Archive of Our Own

        PSYTODAY.ORG

          Guilt and Its Role in Becoming A Better You

              By Shaheena Sadiq

         Missed a deadline? Screwed up a big project at work? Forgot your kid's birthday? All these paths lead to one road; guilt. It can be a complicated emotion which can sink you, or be the first step towards evolving into a stronger version of yourself. Here are five steps to confront it and take charge of your future….

Guilt was an eternal companion. It lingered at the doorway of every thought, it was steadfast by Nia's side in the bathroom mirror, at the grocery store, down the sunny parks of Metropolis, it took a seat beside her on game nights and followed her under the covers. When her mother died, she let it smother her until her dad held her in his arms and told her it was not her fault. You are young, he said, Sybyll came not because of Nia but because of a history she had no part in. It was a terrible thing to find comfort in his words, but she accepted it, because otherwise she couldn't live. Nia swore to herself to be cautious and choose her allies well. It wasn't her fault, it wasn't her fault. She didn't invite Sybyll, she didn't hold her hand or force her mom into a corner. The guilt shrank, present still, not a looming shadow, a cat slinking by her window.

The shame looked smaller in the side-view mirror as she took off from Parthas for good, leaving her past behind for a blank-slate future. No Naltorian enemies, none of the vitriol from people who'd never accept her. She raced forward, and never could stop looking the mirror until she was in the thick of a maze she couldn't find her way out of.

She was older, her powers obeyed her, she was a hero with a costume and a reputation, she could see the future and so she hit the pedal and kept driving only to crash land. When she got out of the wreck, there it was, the guilt, the shame, everything she ran from coming back. This time, she was not naive, not a tangential part of a story, she hurt people with her own hands.

"Put the phone down," said Yvette.

"Oh, right, sorry. You were saying?" asked Nia.

"I said we have to check out this new milkshake place opening in A-Town. Taylor and Kat are joining."

"Sure."

Yvette sighed. "You're getting worse."

Nia agreed, she wished she would stop getting worse, but it was difficult when all the help she had were search engines and a bunch of shitty articles. All their problems were minuscule in comparison to hers. People said there were no original experiences but Nia had pioneered in an experience and forums on feeling guilty about cheating and throwing thousands of dollars away weren't going to help her navigate a damn thing,.

Therapy required money, superhero therapists were a rarity. She didn't even know if people like her, who weren't quite a hero as of late, even had access to such services. Carol was a great mentor but she was harsh, restrictive. She would have bristled against such treatment but the firm hand was reassuring, under her command she would never screw up the way she did before.

Taylor, Oliver and Jon had all reassured her. It wasn't her fault. She was young, she was under pressure, and she was just a person. Everyone made mistakes, she had a whole life ahead of her. All of it felt convincing when they said it but when she was alone, really alone and the guilt came crawling back, their words were as good as fairy tales.

"I'm trying," she replied.

"Wallowing isn't trying," said Yvette. "Come on, put that suit on, go out."

          COACHINTHROUGHGLIFE.COM/Mental-wellbeing/guides196849

          How Do I Stop Regretting My Decisions?

               By Mark Boyle

This list will provide a map on how to deal with regret.

1. You Can't Run From It— So Face it!

         A study showed that people regretted a third of the decisions they've made in their life. A lot of my clients came to me with regrets about their career choices, break-ups, divorces, that road trip they didn't take. Thinking about all the way in which you could have done something different doesn't help matters. Instead, confront reality. You did it, it happened, it is an immutable part of your life. This step is important in beginning your healing journey.

Nia's new ensemble was too amateur to be called a suit. She had found a loose sky-blue hoodie and a pair of dark blue leggings in a thrift store. Taylor and Kat had helped her find matching dark blue fabric, and they stitched some patterned panels onto the hoodie. She kept her hair tied under the hood, and wore a full-face black mask that Jon had gifted to her. No more grand adventures for Nia, not even a name for this identity even if she couldn't let go of the Dreamer Blue. Her heroic feats included patrolling the neighborhood, helping local soup kitchens with unloading the truck, redirecting people from alleys were she foresaw robberies or bored cops harassing people, and picking up litter. All Clark's idea.

