Is Guilt a Hidden Cause of Your Depression?
Dr. Sheri Jacobson
March 11, 2023
By: Aaron Muszalski
Popular causes of depression you’ve likely heard about include anxiety, stress, low self-esteem, and childhood trauma.
But what about guilt? Could it be a possible contributor or cause of your low moods?
[Not sure if you are depressed? Read our comprehensive guide to depression].
What is guilt, really?
Guilt is a feeling of embarrassment and regret that you are responsible for a negative action or event.
In some cases, psychological guilt is appropriate and logical – we actually have chosen to do something we shouldn’t have. Feeling guilty helps us realign with our personal values.
But for many of us, what we engage in is guilt created from a perception of personal failure. This sort of guilt is an irrational response to events or scenarios that only exist in your mind, a belief you’ve done something wrong without factual evidence this is so. Really it’s self-judgment you’ve made about your thoughts and actions, or about events that were actually out of your control or far from as major as you perceive them to be.
This sort of illogical guilt often comes hand-in-hand with deep feelings of shame. The difference is that shame is feeling bad about who we are, whereas guilt is making ourselves feel terrible for what we perceive we have done.
Research connecting guilt and depression
Research has shown that those who suffer from depression have brains that are more prone to guilt than those who have never suffered from depression.
A 2012 study at the University of Manchester scanned the brains of participants, looking for reactions bought on by thinking of an imaginary event. In those who had never been depressed, areas of the brain related to guilt were activated but in balance with areas of the brain that relate to accurate judgements leading to appropriate behavioural choices.
In the brains of people who had been depressed, the responses of these parts of the brain were not as integrated. They struggled more to have perspective on difficult events and see things in context, leaving them more likely to feel guilty and responsible even if things were not their fault.
How does guilt cause depression?
By: ankxt
While the study above shows that depression and guilt are indeed linked, can guilt cause depression?
Evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy suggests that thoughts create emotions, and those emotions then cause the actions we choose. This cycle, of thoughts, emotions, and actions, if beginning with negative thinking, careens right into low moods.
If you feel let guilty thoughts run out of control, they will very likely trigger such a dysfunctional cycle.
And example of guilt leading to depression
For example, imagine that a mother forgets to give her child a packed lunch for the school trip. A normal guilt response might be a worry they will be hungry, and a brief self admonishing that a good mother would be better organised.
But if these guilty thoughts become bigger, and the mother instead thinks, “I am a terrible parent, I will never be good at parenting, and it will be all my fault if my child grows up a damaged adult”, such negative thoughts would create feelings of shame and fear. This would lead to feeling so unworthy she might then make a bad action, such as cancelling the lunch date she had planned and was looking to. You can see how this sort of cycle could lead to depression.
But how does a person end up with a mind that thinks so negatively that guilt is so big it could lead to depression? It is often down to childhood experiences.
Is your guilt actually from childhood?
Guilt is a learned response taught through repeated social interactions starting when we are children. Messages from other family members, friends, teachers, school companions, religious leaders, the media and society in general do make an impact on sensitive, still-forming minds.
But by and large it is our parents or guardians who play the largest role in its development. From about the age of three onward, we begin to seek the approval of our parents. It can be very traumatising if we are instead met with criticism, correction or punishment, leaving you feeling guilty and as if you are not worthy just as you are.
Guilt can also be learned by example. You might have watched as one of your parents gains power within your family by causing others to feel guilty, and taken on board that this is the only way you, too, can feel powerful. Or you might have had a parent who felt guilty about everything they did and learned the message that a ‘good’ person lives in such a way.
Childhood guilt proven by research cause adult depression
By: JMEG
Research even proves that being made to feel guilty as a child sets you up for depression as an adult.
A a 12-year study carried out by researchers at Washington University in the United States (St. Louis, Missouri) monitored the emotional and physical development of 145 children from ages 3 through 13, with a special emphasis on the symptoms of guilt and depression.
Brain scans showed that those who exhibited the strongest symptoms of guilt were found to have lower-than-average volume in an area of the brain known as the anterior insula. This neural region is involved with self-perception and self-awareness and when under-developed is known to play a role in the future onset of various types of mood disorders, including depression.
What can you do if guilt is causing your depression?
Because guilt so often links back to earlier life experiences, and is so often hand in hand with shame, support is often needed to unravel it and break its control on your moods and life. A qualified counsellor or psychotherapist can help you process guilt in these ways:
- Gently encourage your attempts to face the truth about your past experiences and/or any past conduct that may have contributed to your feelings of guilt.
