Guilty Shame Spiral

I feel guilty about a lot of things.
Husband attributes this to my family’s Catholicness. Catholics are like the Olympic gold medallists of guilt. And not the Winter Olympics either, the real Olympics.
He seems to find it amusing as he does not possess such an emotion.
Let me give you an example... We will have something delicious. Husband will want my delicious thing. He will ask if he can have it. I will say no. Husband will sit in silence and wait. I will begin to feel guilt. I will feel anger at feeling guilt. Then I will feel shame. Then I will give Husband the thing he wanted.

Husband will be gleeful and will laugh at me. He will point and emphatically declare “It’s because you’re CATHOLIC!” I will feel a sense of loss of my delicious thing.
The guilt is not limited to Husband and delicious things though.
I feel guilty about drinking anything fizzy before midday. I think my Grandma instilled that rule in my head, and now, 6 years after I moved out of home, I will still feel guilty for wanting Coke Zero before lunch.

I feel guilty about calling in sick to work, even when I’m legitimately sick. Especially when I’m legitimately sick... I agonise over the decision. Then I have to ask Husband what he thinks I should do. He usually tells me to go to work. So I struggle around the house, flopping from one room to another trying to get ready until I feel so awful all I can do is lay on the floor. Then I get all torn up inside and have to debate the issue a thousand times again in my head. Logically I know it’s not the end of the world, but my conscience seems to think it is.

I feel guilty about buying anything that’s just for me. If it can’t be used for the house or if Husband can’t share it, down the spiral I go.

I feel guilty about not holding the lift doors open for people even if they’re really far away and I’m running late.

The guilt doesn’t go away within the day though. Sometimes not even in the week... Sometimes it lives in my soul for close to two decades.
When I was a little girl, I was playing out the front of my house. I found a little worm and I put him on my hand. I held him there, and he bit me. I pulled him off and threw him into the gutter and sort of stomped on him. He started to bleed. I felt so bad. My grandfather explained to me that he was a leech and that it wasn’t his blood I was seeing. It was most likely my own.

To this day I think about that little leech and wonder where he went after he got hosed away. Maybe he was a Catholic leech. Maybe he feels guilty about biting me and is wondering where I am today and what happened to me. Probably not though, because leeches are almost certainly smarter than that.