Dealing with survivor's guilt

Crisis Center of Tampa Bay CEO talks about dealing with survivor's guilt after tragedy

[@inorite4553]

Try 10 + years. It was my wife that brought to my attention that I have Survivor's Guilt for when my friend (we were deployed together at that time) was killed in Afghanistan while I was on mid-tour leave in his home country. It has been hard to live with the fact that I was having fun in his hometown when he was on a mission and killed in action. I still haven't gotten over that.

[@Rollercoaster555]

Try 54 years this past January 0311 69

[@magusblack512]

I feel guilty that I survived and family members and friends are no longer here because of my poor decisions. I feel like I have altered reality and that's the reason why they died. Wow does anybody else feel that way about they are survivor's guilt?

[@aliviathomas740]

Yes. You are not alone. Praying for your healing

[@magusblack512]

@@aliviathomas740 I'm trying to heal I want to heal. Thank you for your prayers. I sure do need them.

[@charleswilson7371]

Lost parents at age 11. Mom Xmas day 1972. I used to wonder if I was being punished for something. It's hard.

[@Phytosaur]

You are not alone, hope you recover!

[@rachelkoch109]

I lost my dad on 8/29/2021 to brain cancer. I’d noticed early symptoms (short-term memory loss, limping) before he was diagnosed but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to offend him (my dad was really proud and especially sensitive about his age). I regret not saying anything all the time and I can’t help but wonder if he’d still be here if I had.

[@nebiyathamza]

I wish you schooled my mom. I love my mother but this would’ve been mice too

[@tucobell9701]

6 years on, harder every day

[@juridicodojacat8458]

Everything is gonna be okay ❤️.

[@lennyflitz7754]

I had less to lose and yet I got to live.

[@r.e.tucker3223]

That is not the definition I have.

[@ka5269]

Sometimes the feeling to prevent the tragedy is not 'misplaced' ...the guilt is genuine and deserved

[@astridjorgensen7971]

i hope you get put in that situation then and your mind goes blank, as it does in a panic, and then you have to suffer with the guilt forever because in your case it is deserved as karma for not having empathy for others in these situations

[@happyexpat3744]

Please expand on this 'genuinely and deserved' sense of guilt. I know, as one who deals with this sort of guilt that although I cannot help thinking the way I do, I do know there was nothing I might have changed about what happened to my husband and myself being shot one night and for having survived it, myself, with a gunshot to the face, but my husband dying of the gunshot to his head and dying in my arms 8 minutes later. It was pulled off my a man who just appeared not even 50 yards from our home and was looking for people to hurt as it was very neighborhood specific and no one, except us, would walk in LA, in West Hollywood...so the guy who killed my husband and altered my life was out looking to do damage. My guilt goes to why I survived and he did not....not anything I might have done differently that night, though my mind tells me that had we left where we were a minute earlier or later, something might have changed. I do believe, as it is also my work that people who experience guilt in this way do so out of grief, an attempt to understand why the event happened. Someone who purposefully sought to hurt someone would not experience this...as the person would most likely be a sociopath or psychopath and not feel guilt, or anything at all. If there is a feeling that some tragedy could have been avoided "if only"..........is typically seeking to make sense where no sense exists. Your comment is abrasive and offensive and I will go one step further and state that if you feel this way, it is probably because you feel it yourself and that your guilt about something is real, which it might be, who knows? However, it is not the case with the majority and your comment is a very telling sign about your psyche. Move on.