Anxiety Therapist: 6 Types of Toxic Guilt and 6 Tips to Help and Heal

Written by: Lauran Hahn, LMHC

Tired of feeling ripped apart by guilt? Does making decisions feel like anxiety and guilt volleyball? “If I work late, I will feel bad about not being with my family, but if I go home, I will feel bad about not getting more work done.” No matter what you decide to do, you are plagued with anxiety and guilt. Does it feel impossible to do things that will allow you to take care of yourself because the burden of guilt is just too much to bare? If toxic guilt has attached itself to you like the Bubonic Plague, read on to find the type of toxic guilt you struggle with and tips for dealing and healing so you can have peace of mind.

The kind of guilt I am talking about here isn’t the healthy kind. Healthy guilt is when you’ve done something out of alignment with your ethics and then you are motivated to behave differently in the future. This kind of guilt guides you to stay in-bounds with ideals for yourself and do what is right for you and others.

As an anxiety and trauma therapist in Orlando, I work with clients every day who struggle with toxic guilt and anxiety.

It’s similar to pollution in the air, at first you will notice a stench, a gross film in the air, and the impulse is to recoil. But after enough exposure, you start to get used to it. Toxic guilt is similar, after enough exposure, you get used to feeling bad about yourself. Just like polluted air damages your heart, lungs, and brain; toxic guilt damages your thoughts, emotions, and relationships.

With prolonged exposure to toxic guilt, there is the risk of shame setting in. Guilt is believing “I did something wrong.” Shame is believing “I am bad. There is something wrong with me.” Both toxic guilt and shame are painful to experience, however, shame reaches down into the center of the soul and has you believing you are rotten to the core. Guilt is less personal and is more about the behavior. Shame is about the self. Guilt is easier to heal from and move through than shame, so it’s important to work through toxic guilt sooner rather than later.

6 Types of Toxic Guilt & 6 Tips to Help and Heal

1. Believing you Have to be Perfect

A Google search of perfectionism is defined as a “refusal to accept any standard short of perfection”. If you have a perfectionist standard for yourself, you will fall short of your goals. It is not humanly possible to be the best at everything all the time. There just aren’t enough hours in a day to be the best employee, the best mom, the best yogi, the best friend, the best spouse, and the best dog mom. If your standard is perfection, no matter where you are or what you are doing, it won’t feel like enough. You will feel pulled to be somewhere else or to be doing something else. All of this internal struggle has you feeling anxious while you’re attending to one thing and guilty because you’re not attending to the other thing.

Tips: Do your best without having to be the best. Accept your imperfections and be kind to yourself. Acknowledge yourself for all that you have done and all that you do. Treat yourself as you would treat a friend who has a lot on their plate. Say things to yourself like, “Look at all the things you do daily. You are a rockstar.”

2. Comparing Yourself to Others

Comparing yourself to others is really never a good idea, especially when it creates thoughts like, “Wow, they really have it together and my life is falling apart”. This type of comparison can make you feel bad about yourself and trigger toxic guilty feelings of not being good enough. Often when we are comparing ourselves to others, we are comparing the way we feel on the inside to what others look like on the outside. Social media is like putting gasoline on a stoked flame when it comes to this kind of toxic guilt.

Tip: Resist the impulse to compare your insides to someone else’s outsides. If after you put your phone down from scrolling through Facebook or Instagram you feel yucky, it’s time for a social media sabbatical. If you can’t help yourself and find yourself comparing, make sure you aren’t projecting perfection onto the other person. They are human with their trials and tribulations too, no matter what their Facebook reveals.

3. Believing Self-Care is Selfish

Can you say “mom-guilt” “dad-guilt,” or “family-guilt,” in general? This particular flavor of toxic guilt runs rampant where your needs conflict with someone else’s that you care about. Self-care is not selfish. Let me repeat, “SELF-CARE IS NOT SELFISH!” Yes, I am shouting. Seriously, y’all, I wish I could climb up to the top of the Bank of America building in Orlando and shout it out for the world to hear.

