Guilt is generally a useless emotion unless we have done escort bayan mersin wrong and will not undo it or do not feel bad for what we did in the past.
Question
Dr. Braccio: Our 17-year old son is very fine person. He will graduate from high school after a successful academic, social and athletic experience. The problem is, he only recently told us he has increasingly been feeling horrible about how he mocked and treated a boy when they were in ninth grade. Other kids did it also, but my son says he can’t get over the guilt he has for how he treated him. Our son says the boy left school abruptly and went to parochial school. He believes this is because of how they treated him. My son recently ran into him while out at the theatre. The boy was friendly and asked how he was doing. His friendly attitude made our son feel even worse after how poorly he treated him. He told us how he feels and asked us what to do to make up for what he did. We feel he should talk to the boy and tell him how he feels. What do you think?
Answer
I believe you are correct. To seek him out and tell him how he feels would be a great thing to do for both of them. Guilt is a horrible emotion that needs to be eliminated whether it is based on reality or a false feelings created in us by expectations of others that we inappropriately internalize.
In this case, guilt appears to be an appropriate feeling in him because he clearly did something wrong by his moral standards. This is true whether or not his standard were similar in the past. The way to best resolve the situation would be as follows:
- Admit to himself that he did wrong.
- Seek out the person and clearly spell out what he feels he did wrong and apologize. The apology would appear to be the key thing he can do at this late time. Even if the boy minimized what happens, the important thing is that your son admits he believes he did wrong.
- Make a conscious decision never to do such a thing to another human being.