“Survivor Guilt”

Sacramento is a two-river town. We have the American river, flowing roughly east-west, and the Sacramento river going mostly north-south. I’m currently on a foot bridge crossing the former tonight. It’s not a big bridge, a replica actually of the Golden Gate bridge down in San Francisco. About fifteen feet wide, it crosses the American river from a business section of eastern Sacramento to the east side of our local University. I sit, cross-legged, directly in the middle as I write, occasionally glancing up at what stars can be seen here on a cloudless night. As people step onto the bridge, I feel the weight of their footsteps bouncing it ever so slightly up and down.

I caught a summer cold a couple weeks ago. It’s all but gone now. For a week and a half, though, I held off on my exercise, working the weights only 20 minutes or so every few days, and not running at all. Over the weekend, I put on my stinky gym shirt and started the practice back up. I could still feel the weakness in my body, so I didn’t push things. Tonight I did my first full mile since before I got sick. I’d say it felt good, but running doesn’t exactly feel good; it’s more like I feel good about myself for the doing of it.

I’ve kept my weight down, and have started dropping a little more now that I’m ramping the exercise back to what I used to do. Since I started things earlier this year, I’ve lost over 20 lbs. Someone asked me recently how much more I was going to ‘try’ to lose. I replied that another 10-15 would put me down firmly into the technically ‘healthy’ range, but that it’s more about just being healthy--eating properly, exercising regularly, and however much I end up weighing, well, that’s what it’ll be.

I’ve done this before--lost weight, ballooned back up, lost it again. I won’t say I’ve struggled with weight, but this time around it definitely feels like I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been, physically. One thing I’ve noticed from the times I’ve weighed less is the comments from others. Sometimes snide, sometimes spiteful. Jealousy is an ugly emotion. I was warned about it, the first time I started losing weight. I forget who it was, but they told me that as I found success to watch out for those who wouldn’t be happy for me, but envious.

I think that’s a difficult piece of being successful (regardless of what the particular success is) that doesn’t get talked about very much. It’s not enough to just have success with something. You have to guard your success against those who aren’t supportive or affirming of it. You have to continue being successful in the face of others who aren’t happy about it. Or I do, at any rate. Maybe there are folks out there who have achieved successes in their lives and received nothing but praise from those around them. It hasn’t been like that for me. I can relate a lot more to the unearned guilt others have tried to saddle me with than the well-wishes of those genuinely happy for me.

I had a conversation once with a therapist I used to see about something called ‘survivor guilt’. This is something that comes up for some of us who have had success working the program of Recovery, too. We do well, the program works for us. And we see others for whom it doesn’t work so well. Maybe it’s people who came in at the same time we did, or even members of long-standing who just haven’t found the joy and benefits of Recovery that we have. They still suffer. They still struggle. And they hate on us because we have found success where they haven’t.

But holding back our progress, sabotaging ourselves in the face of that? We don’t have to do that. Remember: we aren’t responsible for anyone else’s program. We aren’t responsible for anyone else period! Not what happens in their lives, not the choices they make, and not the feelings they have. It’s not our fault if someone else has a problem with us for being successful--in any way. That envy, it is not about us at all; it’s about them. Boundaries, my friends, boundaries.

If you are someone who is surrounded by emotionally healthy people who lift you up and congratulate you on your successes, then I offer you my congratulations. If, on the other hand, you are like me and have been faced far too often with jealousy, with the bitter and careless remarks of those who have yet to resolve their own insecurities, then I offer you this advice: you don’t need anyone else to be proud of your successes; you can be proud of yourself.

When was the last time you looked in a mirror and told yourself you were proud of you?