Catholic Guilt, Overactive Conscience and Scruples

I have struggled all my life with a hyperactive conscience. I feel vague to intense guilt constantly. As a Catholic convert, I hear cradle Catholics talk about Catholic guilt. Like the Church invented it. Well, they're not alone. I grew up Protestant and we spoke fluent "guilt."  Some guilt is healthy, but chronic isn't. That's what the catechism calls "scruples." And in psychological terms, shame. It's crucial, for mental and spiritual health, to know the difference.

What is guilt complex/scruples/shame and how does it differ from healthy guilt? Let me illustrate. Do you remember the T-A--Transactional Analysis--school of psychology? It says the self has three personas--parent, child and adult--similar to Freud's Id, ego and superego. Freud described the id (child) as immature, undisciplined and totally self-serving. The superego or parent in TA is ultra-controlled and highly critical. The ego or adult is whole and balanced. In all of us, the Parent (superego) and child (Id) struggle for control. Neither are healthy, alone. It's only when the healthier adult persona takes control and parent and child take back seat that the person is healthy.

We with guilt complexes and overactive consciences are stuck in superego- parent mode. We don't have more to feel guilty about than anyone else. Less, often. We've done our time, paid our penances, said our Mea Culpaes, received absolution. But we struggle to shake the nagging feeling that we've left something undone.

Our apologies and restitution never satisfy us. No confession is ever good enough, no penance too severe.
We don't have prickings of conscience, we have brutal stabbings. Others aren't necessarily accusing us. We accuse ourselves, sometimes to the point of dreaming up sins. I have a recurrent dream in which I have done something unspeakable, willful murder, violent assault, terrible injury. I have another where everyone is mad at me and I can't figure out what I've done wrong. When I wake, I feel sick and terrified, and it takes conscious effort for me to convince myself that it was just a dream (how's that for Freudian?)

Overactive conscience always second guesses its decisions and actions. Guilt complex causes us to be pathologically self-critical. And like so many other emotional issues, they're fear-driven and deeply subconscious (ergo the dreams). Fear of offending, upsetting others, of our own emotions, of consequences. We will sometimes lie or cheat to defend against irrational or imagined wrongs and prevent imagined consequences.

If you suffer from or love someone with guilt complex and overactive conscience, check my blog www.emotionalhealthhelp.blogspot.com.

Heart Burn, the Agony and Ecstasy (poem)

 This poem is for our stillborn baby daughters who died in utero, each at around 6 months, in 2001 and 2004. Requiescat in pace, Mary Therese and Isobella Raine. Keep each other company till mama and daddy can join you. 

I called this painful poem "ecstasy" not as in bliss. In fact, ecstasy is nothing like blissful calm. It's intense, searing spiritual awakening. It hurts like fire. The mystics St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila (who elected herself my patroness) experienced this. Our Lady felt the seven Dolores (Sorrows) piercing her heart. Any parent, especially a mother, who has lost a child knows heart burn. The Heavenly Father Heart Burn, the Agony and Ecstasy

how dare the sun have shone

on this somber, funereal grey-grime day

what were the birds thinking, chirping

when we planted my little ladies in the ground?

They grandly call it internment

like the squirrel buries a nut

but dead things do not regrow

they just lie there, alone

I felt guilty putting my babies in that box. 

What kind of mother does that?

A graveyard is cold and dark.

No place for a child to be

Not at night. Not alone. 

They might wake frightened and need mama. 

For many nights, months, years, decades after, I waked

Confused, anxious sure I heard them calling

Not knowing where they were

I am always there when my children need me

But I couldn't find these littlest ones

The ones who needed me most

Me, who couldn't let her children ride the bus

has abandoned her most vulnerable

like orphans wandering, crying for mother's arms

oh God, let death not be thus

we are told of a morning after

when the dead shall rise 

I cling to that, desperately

the way my cat grabs my leg if he feels himself falling

Perhaps I'm short sighted. 

I'm human, I cannot see with the eyes of the divine 

and Father, the burn of heart 

is pain like torture