It was boring and miserable work, no one really trusted her when she first began her patrols. She couldn't blame them, she was a weirdo with her face covered in what basically amounted to pajamas but as the months passed, people knew her, and they took her word. The soup kitchen and local shelters were hesitant about letting her volunteer with no credentials or background checks, but eventually warmed up to her. It made her feel good. It did. She was helping people in a way that was guaranteed to not harm anyone. But any time they let her in, she wanted to ask; you trust me?

She wanted to fess up to everything and have them judge her for her actions. It would guarantee they would not allow her to come anywhere near their establishments again, but the weight of her secret made her break out in sweats. Thump, thump, thump went her heart, a drum beating the arrival of her sentencing. She felt good for all of five second before she was back again, at the wreckage, with the monster in her rear-view mirror bigger and closer than ever before.

Was it enough? Would it ever be enough? Was doing a few good things going to get rid of this feeling?

SBH.org/mental-health/articles-w375649

          Summit Bay Health

          Shame Vs. Guilt: What are you feeling?

    …Guilt can be productive, but shame can trap you in a cycle of self-sabotage and self-loathing. Guilt arises when your behaviour contradicts your values, it is often attributed to some form of action. Whereas shame overtakes your identity. It's the difference between 'I did something bad' and 'I am bad'.

Sometimes, she really hated Jon for bringing her back. His acceptance had been a salve to her at first but the comforting cool of it had become ineffective, and she realized he was as fallible as her. Nia was running, so was Jon, and both of them had decided at some point to not mention the elephant in the room but it was getting difficult to act like everything was fine.

"Where do you think he is?" Nia asked Jon, her heart ready to burst out of her chest.

"…Somewhere safe, I hope." They were on a rooftop in the evening light, it was what she dreamed of and she wasn't feeling nearly as good as she did in her constructs.

"Maybe, I can find him." And do what? He had made his position about her clear, and he was not afraid to pull a gun on her. But then again, he would be fixing Jon's mistake. Her powers could cooperate and allow her to create some barrier to keep any dreams from bringing her back.

Jon grew hopeful, the false smile was replaced with an anguished yearning. "Can you?"

Jon had searched for him in Brainiac Queen's illusions, it was the one thing neither of them could take away from Jon. She could've gotten Jon out quicker if she had just, set her guilt—no, shame aside, and allowed a construct of him to be conjured.

"Maybe."

Jon took her hands in his, kryptonian strength inching out from his tight control. "That's amazing, you're amazing."

"Thanks Jon."

There was no joy, no relief, she regretted making the suggestion almost immediately because it meant she would have to see him again, and as much as she dreamed of dissolving into oblivion, doing so at Jay's hands was terrifying. She returned home and tried to control her rising panic and spiraling thoughts. What if trying to ascertain his location brought up other visions? Visions of Gamorra, invasions, the rage he surely still felt? She couldn't do it. Why did she volunteer? To satisfy Jon?

"God I'm so stupid."

She could hear him already, sneering at her for doing things to get Jon's attention again. Maybe he was right. She hadn't thought about doing this when she was alone, but it was only because Jon tied a noose around the conversation like even saying his name would break everything. Like he never even existed, when anyone could see every action he took was shaped by the loss.

Was it for Jon? Was it from her own selfish annoyance at Jon's ability to simply pack it all away with new identities in new teams when she was stuck? What was she even doing?

          r/Self_Improvement

               u/QuiveringPhantom2980

      Tell me about how you fucked up in life and how you're dealing with it.

