Navigating the Waves of Guilt During the Pandemic

Understanding and Overcoming the Critical Voices in Our Heads

In an ingenious cartoon I saw recently, a patient is depicted lying on a psychologist's couch, with the psychologist lying next to him. The COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying disasters have revealed that we are all in the same boat—or on the same sofa—caregivers and patients alike, facing various types of loss: livelihood, personal relationships, opportunities, investments, and above all, a sense of security.

This loss was forced upon us, yet we are consumed with guilt, feeling that we have failed because we did not act correctly. This guilt has many faces and is very insidious. But every time I recognize this excessive critical voice, whether in my thoughts toward myself or in the words of patients, I try to put the mature and healthy part of me in front of it. The dialogue between these parts sounds something like this:

Accusing Voice: I'm bad. If I had been more focused, I could have used this period to promote the business.

Adult Voice: Not true.

Accusing Voice: I'm a sucker. Others manage to get higher refunds from the state.

Adult Voice: I find that hard to believe.

Accusing Voice: I hate my body. My motivation is constantly decreasing. I gained weight. Why can't I be like those who only do sports during the pandemic?

Adult Voice: Eating is one of the friendliest ways we can improve how we feel. In the United States, it's called Quarantine 15, meaning 7 kilos of quarantine. Humanity's weight has cumulatively increased by tens of millions of kilos in the last six months. If you still want to make a change, try setting yourself really small but achievable goals—water the plants on time, call your grandmother, and pay the house board. In a week or two, try to start taking baby steps in matters of food or sports as well.

Accusing Voice: I'm stupid. I finally have time to read/study something important for work/finish the thesis, and instead, I play on my phone.

Adult Voice: Our brains are programmed so that when we are upset, we cannot concentrate on anything else. In ancient times, this was critical: those who managed to sleep well, or focus on their mural, even after noticing suspicious movement in the bushes, did not survive to pass their genes on to the next generation. In the USA, Europe, and Japan, sales of computer games and phone games increased by 20% to 40% (!).

Accusing Voice: I am disappointed that I let go of control over the children's screen time.

Adult Voice: Since the dawn of mankind, there has hardly been a situation where nuclear families were confined in small spaces for many weeks. Thank God there is an iPad! If it's still hard for you, you can tell them to get up and empty the dishwasher. This act will also improve their mood because they will feel they bring value to the family.

Accusing Voice: I have to stop smoking/drinking/taking-whatever-it-may-be so much.

Adult Voice: Maybe, but you also have to think of an alternative. The stress you are dealing with is not normal and you need more support, someone to accommodate you, or some way to relieve stress. And as the joke goes: in 20 years the world will be run by children raised at home by alcoholics.

Accusing Voice: I'm an idiot for not saving enough for an emergency/buying the big car right before all of this happened.

Adult Voice: You couldn't have known. We live in a society that encourages us to consume and leverage our incomes maximally in favor of consumption. Your compulsive thinking only indicates the intensity of the trauma. You act like a person who has been in a car accident and finds himself thinking over and over about what would have happened if he had turned on a different street or set off at an earlier time. Your brain is trying to find a way to tell a story that will make it feel less helpless. That doesn't make this story true.

Accusing Voice: I am ashamed to ask the landlord to consider me for rent.

Adult Voice: It is understandable, and it is also sad that in addition to the fact that it is difficult for you and that you suffered a terrible blow, you are also ashamed.

Accusing Voice: I'm screwed that I didn't listen to the advice of the one who told me that this was going to happen.

Adult Voice: Throughout your life, your friend also gave you a lot of bad advice, and luckily you didn't listen to them. She may be a very conservative or very anxious person, and in an extreme way, the pandemic has adapted the world to her dark predictions. This does not mean that the mistake is yours. How good that you are fundamentally a more optimistic person.

Accusing Voice: I am a terrible mother because I expose the children to my worries too much.

