Survivor’s Guilt

By Colin McGregor

From the darkest recesses of the mind and soul come blame, self-condemnation, worry and doubt… Simply because all is well in your life…

Survivor’s guilt is a syndrome painfully felt by people who have survived a loss. It could be an accident or a massacre while others died. It can also be a loss of job, status, money or health.

In a literal sense, the syndrome can be summed up as follows: “Others than me died, I could have died too, but I’m still here.” The survivor is consumed by guilt, the feeling of having “betrayed”.

People with the disease have many symptoms:

– Fatigue;

– Anxiety;

– Headaches, heart problems;

– Reduced resistance to tuberculosis;

– Irritability and mood swings;

– Sleep disturbances and nightmares.

Night

In Elie Wiesel’s novel Night, based on the author’s own experience in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, the main character, Eliezer, struggles for his own survival. But as he succeeds he feels nagging guilt, aware that those around him are doomed to die.

Several times in Night, Eliezer watches his father being beaten and can’t do anything about it. Or rather, he might be able to help his father in the very short term, but he would quickly pay with his life. Even if a small act of resistance amounts to suicide, Eliezer can’t help but feel guilty for his fear and inaction.

Weak and malnourished, surrounded by soldiers with machine guns, in a place where they are quite expendable, the prisoners’ options are limited in what they can do to defend themselves without inviting torture and slaughter. But it doesn’t make Eliezer feel any better about himself when an SS officer hits his dying father over the head with a truncheon, and Eliezer does nothing to prevent the act or seek revenge.

Speaking of his father, Eliezer thinks to himself, “If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, and take care only of myself. Immediately, I was ashamed of myself, forever ashamed.”

At the end of the novel, after his father’s death, the camp is liberated by Allied soldiers and Eliezer is free. He is looking at himself in the mirror. The last line of the novel is:

“From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was looking at me.”

In fact, survivor’s guilt syndrome is also known as konzentrationslager syndrome, or concentration camp syndrome, recognized by the World Health Organization. Many psychiatrists view survivor’s guilt as a psychic conflict arising when concentration camp inmates had identified with the perpetrator (i.e., the guards), leading to an unconscious sense that they had betrayed their deceased captive companions.

Many of the survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 suffered from the same psychiatric symptoms.

Killers Speak

I’m speaking with a convicted murderer, a man who has spent half his life in prison. Together we distribute meals to the homeless for a charity. He grew up in a tough neighborhood in a big city. “You know, I used to exploit people like that,” he tells me. “Now I feel sympathy for them. These are the people who come from where I come from.”

He agrees that doing good to others helps ease the guilt he feels about his crime. “I feel valued,” he says. “I feel useful. Self-sacrifice is very important. The more you give of yourself to others, the less you feel burdened with guilt.”

Says a man convicted of murder, now released: “Guilty, yes, I feel guilty. But I don’t suffer from survivor’s guilt. I chose to end a man’s life. I did not kill myself. What I feel is guilt over the years and years of outliving him. We were about the same age when I killed him, and that was over 20 years ago. If you had asked me this question three years after his death, I would have said yes, I would have exchanged my life for his, with pleasure. But I don’t feel that now.”

Findings from a 2019 study in the Journal of Psychosocial Oncology suggest that 55 to 63.9 percent of people who survive lung cancer, which has a very high mortality rate, experience guilt. Many survivors wonder, “Why not me? Why am I not dead?”

Survivor’s guilt can cause a person to see the world as an unfair and dangerous place. This can cause him to withdraw and be very submissive.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, survivors may hold false beliefs about their role in an event, which can lead to feelings of guilt. These beliefs may include exaggerated or distorted ideas about:

– Their ability to predict or prevent an outcome

– Their role in producing negative results

– Fault on their part

The NIH suggests that many people with survivor’s guilt recover without treatment within the first year after the event. However, at least a third of people will continue to have symptoms for 3 years or more.

I’m on parole after committing a most serious crime. I am outside of prison, and others have remained inside; I’m still alive, and others aren’t…I still feel survivor’s guilt. I’ve found that the best medicine is to do good for others, stay busy, and above all, avoid doing more harm by trying to make amends to people who never want to see me again.

Tips for dealing with survivor’s guilt include:

– Accept and allow feelings

– Connect with others

– Do something good for others

– Take good care of yourself

– Use mindfulness techniques