Tip: I like to use the old airplane air analogy. They recommend putting the oxygen on you before your child, which makes sense because if you’re dead, you can’t do much to help your child. Self-care is the same. If you haven’t inhaled some love oxygen into yourself, what do you have left to give to others? The quality of care you give to your family and friends is going to be exponentially better when it’s coming from a full tank rather than an empty tank.

4. Continuing to Punish Yourself for Things of the Past

We’ve all made mistakes in the past. We’ve hurt people and we’ve hurt ourselves. When you continue to relive your transgressions in your mind, you’re punishing yourself for no good reason.

Tip: Take your screw-up and learn from it. What did you learn about yourself? How have you grown from the situation? What would you do differently? Take all this information and put it into action in how you show up today. Channel the mental energy you were using to beat up on yourself into doing the right thing for yourself and others. Change how you talk to yourself about the past transgression. Use encouraging and supportive words toward yourself, much like you would to a child who failed a test or wrecked his bike.

5. Taking Responsibility for Others’s Feelings

This genre of toxic guilt comes from taking too much responsibility for other people’s emotions. Seeing someone else’s struggle and believing you can and should do something to fix them will certainly lead you down the path of toxic guilt. With this type of toxic guilt, you will feel bad when someone else feels bad and you will have the impulse to take care of them. This will quickly empty your tank, so to speak, because you will need other people to be ok for you to feel ok. This leads to exhaustion.

Tip: Picture this: There is a giant hula hoop and you are standing at the center. All things inside the hula hoop are you, your energy, and your emotions, and they are your responsibility. All the things on the outside of that hula hoop are not yours to manage or control. Take a big breath and yes, let everything go that is not inside your hula hoop. Having the inclination to fix someone else’s emotional issues is a boundary issue. For more on this, check out the series I wrote on boundaries.

6. Being Manipulated

This is similar to the one above, but here, the other person is aware that you can be “guilted” and they use that to manipulate you. This is a problem in toxic relationships and can be very confusing.

Tip: If you’re in a toxic relationship, you will need a great deal of support to work through the confusion, as well as find the strength to either set new boundaries with the person or to get out of the relationship. Find friends or family that you can trust while you navigate this, as they will be your sounding board when confusion sets in. For more information on troubleshooting your boundary setting, Boundaries: 3 Reasons You Move the Line.

Interested in Anxiety Therapy Orlando?

The therapists at Mindful Living Counseling Orlando are here to help. If you're struggling with toxic guilt it might be helpful to reach out to a therapist. To get started with one of our therapists:

1. Fill out our New Client Consultation Form.

2. Schedule a consultation call with our Client Care Coordinator

3. Begin your healing journey!

Feeling Doubtful About Anxiety Therapy Orlando?

We have the best team of anxiety therapists who are highly trained and excited to help you gain the tools you need to overcome toxic guilt. If you're not quite ready yet and want some information, no problem. We've put together some great resources for you to enjoy!

Anxiety Therapy Orlando Resources

How to Forgive Yourself: 5 Simple Steps

Anxiety Therapist Orlando Shares 4 Steps to Manage Anxiety

Orlando Therapist Shares About Anxiety Therapy

An Anxiety Therapist Shares Everything You Need to Know About Anxiety

How to Manage Perfectionism and Anxiety

Guided Meditation for Anxiety: Healing Light

Other Therapy Services Offered at Mindful Living Counseling Orlando

Mindful Living Counseling acknowledges that toxic guilr is only one of the challenges that you may struggle with. Therefore, we provide various therapy services to cater to diverse needs. Our therapy services include EMDR Therapy, Trauma Therapy, Teen Therapy, and Toxic Relationship Therapy. We also offer Guided Meditations to our clients. If you have any queries, please feel free to reach out to us!

About Orlando Therapist: Lauran Hahn

My name is Lauran Hahn, and I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. I have been passionate about EMDR Therapy for the past six years, ever since I witnessed how it transformed the lives of my clients. This experience has motivated me to pursue additional certification, and now I am a certified Sensorimotor psychotherapist, an EMDRIA-approved consultant, and an EMDR Facilitator at ConnectEMDR. I am thrilled to announce that I am now offering EMDR Intensives