      Okay recently I did something really, really bad that I do not wanna talk about in public even anonymously. I've been feeling like shit and I don't know what to do so tell me about all the ways you truly fucked shit up and how you dealt with it. Also, does it get better?

She didn't look for him, instead she went down a two-week sleepless research-spiral looking into what was happening in Gamorra. It was bad, every new article only made the situation seem worse. There was a power vacuum, and the three main clans; Stanfield, Kwan and Rhee, which had been terrorizing Gamorra for centuries were moving and ready to topple any semblance of democracy. Loyalists to the Gamorra Clan were on the rise, the clans were selling the land in Gamorra to 'foreign investors' who were quickly turning the country into a weapons manufacturing hub. The forests which had already been under threat were stripped of all protections, and the Parousian Liberation Front were struggling to hold ground. Far too many articles cited Jay's old work and all the information he published which he withdrew from the Washington Base.

But there was no sign of him. There were dozens of articles recounting what happened at the Washington Base, speculating about his whereabouts. The Gamorran people were looking for him because Jay gave them hope. Even as his hands were covered in blood, they wanted him back, because he was the only real hero they've had. Gamorrans didn't care about bloodshed, they survived through violence, it was their only option. He remained untarnished, revered, and she was the reason he was gone. A hurt people, still holding onto hope even as they were getting destroyed. She let the first invaders in, she killed a Gamorran, she got rid of their saving grace and she was sitting in her apartment and strolling through town acting like unloading a crate of beans and sorting the garbage was helping anything.

A country was dying, and she caused it.

She hit her head, clawed at her skin and sobbed and sobbed. Nia bit her hand to quiet herself but it was useless. She shook with the force of it, near-screaming. This was too much, she fucked up, she really fucked up. I twas over. What could she possibly do to reverse this? How was it that destroying people happened with such ease? She hated Jay for pointing that gun at her head but what else was he supposed to do?

"He should've pulled the trigger, he should've, he should've." She would have gone away quietly this time.

Yvette burst into her room, she was saying things to calm her down but all she could see were the footage of people running from the military, trees falling, streets lined with blood, smiling tyrants, and Jay fallen on the ground, blood running red from his leg and soaking the soil.

Taylor came, so did Jon, she felt small, useless. She hated herself, she hated how much she hated herself. She was terrified of her actions and the extent to which she loathed her existence. No one who hated themselves this much could exist. She couldn't do it anymore. Taylor held her, Nia shivered, she felt like she was going to scatter to dust. Further assurances were whispered into her ear but they had stopped being effective. She didn't bother wiping away the tears from her painful eyes.

"What do you know about what he wants?" Nia asked.

Taylor caressed her hair. "If he was your friend, he'd forgive you."

"Oh yeah, you'd forgive me if I let the fucking Vane into your house right now and threw you into a prison. If—if I did nothing and they took Kat away. You'd forgive me?"

"I would."

Nia pushed her away. "You wouldn't! You wouldn't and you know it!"

"I would, I know you're a good person and if you can't see that then, then I'm just going to have to prove it to you."

"Okay Princess Perfect," Nia laughed. "As if you'd get it, worst thing you've ever done is not sort your recycling right."

Taylor backed away, stunned. "I'm not going to let you use me to hurt yourself."

"See, even now you're little miss perfect! I hate myself and somehow you think you're responsible for it." Taylor looked hurt, she did nothing wrong, all she wanted to do was help her and Nia was hurting her. How could she hear all this and still think she was a good person? "I—I hate myself, I can't fix it, fix this."

"Should I stop helping you?" said Taylor, and Nia felt a cavern open inside her.

"…Maybe you should."

      Search Query

          x Am I a bad person?"
          x I hurt my friend and|"
          x I |"
          x I'm a bad person but I want to be better"
          x Is there hope for |
          x Is there |
          x Is there some way to |
          x How|
          x How do I—|

"Your problem is you ask people who've never fucked up for answers on how to un-fuck it up," said Lori.

