I played the piano. Anything positive left me with the feeling of guilt. I was finally happy, but I wouldn’t allow myself that happiness for very long. No, I would punish myself with guilt and remind myself that others did not feel this way. Others had died. Others still suffered.

I especially felt like I needed to hold onto the suffering in honor of the girl who died. Something bound us together. I felt like I couldn’t let her go. I felt like I had failed her. Was there something I could have done?

I finally began to discuss how I was feeling in therapy. This was the first time I put the label “survivor’s guilt” to how I was feeling. I felt guilty for surviving something that someone else didn’t. But, by talking about how I was feeling aloud to someone else, I also realized I wasn’t honoring her by clinging to the suffering, I needed to let it go. She would have wanted me to be happy. So, why was I still punishing myself?

I felt like a criminal who should be locked up. I may have stopped punishing myself with suicidal thoughts, but I had found a new way to punish myself – debilitating guilt.

As I reflected on this survivor’s guilt, I realized this guilt went deeper. I kept thinking about another question – was I worthy of this second chance?

My survivor’s guilt was rooted in a deep feeling of unworthiness. This unworthiness felt like a deep shame for just existing, like my existence itself was shameful.

I began hiking daily. Hiking was one of the few things that grounded me and connected me to my body. I could no longer live in my head. I was terrified of what would happen if I got lost in my thoughts again. The suicidal thoughts never returned, but I lived with immense fear they would.

As I hiked, I began to allow myself to see the long-held reasons why I felt so unworthy.

I felt unworthy because no one had been held responsible for the trauma that I had experienced. I was now free, but justice had not been served. If I was truly worthy wouldn’t someone take responsibility for their actions? Instead, I held onto the belief that someone needed to be punished for what happened that night in the woods, and if no one else would take responsibility then I would.

I felt unworthy because I had never reported what happened to me. Was I responsible if those boys raped more girls? Was it fair of me to move on when I could be culpable for the hell others lived in? I was a coward. I had failed them. It was all my fault.

I felt unworthy because I lived in a society that still victim blamed. I was a victim, not a perpetrator, but I feared society would somehow blame me in the way I had seen other victims blamed countless times before. If I punished myself first, would I keep myself from getting hurt again? If I knew I was a villain, would it hurt less when others eventually called me one?

I felt unworthy because this was an experience never talked about with my family. I knew they all knew, but we never discussed it. I repeatedly tried to tell myself that didn’t matter, but I couldn’t help but wonder why no one cared enough to reach out and offer help during my hardest times? Why had no one said they were sorry that I had experienced something so horrible? Why had no one cared that I was suicidal even when I voiced it? Did it mean I didn’t matter?

As I continued hiking in nature every day, I also reflected on the young girl who died and so many other survivors I knew, I found myself seeing clearly how I wanted them all to be happy and to no longer feel trapped by the past.  Why was it so easy for me to see their beauty and light, but still so hard for me to see my own?

I had found myself out of hell, but kept dragging myself back into hell every time I felt guilty and unworthy. Would I ever tell anyone else to continue sitting in hell just because others hadn’t found their way out? No. I would tell them to take their new life, embrace happiness, and spend time in the sun, because they deserved it.

Over the following weeks, I began to forgive myself for the guilt I was carrying and for the long-held feelings of unworthiness. As I hiked daily, I saw that these beliefs were old stories. They were not true. It was time to let them go and move forward.

During this time, I visited Mount Rushmore. As I reread the constitution, I felt like I was reading one of the most famous lines for the first time. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The words of the Founding Fathers deeply resonated with me in that moment. My happiness was not guaranteed, but it was my choice to pursue it.

I finally understood that I was worthy of my second chance and I did not need to punish myself with guilt. I had to finally let go of the past, so I could truly embrace a new future.

I don’t know where I am going or why I have been gifted a second chance. But I do know that I am worthy of it. All I need to do is to continue keep following that inner voice that had led me here. I choose life for myself and for the lives that were lost to the violence of sexual trauma. The gift I can give those who have died is remembering life is a gift and worth living to the fullest.

I still think of this young girl, especially when I play the piano. But, instead of feeling guilty, I smile. Some days I feel as though she’s playing right next to me and saying thank you for living for all of us.