- Engage you in constructive dialogue as you seek greater understanding about why you feel guilty for things you didn’t do and/or you took the harmful actions you did.
- Develop a safe approach to reconciliation, so you can both have constructive and safe conversations with those who left you feeling guilty as well as apologise to those you hurt.
- Concentrate on self-forgiveness and letting go of the past, as you endeavour to change your perspective and mind set.
The road back to emotional health can be a long one and you have to be prepared to stay resolute as you confront continued challenges. But managing your guilt and its connection to your depression can mean you can reinvent yourself, and live a life where your relationship with both yourself and others is healthy and happier, no longer driven by guilt.
Do you have a question about guilt and depression? Or want to share your experience? Do so below.
I feel guilty about things which are not my fault or responsibility, Here’s an example. I was thinking about getting a kitten and messaged the breeder about one which was available. She told me it was being held for nothera breeder as a show animal and for breeding, however I could have it if I wanted as she much preferred it to be sold as a pet. I have since decided that I don’t want to commit to pet ownership right now but I feel absolutely dreadful about the fate of this kitten I keep seeing its wee face and thinking it deserves better. I feel quite sick with guilt that I don’t want it, am afraid of what might happen to it (the breeder has suggested not all ‘show’ owners are good people) and feel I should take it anyway because there’s no good reason not to other than I don’t want the commitment of pet ownership right now. Thoughts of I should take it it will all be fine and you will love it and give it a good home. You cant let a breeder take it vie with I don’t want a kitten right now I don’t want to be tied down and what happens next is not my responsibility. It is the owner/breeders job to find it a good home not mine! Clearly the emotional stuff is irrational but is has the power to make me feel terrified and dreadful. Why do I feel this is my responsibilty? Why am I so prone to this type of guilt?
Hi Elaine, so what’s going on here isn’t just guilt. You are experiencing cognitive distortions – this is when our thoughts no longer relate to reality. There are many cognitive distortions, such as worse case scenario, doom and gloom, black and white thinking…. we have an article on it here http://bit.ly/cognitivedistortionlist. Cognitive distortions can be a learned way of thinking from our parents, or stem from a childhood we didn’t feel safe (or weren’t safe, experiencing trauma). They can also be a sign of depression and anxiety. This sounds like it could be anxiety or even anxiety disorder, if every scenario you meet in life results in this level of negative over thinking.There is actually a short form type of therapy that focuses pretty much just on helping you recognise and change your distorted thinking. It’s called cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT. You don’t even really have to talk about your past much, is that is something you don’t want to do, the focus really is on getting control of your thoughts and stopping them from sending you into guilt, anxiety, and depression.
My wife is guilty depressive
She always had this depressive moods, she tried to kill herself once with with Meds.
Then we moved to UK, we are living very unhappy in my mothers house. i wasn’t paying her attention and cheated on me.
I discovered after a while and forgave her. but she cant help herself forgetting what she has done. and tried to kill her self twice in the last 3 years with MEDS and cutting herself.
She says she cant stop the thoughts of what she have done (even i already have forget it and let it the past, but she cant) and that makes her unworthy of living, and the only thing she can do to stop those thoughts is being dead.
Now i don’t know if she does that only to call attention or what.
She constantly says “what do we live for?, work, home , home work. life is boring”
We go for holidays abroad at least twice a year and go to places in almost all weekends.
i try to be supportive but the words that come from me looks like has no effect on her.
I my self is becoming mildly depressive every time these moods hits her. Usually last for 1 week or 2.
Robert, this is a LOT to deal with. She has cheated on you, is torturing you with the idea she might kill herself, has you endlessly walking on eggshells and trying to please her, and is always making you feel not good enough. Is that a correct summary? It might sound harsh to you, as you are used to defending her. And yet there you go. You say she always claims she ‘feels guilty and doesn’t deserve to live’. Here’s the thing. Have you suggested she seek a therapist? If you did suggest and she has refused, then we’d say that this could all very well be manipulation. By always saying she feels terrible and wants to kill herself you have to continue to please her. We are not saying she is not suicidal – we are saying this sounds like more than depression, quite possibly borderline personality disorder, where self-harm, threatening suicide and sometimes attempting it is common. If you haven’t researched BPD, we suggest you do. We can’t say this it the problem as we don’t know her, we are of course we are only getting your side of the story, but given as you are almost defending her and wanting to help her, at the expense of your own wellbeing, we even suspect the truth is worst than you are letting on. On the off chance you haven’t yet suggested therapy, we have an article on how to tell a loved one they need counselling here http://bit.ly/lovedonetherapy and we do advise you carefully follow it as if she does have BPD she will overreact and make threats if you are not careful, or possibly attempt suicide again. BPD often arises from childhood trauma, and leads to extreme emotional fragility, drama, overreacting, manipulating, and self-harm. In summary we’d also highly suggest you see a counsellor yourself. It does sound like you have your own set of issues that you feel you must bend over backwards to please someone who is essentially not treating you well, and that this level of low self-esteem would be something you could use support on. If she is BPD, given she has all the trademark symptoms, do know that there is a lot of misinformation on the net, they can be good loving partners if they have a good therapist and keep attending therapy. But you will need to also take better care of yourself and learn how to set strong boundaries to protect your own mental health. We wish you courage.