Adult Voice: It is very painful to feel that we fail to protect our children who experience so much loss and fear. On the other hand, there is a good chance that your children are not experiencing it as you imagine. Part of what you think they are going through is a projection of your difficulties. This is also normal.

Accusing Voice: It annoys me that I don't sleep well at night and then I'm tired and irritable all day.

Adult Voice: There is a global pandemic. Try meditating.

Accusing Voice: Everyone annoys me.

Adult Voice: Obviously. And you annoy them too.

Accusing Voice: And I miss them.

Adult Voice: Obviously. And they miss you too. A lot of energy, which is normally invested in other areas of life such as work, studies, sports, and extended family, is now draining into our closest relationships and putting undue weight on them. The result can be a longing for a relationship along with a strong desire to move away.

Accusing Voice: My kids are too intense for me.

Adult Voice: It's natural. They need the company of other children.

Accusing Voice: My child does not attend Zoom classes. I know it's stupid but I'm stressed about him failing in school.

Adult Voice: There is a limit to the level of lack of control you can deal with. Pour yourself some more wine.

Accusing Voice: The girl's teacher is angry that she doesn't attend Zoom, and I hate her.

Adult Voice: It's okay, she hates you too.

Accusing Voice: We don't have sex.

Adult Voice: And you are in a sexy mood: the unemployment, the state of the bank account, the health hazards, the children in the other room, or the fact that you and your husband have been in each other's space for seven months?

Now, all this in a few more words: First of all, the most important thing is that you are normal. Given that we are dealing with a once-in-a-100-year crisis, the universe should send each of us a bouquet of flowers for every day we live. The fact that you are not now standing naked in the middle of the road and screaming is puzzling and gratifying in itself.

The scientific explanation for this is that the human body deals with stress in three ways: Fight, Flight, Freeze. Our mind, which finished developing somewhere in the savannah, assesses the threat in front of it in micro-milliseconds. If it can eliminate the threat, it attacks it. If it can escape the threat, it runs away from it. If the brain estimates that it can neither eliminate the threat nor escape it, it puts the system into a state of stagnation.

Most of us experience a stress reaction which is a variation of the stagnation reaction, manifesting in the inability to concentrate, wasting time playing games on the phone, increased consumption of various substances, and more. But if that's not bad enough, we also feel guilt and shame about this freeze response.

This guilt is human and understandable, but it is also sad and unnecessary. To some extent, guilt is also an out-of-control coping mechanism. We are going through a shocking drama of lack of control. Our fantasies about controlling nature, health, the economy, and our destiny are revealed in their nakedness.

It is very difficult to accept this lack of control. Many feel fear and sadness daily. These feelings are very unpleasant, and when they become too unpleasant, they sometimes change into other feelings.

One of these other emotions is guilt. It’s a little hard to see, but sometimes guilt makes it easier for us by re-establishing an illusion of control. When we feel guilty, we don't exactly feel helpless.

Guilt implies that we could have acted differently, that it was under our control. In therapy, this phenomenon is familiar from working with battered children who feel guilty for upsetting the parent and seemingly bringing the violence they experienced upon themselves. In this context, guilt is also explained as part of the defense mechanism known as "identification with the aggressor." But the problem is that after it protects us, guilt weighs us down and creates new problems.

In the present time, as the many examples above show (and you can think of other examples as well), guilt creates a complete and additional loop of suffering, which only worsens the pain we are dealing with. In each of these examples, the person would have been better able to face the challenge if they did not have to deal with the critical voice that whips and humiliates them.

In emotion-focused therapies, the way to reduce this self-criticism is not through mechanically silencing the critical part ("self-talk") or cognitive choice, but by understanding that this voice is trying to protect us from experiencing deeper emotions such as fear and sadness, which are extremely painful but more appropriate to the situation we are dealing with. The more we manage to connect with these deep and natural feelings, the more the critical and accusing voice will weaken, and we will achieve a higher mental and spiritual quality of life.