We experience guilt when we know we did, or feel we have done, something wrong. When we are unsure we have done something wrong we experience something else. Discerning what that something else is, requires a great deal of discernment.

Guilt and shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about ourselves and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured someone else. In other words, shame relates to self, guilt to others.

Sometimes I find it difficult to discern the difference to the feeling of guilt and shame. Often I think that undeserved feelings of quilt are really experienced as undeserved shame, and that the difference is important.

From what you wrote I think you may be experiencing undeserved shame.

Maybe it’s all semantics… however it seems to me you have taken on the responsibility of your father’s feelings and state of mind which has left you feeling bad (equating feeling bad with quilt) about who you are as a daughter and person. As this relates to how you feel about yourself that would be shame. An undeserved shame.

Anyway

I found the fallowing book helpful
‘Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don’t Deserve’ by Lewis B. Smedes

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by Peter.