The Guilt Trippers Trip To Nowhere - Don't Get On Board!

All of us have come across someone in our lifetimes who tries to make us feel guilty over some perceived misstep though we haven't done anything wrong to them. These guilt trippers often have their own code of unspoken social mores they expect others to conform to. This misguided sense of guilt projected onto others is the guilt tripper's problem, not ours, because the wrong exists solely inside their head. 

Can people who want to put others on a guilt trip for their own personal issues be tripped up?  The answer is most certainly yes but vigilance is necessary to recognize and stay away from people who rely on guilt to manipulate others.  Sometimes it's not easy to avoid these kind of people who either have personal access to us or seek to violate our privacy, including those who use the Internet and forums.

I used to have a subconscious heavily laden with guilt triggers since I was initially raised a Catholic.  The Catholic Church relies heavily on brainwashing people to feel ashamed for anything that violates what's in their holy book, the confession booth is just one example. You can pick up this guilt ridden mental illness easily if you were raised a Catholic, a Jew or any heavy guilt based organized religion and it often takes decades to shake off if ever. 

I find people are searching for scapegoats for people to blame for the mess their lives are in and that their own feelings of guilt drives them to behave this way.  They don't want to believe their feelings of guilt are their problem, that someone else is responsible for it so they're searching for victims.  The feelings of guilt many people have are often misplaced and nothing more than their inability to recognize they've been brainwashed to feel guilt inappropriately.  

Here's an example of the process people use, those who have felt wronged in some way:

"Have you ever realized that someone screwed you over big time, and now you want to do something about it? Instead of revenge, try a guilt trip. You'll be amazed at the power of a good, long guilt trip." - How To Give Someone a Guilt Trip - WikiHow.com

I've noticed I used to project guilt on innocent people  for the slightest thing they did long ago that was clearly due to my Catholic upbringing.  In spite of being brainwashed, there is no excuse for adults being unable to shake off this mental illness of mismanaging feelings of guilt. Socially based triggered guilt can be used inappropriately to make people feel they've done something terribly wrong when they really haven't.

Feelings of guilt are meant for people who are truly guilty of something.  It's usually the good people who are always feeling some form of guilt while the criminals feel nothing.  Regardless, good people can cause great harm by inflicting their misguided guilt onto others as a form of social control.  If you're always feeling guilty about something intangible, or another is always trying to make you feel guilty, it's a form of mental illness that needs to be dealt with. 

Anytime someone begins laying a guilt trip on me, I excuse myself after telling them they need to seek a mental health professional.  I don't even want to get involved in what a guilt tripper thinks or get tangled up in their head game, I've had enough of that in life.  As far as the Internet goes, when complete strangers try to cause problems in forums and other mediums, I note they're likely mentally ill people.

People who are well steeped in guilt tripping others can be easily categorized in the heavy mental illness category.  You deal with the guilt trippers by simply not dealing with them at all. To put it simply, you trip up the guilt trippers by not going on the guilt trip with them.

John Tennent, Notary Rotary