Statute of Limitations

[pegkerr]

It is odd: in the last several days I have been repeatedly invoking my seven year statute of limitations.

I should explain. As a conscientious person with a religious background (with more than a hint of codependency in my makeup) I have a highly attuned sense of guilt. I decided long ago that in order to keep myself from repeatedly flailing myself about mistakes in my past, I would allow myself to feel guilty for anything only for seven years. The reasoning is, you replace all the cells in your body every seven years (except perhaps some of the nervous systems cells? Not sure), and so you can be literally be said to be an entirely different person than you were seven years ago. This, I found, was a useful way to short-circuit guilt.

As I said, I have been noticing that I have had old stuff guilts really resurfacing in the last few days. I wonder why. I have caught myself kicking myself for something I have done or said ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, for god's sake. And I have had to keep stopping and telling myself--"Oh. Right. Statute of limitations. Drop it, Peg." And it's an effort to do so.

So . . . is it stress? All the life self-assessment stuff I have been doing lately? Or something else?

Comments

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I like your statute of limitations, I may try that on Ericka who also struggles with guilt and similar feelings.

As for what's bringing it up for you now? Probably a combination of all of the above. I find myself sometimes going over embarrassing high school moments in my head, playing the movies of those moments over again. For me, it helps to consciously picture them as movies ... on a screen, at a distance, I can mute the sound or desaturate the colors, even take it slightly out of focus if need be. Whatever puts an amount of emotional distance between the event and my present self.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a phase or a cycle. Seems like we all go through periods where the past keeps coming back at us, and you might be dealing with that.

I like your idea of the statute of limitations. You also get nice, clean credit after 7 years, and to take that analogy further, I decreed that you're also a virgin again after 7 years.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

I do like the statute of limitations: shall start applying it to myself, and thus free up considerable resources currently wasted on guilt / resentment over long-ago events.

I think the whole process of self-assessment has a tendency to refresh old memories -- as though we're picking scabs, or returning to a form of exercise that reminds us of all those weird muscle groups we haven't used. Examining other areas activates the introspective process, and it wanders off and does its own thing while we're not using it.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I remember discussing this with mgs many years ago--maybe even in Minneapa. With others chiming in, the consensus was that everyone (except possibly sociopaths) goes through these times when the mind recycles every stupid thing we've ever done, every mistake, every embarrassment, the full catastrophe. Some of mine are 40 years in the past. (I've managed to give up the ones from before I was 18, I think.)

The thing that I do is this: I try to think of something stupid or mistaken or embarrassing that a loved one or friend did a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago. And I can't. So I remind myself that there is probably no one out there who ever even thinks about my stupidities, mistakes, and embarrassments.

The statute of limitations is a great idea. I hope it works.

[glinda-w.livejournal.com]

Maybe stress kicking up some old stuff, that happens to me a lot.

and I *really* like the statute of limitations on ... guilt. embarassment. shame. self-blame. etc., ad infinitum.

mind if I link to this as one of my memories? the next two weeks are too crazy for me to fit in any down time for introspection, but I want to come back to this, absorb it, maybe run it past my therapist...

thanks..

--glenda

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Sure, be my guest.