I probably have an Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder along with GAD but from time to time I feel this overpowering feeling of guilt which leads to stomach ache, disturbed sleep and feeling depressed.
Worst case scenario, catastrophising, extreme quilt towards father (he lives alone. What if he has a fall and can’t get to the phone, what if he dies all on his own etc) and guilt towards my nieces ( I was very much involved with their upbringing, did we do enough to develop them as confident individuals? Have we done enough to educate them properly? Etc).
I discount the positive almost always
All this but a taster of my chaotic and very negative mental state.
Any advice or remarks will be warmly welcomed.
Hey Hal, definitely sounds like anxiety thinking. Have you sought support over this? Anxiety doesn’t just go away, instead we tend to mould our lives to accommodate it with the result we compromise constantly. So the sooner you get some help over it the better. CBT therapy in particular is a great place to start with anxiety. It’s short term, evidence based, and you don’t have to talk much about your past, you just work on changing your thinking and behaviours.
Hello,
I made decisions about my children which I regret How can I get over my guilt?
Margaret, parenting is hard. And there is no perfect parent. If the guilt is getting you down, you could speak to your children, assuming they are adults now. If not, don’t overlook working with a counsellor on this.
I am writing for a friend of mine, Carlton. I am very worried about both him and his wife, Charlotte. Carlton resently left Charlotte, recently meaning the last 3 months or so for another woman. We live in a small town and I fear that once it becomes public about his affair he will face terrible shame. It is a surprise to the few of us who know of the affair. His wife, Charlotte adored her husband, Carlton. It is my understanding divorce papers have been filed. I do not know which of them filed for divorce. I feel this couple, my friends got off track and need to realize what all they have together. I worry about my friend, Carlton. The shame, humiliation and shunning he will face from cheating on Charlotte will be astronomical. I would like for him to rethink what he has done by bringing this affair between him and Charlotte. Carlton could not possibly love anyone more than he loves Charlotte. I fear he got wrapped up in the affair and lost sight of what he has in Charlotte. He will face terrible embarrassment, I wish to save my friend from this embarrassment. How can I help him to see what he has done is wrong? How can I help my friends? This woman who came between Carlton and Charlotte needs to go on about her business and leave Carlton alone. Carlton needs to remember the love and care he has for Charlotte. I hate, I mean hate to see Carlton and Charlotte to divorce. Please help them, help me to help them. Please help me to know how to bring my friends back together, to save Carlton from the shame and the hurt he will bring his family. Concerned friend.
Relationships and love are tricky things. You talk an awful lot about shame and humiliation here. An AWFUL lot. And use the word ‘shunning’ which is so strong. Also embarrassment. Staying in a relationship because of what other people think is not healthy. Living your life so concerned about what other people think, particularly to this extent, isn’t healthy. Where do these things come from for you? Were you raised in a strict religious household where you were made to feel shame for following what you wanted or breaking rules? Or even made to feel shame around sex? Was there a childhood trauma that has given you such a huge burden of shame? Sometimes people have affairs. They start to like someone else, or their relationship is not happy and connected and they are bored and lonely. Affairs break trust and hurt other people but it doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean you should be shunned or rejected. It makes you someone who had an affair. That’s all. You and millions of other people…..It makes you someone who needs to get honest about why it happened, and what they want next in life. Regret happens, but it doesn’t mean running back to a broken relationship is the answer. If the relationship was so good and loving the affair probably wouldn’t have happened. Some relationships do recover from an affair, but it takes a lot of honesty and work. And it doesn’t sound like you are currently in the headspace for that level of honesty. It would be a great idea, if you have the courage, to reach out for some professional support to look at why you are so hard on yourself, so judgemental, and why you live with such shame. You deserve to feel better about yourself. And note that when we live with such shame, it becomes a cycle. On a certain level we think we deserve to be ashamed, and so we unconsciously make bad choices that create more shame, like a form of sabotage. To be in a healthy loving relationship that works it will take loosening this burden of shame, facing your belief you don’t deserve good things, and learning how to accept yourself as the worthwhile human you actually are.
