Guilt

Like True I think the best coping mechanism is to immerse yourself in the feeling that is being "flawed" from the perspective of a perfectionist. And let's face it, we're talking perfectionism here. The feeling, the assumption that you have to do everything right, everything is your responsibility and you have to please everybody and mistakes are not an accepted part of you. Perfectionists, myself having been one or still having traits of one, have a huge fear of those single mistakes among otherwise seemingly flawless streaks when in reality, nothing about us is ever objectively perfect. My personal trick, as that of True, is to do supposed "mistakes" on purpose. See how that works out. Destroy a bit of the supposed perfection to witness how nothing about you changes. After many accumulated mistakes, you will give up on completely avoiding them which can be the start of a less worrisome life. As long as you have an image to lose, as long as you are still so dependent on the approval of others without being just self-sufficient and having enough love for yourself to give a crap about what some nanny in a park says, as long as your brain thinks it is responsible, you will probably dwell on everything that subjectively sets you back. It takes a lot of experience, positive influence and the courage to accept the fact that you are simply good enough already to overcome the pattern of self-loathing on every slip in your life. Face it, you're wonderful. I want to hug you right now. I feel like I know exactly what you are talking about and I'm just passing on wisdom from my loving auntie who over the course of many years taught me that I was good. So are you. There is nothing you can do to taint that. You can mess up ten times a day and you'll still be pretty indistinguishable from any other human in that regard. Mistakes are part of our lives. Making none is literally impossible. Pleasing everyone is picking up a turd by the clean end. Funny enough, it's usually people who don't try to please anyone who are the most pleasant to be around. But I'm not going to lie. If it's deeply engrained within your psyche, it takes a lot of time and effort to get rid of such conditioned behaviors.

Hey I know exactly where you're coming from. When I was younger I was afraid to hurt someone's feelings or have the feeling of rejection. I chewed my nails to the bedding and farther at times, I would have attacks of pure frustration of who I was and I couldn't handle it like the celebrities. They seem to take criticism and rejection so well and I couldn't wrap my head around it. I've made plenty of big and small mistakes that put me in the same exact phase of pure self-hatred. And I know many other people suffer with that kind of anxiety as well. Lucky for me, after 12 years I figured it out. I knew telling myself to not care about what they think was going to make me care any less, I knew that I also didn't want to cope with it badly. So one day I wore no make up to school; I got called high, tired, and sick. Great huh? but i told myself that if I can learn to love me, then they can learn to love me. So after a week of repeating that in my head going to school without the make up, i noticed that no one said any thing anymore. Everything was back to normal. So I took it a step further. I was originally a huge tomboy, jeans and T-shirts were my thing. So i rallied up the guts to wear something nice, and yes i put make up on but i looked like someone else. It shocked a couple people, but after a week i noticed that no one said anything. I could be who ever i wanted to be. So i talked more and wore nail polish and i wore sweat pants with a sweat shirt, and i went to school in all black and i came in a preppy outfit and still i was who i was. The only difference it i personally figured out how to not care about what others think. because in a week no one would care. Yes i still get anxious once in a while but i feel happier knowing that mistakes can happen but i don't have to dwell on them.

I agree with the above posters. It depends on what for you, personally, your guilt stems from- lack of self-confidence can definitely be a factor.I'll just share a technique that works for me: I realized that a lot of my guilt and self-recrimination came from perfectionism. As if... if I didn't do everything perfectly and without mistakes then I wasn't a worthy human being. Someone suggested I really think it through and think what would actually happen. If I accidentally jostled someone in the train, would they even remember it happening 5 minutes later? If I wrote a slightly less-than-perfect essay, what's the worst that could happen... a bad grade on one assignment? Gaining perspective on what you've done and realizing it's not the end of the world worked for me. Now, I'm going to stress that this worked for me because I imagine that for some people thinking through the worst-case scenario would actually on the contrary freak them out more. But I found that realizing that in 1 year none of these little things would matter helped me a lot, so I hope it can possibly help you too. Good luck!

i think you need to talk to a therapist. maybe a psychiatrist, it sounds like your thoughts are very obsessive. talking to a professional can be very very helpful. these problems are not your fault so let someone help you with them.