She slunk off to the House of Secrets when she felt particularly awful. Lori theorizes it was because Nia felt better than all of them and therefore more good about herself. She was right.

"What's your wisdom?" asked Nia.

"Can't uncook the egg sweetheart," she replied. "You're learning that the hard way."

"Then what even is the point!" Nia got out of the weird, musty couch and began to pace.

Thomas entered the room, a pot of spaghetti and a couple of forks in hand. He set it at the coffee table. It was a lot of pasta for three people, but she dug into it with gusto till she was full and leaned back on the old, dusty couch. She still hated herself and believed everything she mouthed off to Taylor but she wasn't as miserable at the moment. It would come back, it always did, but it fascinated her how a person could just, live on with such guilt.

"People are complicated," said Thomas. "Most normal people screw up, but people who get into the whole, superhero bullshit act like they're above it."

"They don't kill people for hire," Nia scoffed.

"No, and they aren't better than you for having choices," said Thomas. "If you can't do good unless you've got a squeaky clean record, then we'd all better throw in the towel and rot in a hole somewhere."

"Then what?" Nia sounded near begging. "What do I have to do? How do I—how do you, just, be? How do you forgive yourself?"

"You don't," said Thomas. "If it's as bad as you say it is, you don't. I sure didn't, and before you and Boy Scout Jr. joined us, everyone else on this team just learned to accept what they did."

"I can't accept being a bad person that's just giving up!" Nia exclaimed.

Lori groaned. "There are no good or bad people girl, just, people."

"But, there are."

Through hooded eyes, Lori looked at her, self-assured and at peace. "We aren't, and that's fine. I don't need to get some label for being a good person. I just want someone to say I tried being better, it's all that counts."

Thomas smiled, secret and quickly taken away. He looked proud of Lori, like this bare minimum was all it took to earn approval. Nia wanted it, wanted someone to look at her that way in earnest, without expectations. For someone to not ask her to be perfect, to look at all her faults and terrible deeds and decide she was still worthy of another chance.

"I…I let Jay get shot," said Nia, swallowing the lump in her throat. "I let people invade his home, I was part of…I was part of something horrible—" Too vague, she had to say it out loud, otherwise she could never be free of it. "I was part of the invasion of Gamorra, I didn't apologize I didn't even look at Jay or ask him what he wanted and then I just went away and I didn't even try to explain why he did what he did and I— I—I hurt my friend. I hurt, I hurt the only person—the only one who could…"

There it was, the guilt, the thing she had been running from, looking her in the eye, and for once, Nia looked back at it head on. Cards on the table, let whatever consequences arose come. She wiped her eyes and bit her lips, she wasn't going to cry the way she did before, not now.

The awful feeling wasn't so unbearable anymore. She had been trying to revert back to something she wasn't anymore. No amount of apologies or work would fix things, and, maybe that was alright. Thomas, Lori, Floyd, Harley and so many others were moving on with their lives despite the sins of their past. She looked at herself, she thought back to the avalanche of information she gathered about the devastation to Jay and his people and wondered, without the pressure of being 'good' or of redemption; did she deserve their forgiveness? Could she earn it?

Did it matter?

She was helping, and it didn't make up for Gamorra but it was still something. All she needed to do was try, and keep trying, and people like Lori and Thomas would be happy enough with her if she did. She was alive, she breathed, she was here.

"What do you wanna do?" asked Lori.

Nia replied. "I…want to say sorry, to Jay. A real sorry. You should too by the way."

Thomas frowned. "Forgiveness is a pipe dream when it comes to him, you get that right?"

"That's, that's fine," she replied. "I'll just have to learn to live with it."

To-do List

• Patrol neighborhood

• Call dad

• Call Taylor

• Call Lori

• Meet with Revs.

• Call back PLF 2IC

• Refugee shelter-need milk powder, socks, sort clothes

• Update 'find Jay' folder(last seen; Metropolis docks)