THE GUILT TRIP (TRAP?)

I now understand why the Roman Catholic Church was one step ahead of the rest as far as spreading the religion was concerned. They had a deeper understanding of the need for confession. They realised that all men (and women, of course), whether guilty or not, had a guilt conscience.

A guilt conscience, they tell me, is a ‘perception’ of wrongdoing or what we ‘think’ is morally incorrect. There is no relationship that does not burden us with guilt, be it a parent or a spouse or a child, for being unable to repay their goodness and sacrifice. But there are also times when we do not need anybody to give us guilt. Our minds are well equipped to take over that task for themselves. And that's the other kind of guilt.

They also tell me that it is a psychological irregularity that has its roots in warped conditioning during childhood. If that is so, how is it that I bore my first burden of guilt when I wasn’t even a child, but barely a toddler? At all of one and a half years of age?

My mother died (I can’t call her mama or ma because both of them entail a certain amount of affection which I don’t feel for the biological mother I have no memory of, but I am already feeling guilty for not calling her ma). Anyway, my mother died and left me my first package of guilt, which initially, given my tender age went missing, but finally caught up with me around the time I turned eight

How? You ask.

They told me and kept telling me the story (true it seems as confirmed from different sources) until it was pouring out of my ears. Here it goes. Mother, after four daughters and rigorous religious penance, finally had her heart’s desire, a son. That was me. So when she conceived again she opted for a homemade abortion. And that went horribly wrong.

This was told enough times until I could read only one line in it. “You were the reason your mother died”. True, nobody blamed me, but I had heard enough and I blamed myself.

Dad remarried but it didn’t work out. There were times when he said that had it not been for me he would not have thought of marrying again. But an infant needed a mother, so ….. My brain tells me nothing was ever right in dad’s second marriage but my conscience refuses to shed its responsibility.

By the time I was in my teens my guilt conscience had had such a strong foundation that I was holding myself responsible for everything going wrong around me. So when my stepmother could bear no children I blamed myself. May be I was so jinxed that I even bungled other people’s lives apart from my own. How could I be responsible? Still I felt I was.

With this extra luggage I trudged through life, hoping things would improve. They did, albeit only temporarily.

I did well in life. So well that guilt came rushing back when I far overshot my sisters. I was soon in the social top bracket but they had long since married and stayed middle class. It didn’t bother them. Rather, they were so tickled pink their little brother had done well for himself that they went to town with it. My brothers-in-law were rooted in reality, all self-made man. It would be offensive to offer them expensive gifts or money. They were happy in the worlds they had made for themselves. They were all so good I felt guilty for leaving them behind. So here I was, guilty for my success, my cars, my mansion, my swimming pool and my central air-conditioning as I watched them count the pennies for the children’s education or a niece’s wedding.

By this time I was feeling so guilty that it could have been my middle name. I decided to throw it to the winds and plunged headlong into my work. I was promoted left, right and centre and was soon boss to my colleagues and colleague to my bosses. They were all wonderful people who had helped me along, showing me the ropes when I was new in the workplace. Now, when they called me sir and took orders from me I again found staring at the familiar face of guilt. Not because I had beaten them to the top, but because they were all genuinely nice to me, heartily congratulated me and said they always knew I would do it. Their goodness made me uncomfortable.

Despite everything life was looking up. It was time to acquire a suitable wife. Suitable as in educated, smart, good-looking, able to match my lifestyle. Unfortunately I couldn’t fall in love. So it had to be arranged. The sisters chipped in with the best proposals they could tap for their stratospheric brother. Lecturers at private colleges, M.A. passed daughters of executive engineers and BSc. B Ed. girls of the richest businessman in town.

Sadly their best was not good enough for me. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it. So I even went to see these girls with guilt sitting heavily on my back. It was easier to say that they were not pretty enough or reject them for being too thin or too fair or too tall.

I finally married the boss’s daughter. I had seen her enough flashing her thighs at the tennis courts and nursing cocktails at parties to know that she would be perfectly at home by my poolside. But it was not without guilt that I expressed my choice at the next family meet. Dad and the sisters took it well saying it was best for me. It was only that I was left with a niggling doubt that I had not cared enough for their sentiments while making my choice. It was clear I would have a wife but Dad would have no daughter-in-law.

My wife proved me wrong. She turned out to be a chameleon changing garbs and roles with such consummate ease and frequency as to leave me reeling under the impact. As a wife she was a hit, but as a daughter-in-law she was a blockbuster.

My father-in-law had thought this alliance would be a good move, keeping her around him. But this public school educated girl had quickly adapted to her husband’s rural roots and seemed to have transferred her affections to an old rustic father-in-law. The boss didn’t say it in so many words but I got the message. I felt I had taken her away from him.

Life went on. Money flowed in and responsibilities increased. Soon there was everything, only no time to enjoy everything. Guilt kept me company through the long hours I stayed away from my wife. So I encouraged her to work to keep her bitterness over my absence at bay. She was very efficient but not cut out for the hard, sharp-edged world of high business. Promotions and incentives eluded her. The more she tried the worse it got. Meanwhile I was doing better than ever but couldn’t even celebrate my success in the face of her failure. And obviously Mr. Guilt wasn’t forgetting to prod me every once in a while. I was not sure what I was more guilty for - my successes or her failures.

It got so bad she had to quit. Her sweet demeanour was not suited to the cutthroat corporate world. Thankfully, she rediscovered a latent childhood passion, painting. There was no competition here. I could not put two lines together.

And she was happy. Happier when she found out she was going to be a mom. I had the sense to realise that it was time to turn over a new leaf. For once guilt was not the prime mover of my life and I gave it a major heave ho.

I felt guilty for doing better than the rest. But would I be happier or less guilty if they had done as well as I had? No. And this is the fountainhead of all guilt.