I always thought that it was normal to recall certain scenarios in my life that I felt ashamed about, but it wasn’t until now, that I’ve turned 28, that I realized that this isn’t normal. I would feel an overwhelming sense of guilt whenever those scenarios would pop in my head to the point where I would cringe so hard and wish that “I shouldn’t have done that” or “I shouldn’t have said that”. The scenarios that I would always remember were not even a major event in my life, it was just trifling situations where I believed made me look like a bad person. It makes me feel that the people I know hate me.
I grew up in a where my parents and relatives were always ready to scold me and criticize me. I don’t believe that I have a happy childhood. I know that getting scolded and being to told to behave, as a child, was normal and it didn’t bother me that much. But the most painful thing that my family has ever done to me was that they did not believe in me. I remembered my mom and aunt talking but I couldn’t remember their conversation. However, what I remembered clearly was my mother saying that she doesn’t think that I have any talent, at all. This hurt me.
I now realize that the negative feeling that I always feel is overwhelming guilt. Guilt that I could never be good, that I’m not a good person, that I’m not a good friend, that I’m not a good niece or sister, or that I could never be good at something. I’m scared that I’m developing depression, but I don’t want to seek help because I don’t want to burden my family, and besides that, I feel that whatever I am struggling with right now is atonement for not being a good person and that I deserve it.
The reason for me leaving this comment is I want to know your views in my situation, because I just feel lost right now.
Thank you.
Hi there Jean, this is some great self insight. You are right, feeling guilt all the time comes from a childhood where you were not accepted just as you were, but needed to be ‘good’ and ‘approved of’ to receive the love and attention that a child needs to thrive. Without it we feel flawed, like we only deserve things if we ‘earn’ them, and we end up with low self esteem. What we don’t understand is how seeking help would burden your family. As a 28 year old, therapy is nothing to do with them, you don’t even need to tell them. It’s you dealing with yourself, in the privacy of a therapy room. If you feel you are becoming depressed, seeking therapy is a great idea, it really can help with all these issues. So we’d say gather up your courage and make that step. Best, HT.
After reading your article, I feel that more and more my guilty feelings stemming from depression developed when growing up. I always felt that I was competing with my younger brother with constant ridicule and comparison remarks as to why I couldn’t be more like him. I once had a heated conversation with my mother who stated that I was jealous of him. The constant need for approval when growing up could not ring more true; especially from my father. I am 42 and I still don’t have a proper relationship with them and now I fear the viscous cycle is being repeating with my two kids. Nevertheless, the reason why I am writing is to hopefully gain a better perspective with feeling guilt with my partner. Whenever they are feeling low I always feel like its my fault and immediately become defensive even if the reason for the feelings are not from me. I want to show empathy, but I cannot get past the idea that I am reason. Once the guilt sets in, I start to withdrawal which does not for the situation. What can I do to keep the guilt from seeping in so that I can be more of a support instead of feeling like the culprit? Thanks for the article.
Hi Matthew, first of all, what we see in this comment is a very self-aware and responsible person who really cares about those around them. And is brave enough to reach out for help. The trouble with these sorts of relating issues is that they are actually patterns. As you can sense, you are trapped in a repeating pattern. Or you could see it as an entrenched relating habit. Much like you can’t just decide to stop biting your nails after a lifetime of doing so, it’s not an easy fix or something to be done over a comment. It is, on the other hand, absolutely something that can totally change. It’s just that it’s going to be part of a bigger journey. As you correctly are identifying, the root will be from childhood, in fact very possible that your guilt in intimate relationships directly links to the scenario you are discussing with your mother and brother. I mean there you clearly constantly were made to feel like you weren’t enough, yes? So then if your wife had an issue you’d feel you weren’t enough. In summary, we’d highly suggest you reach out and find a counsellor or psychotherapist and commit to the healing journey, we think you’d really benefit from it. It would help not just with relating and parenting but also with self esteem and we think you are already self aware so would find the process interesting.Note that therapy is now available for every budget nowadays, so if money is an issue, we have an article full of useful tips on finding free to low cost therapy here http://bit.ly/lowcosttherapy. Best, HT.