Susan – Cycling Between Guilt and Resentment

The following is the analysis to my last blog post “Susan – Parent Pleasing to her own Detriment.”

Upon analysis of her behavior, Susan slowly realized that her relationship with her parents all these years was greatly affected by guilt. Her mother played the role of the victim and blamed both Susan and her father for having been the causes of her victimization. As a result, Susan felt an obligation to always make her mother happy, either by taking an adult role and getting involved in parental arguments that were impossible for her to solve, trying to act unrealistically “grown up” to set a “good” example for her siblings or stressing herself out about always getting that perfect 100%. When these things did not work out the way she ideally would want them to, her mother would become upset at her, and Susan would become depressed and feel like a complete failure.

Susan began to realize that she carried these childhood experiences forward into her adult life. She still felt like anything less than 100% was a complete failure and that if she was not perfect she was worthless. She realized that in order for her to feel successful she had to be perfect, but she acknowledged that perfection was a highly unrealistic goal. Susan came to realize that her procrastination and tendency to give up when things became too tough was a result of this striving for perfection, and a fear of failure (in her case to be perfect).

Susan realized that by allowing herself to become controlled by the guilt that her mother was inflicting on her, she was allowing herself to become the victim. She focused so much of her energy on making her parents happy, that she had no energy left to make herself happy. Susan came to realize that she could not live her life according to her parents unrealistic expectations, but that she had to learn to create her own expectations. This would be a hard task, but a very important one in order for Susan to start building up her personal confidence, and reduce her feelings of anxiety and depression.

Upon further analysis, Susan began to discover a self defeating belief that contributed to her unhappiness. Susan thought that she always had to be “perfect” and responsible to an unrealistic degree. She felt that she had to be perfect both to satisfy her parents desires, as well as to set the “correct” example for her siblings. Being self-indulgent and having fun was out of the question. When she had fun she would feel guilty and feel that she was acting irresponsibly, and therefore she was unable to enjoy herself. Her guilt over disappointing her parents by not always being responsible and getting perfect grades would drive her to be perfect. But then this push to always be perfect made her resentful, and this resentment drove her desire to have fun and not be “perfect.” However, when she would go out and have fun, she would feel guilty. These self-defeating thoughts and feelings resulted in a self-defeating cycle with Susan cycling between guilt and resentment, and hence the two behaviors that went along with them, in her case acting “perfect” versus having fun and not being “perfect.” Because of her self-defeating belief, studying and having fun could never be in balance. Once Susan identified this self-defeating belief, and recognized its influence on her behavior, she was slowly able to break free of its influence and enjoy herself both in study and in social situations.