When all have judged me wanting and gone their way I have stood in judgement of myself. Judge, jury, and executioner, a hundred times a day I hold me accountable for actions and failures real or perceived in my skewed mind. My thoughts and emotions also stand for judgement. Old tapes play unbidden. My mother, now dead and gone 19 years, still calls me worthless. My first husband, very much alive still holds me accountable for his mistakes. I am the guilt sponge and the family scapegoat of more ills than I have been alive for.

DBT and I are altering that calamity of errors. I am learning to dismiss and even refrain from judgement of my thoughts and feelings. Aware of the should and shouldn’t judgements, I call them out for what they are, ineffective crap.

I alone am responsible for my actions. I am continually humbled by those memories. I am sorry.

Living with my past is like going to court everyday to be re-judged for my actions, choices, and emotions. DBT is helping me to curb the flow of guilt wreaking havoc through my days. DBT is helping me separate the earned guilt from the perceived and the guilt laid on me from the guilt I lay upon myself.

Yesterday I described an emotional and hectic day without judging my thoughts and actions. I cut off short the I shouldn’t haves and I’m not worthies. I am proud of myself. I am the old dog learning new tricks. I am discarding the mantle of guilt that has weighed down my shoulders for more years than I care to remember laid there by so many people who could not carry their own guilt.

Each of us has our own responsibility for our own actions. None of us can bear the added burden of others actions, nor should we.