By CDV

Childhood Domestic Violence Can Make Us Feel Guilty

Guilt can seem like a simple word. Yet it speaks to a complex family of emotions. These include embarrassment, a sense of culpability, a feeling you should have been able to stop it, shame because there is something inherently wrong with you, humiliation, remorse, and even the sense that you were somehow the cause.

Those who never grew up with domestic violence are often confused as to how a child could feel any shame or guilt when witnessing those they love hurting each other. Yet, if you’re like me and you too grew up in a violent household, then you probably know all too well how easy it can be to feel as though you were somehow the cause of it, or that you should have been able to stop it.

It’s Natural to Feel Guilty

However, this post isn’t about whether or not you might feel guilt in response to the violence you witnessed in your youth. It’s about why that guilt will naturally develop in a child who struggles to understand household violence, and also about how to free yourself from it now that you are an adult.

Guilt is the biggest and most pervasive lie we tell ourselves after living with domestic violence during early life. It will continue to affect us throughout our entire lives and can steal our capacity to create joy and success.

“Many people are driven by guilt,” writes Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life. “They spend their entire lives running from regret or hiding their shame. Guilt-driven people are manipulated by memories. They allow their past to control their future.”

Guilt Stems from the Abilities of the Developing Brain

Part of the problem stems from the underdeveloped centers that control logical thinking in the developing brain, which leads children to create impossible childhood expectations, such as summoning magic powers to make things better or being able to protect a parent by challenging an adult three times their size.

“When you’re young, the neocortex, which is responsible for rational thinking, is still growing,” neuroscientist David Sousa explained to me recently. “Our instinctive, emotional limbic system just outguns the kind of logical, rational thinking that might come from a more mature neocortex. As a result, children cannot rationally understand their situations as an adult can. Out of desperation to protect their parents, they invent impossible ideas. And when they can’t live up to their imaginings, children feel horribly guilty.”

Guilt from Childhood Holds Us Back as Adults

Later in life, that guilt and shame become facts and hold us back in so many ways. They are heavy burdens that slow us down and stop us from taking action, an invisible bondage that weakens willpower. We start something, then fail or quit, only to reinforce that sense of blame. Finally, we give up. We don’t even try, becoming prisoners of this lie.

You might feel that all of this information about guilt can make overcoming it seem impossible, but I assure you that you are more capable than you might imagine. The lie of guilt is no match for the resilience and strength you also learned while growing up living with domestic violence.