I’ve been reporting on the coronavirus for months, but a few weeks ago when I was unsure how to turn down a hug, I wrapped my arms around a person outside my household. (And, okay, I really wanted a hug.) Last weekend, when my best friend sat down less than six feet away from me while we camped, I didn’t get up and move. I keep a tally of these COVID-19 errors in my head like I’m preparing for confession. I try to be nice to myself about blunders, but I have to wonder if feeling guilty is a healthy response to poor choices or if I’m stewing on my misdeeds for no reason.
To find the answer, I connected with two psychologists to show me the light. Their insight was surprisingly soothing. “This once in a lifetime, once in a century pandemic is extremely stressful for people whether they are directly impacted by COVID-19 or not,” Jane Simoni, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and professor in the department of psychology at the University of Washington, tells SELF. The stress and uncertainty involved create fertile ground for guilt to arise.
If guilt has been prowling around in your brain, ready to catch you at every turn, here’s what you should know about when it’s healthy, when it’s not, and how to keep it under control.
Guilt is actually a useful emotion that can help you make better choices.
“All of our emotions have a function,” Danielle Keenan-Miller, Ph.D., director of the UCLA psychology clinic and associate adjunct professor of psychology at UCLA, tells SELF. With guilt, it’s an alarm that you’re stepping outside of your value system in some way. When it comes to COVID-19, guilt about your actions might signal that you feel you’re taking unnecessary risks.
Coronavirus numbers are still high, and outbreaks are happening in nonessential circumstances like weddings, bachelorette parties, and dorm room gatherings. Public health messaging during this time can be confusing to say the least. But if you’re feeling guilty each time you willingly do something that goes against the public health guidelines we do know are pretty set in stone—wearing a mask, keeping social gatherings outdoors, staying six feet away from those who don’t live with you whenever possible—it’s a sign that you know you can do better and should change your actions. A little guilt may be useful when it redirects you to safer, smarter choices the next time around.
If you’re feeling guilty after a specific action, Keenan-Miller recommends pausing and evaluating what you can do differently in the future. Once you make a plan for different behavior, do your best to process those feelings and move on. Guilt isn’t useful when there’s nothing productive you can do about it, Keenan-Miller explains, so try to let it go once you’ve course-corrected. Easier said than done, I know, but here are a few tips that may help.
Sometimes, though, guilt isn’t helpful or necessary.
The cause for unnecessary guilt usually falls into three categories: unrealistic expectations, pressure from outside judgment, or guilt over things outside your control.
Maybe you committed to not seeing friends in person until there was a vaccine, but now that we’re months in, you’d give anything to see them at a distance. Your initial plan was too much to ask for a multiyear pandemic, making it an unrealistic expectation. Or sometimes the expectations feel external. For example, if you tell your friend you dropped your kids off at a grandparent’s house so you could get some work done and your friend responds that they would never do that, you might feel guilt over your choice. In reality, your friend is projecting their value system onto you, leading to judgment that can make you feel guilty. Social media, where people share opinions at the speed of light (or at least lightning-fast internet connections), can compound this sense of judgment and guilt.
Other times, guilt is an attempt to feel control over things you have no control over. Maybe you feel guilty that you’re actually doing okay despite people you love losing their jobs, or you’ve been lucky enough to not know someone who has gotten sick yet. This is sometimes referred to as “survivor’s guilt,” Keenan-Miller says. It’s not helpful in the way that guilt around subverting public health measures is. One way to redirect this kind of unhelpful guilt is to spend that energy pitching in to make your community better. There are plenty of opportunities to do that right now, whether that’s donating to people dealing with economic uncertainty, signing up to be a poll worker for the election, or helping people recovering from natural disasters like the California wildfires and Hurricane Laura. Send your energy outward, Simoni says.
To avoid guilt in the future, name your values and stick with them.
Figure out what values you want to live by during the pandemic, even writing them down, so you can refer to them when a choice arises. You may even want to limit your exposure to social media and news (within reason—still keep tabs on updates necessary to keep yourself safe) while you’re figuring out your values so that other people’s opinions don’t cloud your own.
Unfortunately, values can be in conflict with each other. If you want to be a supportive friend but you also want to be safe, where does happy hour with a friend who’s struggling fall? “We’re living through an incredibly trying time and it’s forcing many of us into positions where there aren’t perfect choices,” Keenan-Miller says. Try to accept that things are changing rapidly and significantly while still using your values as a guide. There’s often a middle ground that will assuage your guilt while also helping you stay true to the values you’ve identified. And remind yourself that it’s more than okay to create and stick to boundaries about your physical and mental safety during a literal pandemic. Here are ways to bridge the gap with loved ones whose boundaries are different from yours right now, which will hopefully help tame any related guilt.
Lastly, keep in mind that excessive guilt is one of the hallmark signs of depression, according to the Mayo Clinic. If you’re dealing with serious, persistent guilt in addition to other symptoms like deep sadness and hopelessness, try talking to a mental health expert. “Even a couple of sessions can be very helpful,” Simoni says. In addition to talking to someone like a therapist, there are also lots of apps and resources that may be helpful with processing intense guilty feelings, whether or not they’re related to depression.
When it comes to my situation, it sounds like guilt is helping to keep me in line, making me aware when I’m not following the safety precautions I know are important. But I can probably let the confession list go.
Related:
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