False Guilt Quotes

“Oftentimes, the scapegoat feels worthless and powerless. After being beaten down, year after year, we have a strong sense of false guilt. Unconsciously, we take the narcissist’s guilt as if it were our own. As if it were our fault. As if we are deserving of mental torture and physical abuse.”
― Dana Arcuri, Certified Trauma Recovery Coach, Soul Rescue: How to Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse & Heal Trauma

“When shame is met with compassion and not received as confirmation of our guilt, we can begin to see how slant a lens it has had us looking through. That awareness lets us step back far enough to see that if we can let it go, we will see ourselves as clean where we once thought we were dirty. We will remember our innocence. We will see how our shame supported a system in which the perpetrators were protected and we bore the brunt of their offense — first in its actuality, then again in carrying their shame for it.

If the method we chose to try to beat out shame was perfectionism, we can relax now, shake the burden off our shoulders, and give ourselves a chance to loosen up and make some errors. Hallelujah! Our freedom will not come from tireless effort and getting it all exactly right.”
― Maureen Brady, Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse

“When we first begin to take power more directly, after long having kept our relationship to it underground...it is natural that we experience anxiety, even guilt, at putting ourselves first. These feeling let us know we are taking action; they do not need to stop us.”
― Maureen Brady, Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse

“First night in the barracks. Moyshe Ettinger tells us how he saved himself and cannot forgive himself. The evening prayer is recited and Kaddish is set for the dead.”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“False guilt is feeling guilty when one is not actually guilty. Genuine guilt is a result of wrongdoing. It is appropriate to feel guilty if we had done something wrong. However, false guilt is rooted in deception, denial, and dysfunction. It is directly connected to our destructive and codependent relationship with a narcissist.”
― Dana Arcuri, Certified Trauma Recovery Coach, Soul Rescue: How to Break Free From Narcissistic Abuse & Heal Trauma