their parents will always - rather strangely  - blame themselves, and not their parents,  

for their injuries. They hate who they are rather  than hating those who have done them wrong.

Small children immediately notice when they are  not loved as much as they might and need to be.  

They understand nothing of the reasons for the  hard-heartedness but feel all of the pain. And  

yet they need to locate some form of explanation  nevertheless and quickly and intuitively settle  

on the one that always feels most compelling  to them: that they have done something wrong.

Why is mummy so agitated? Because they have done something wrong.

Why is daddy so cold? Because they have done something wrong.

Why aren’t they being treated kindly? Because they have done something wrong.

Why is their little sister  being preferred to them? 

Because they’ve done something wrong.

After a little while of this, their whole  character becomes oriented towards guilt:  

they are - in numberless ways -  simply and primordially ‘bad’.

In adult life, it then takes very little to  reignite a feeling that somewhere along the line,  

they have said and done something awful. What  precise offence they believe themselves to  

have committed shifts according to events in  their lives and the prevailing public mood:  

in a religious age, they may feel they have done  something wrong in the eyes of god. In an age  

obsessed with paedophilia, they will fear they  have done harm to a child. When racism is being  

highlighted as a leading public sin, they will  be tortured that they harbour racist feelings.

Closer to home, they will fear  that they have upset their partner,  

hurt their friends or offended an  employee. Whenever they make a new friend,  

they know that soon enough, the friend will  realise they are ‘bad’ and let them go.  

What makes the guilt so hard to shake off is  that they cannot exactly pinpoint its origin.

A diffuse mood hangs over them whose title  is simply: ‘I have done something wrong…’  

The mood is particularly prone  to descend when they are lonely;  

guilt thrives on isolation (just as  it is love that may disperse it).

When the mood reaches a pitch, the  sufferer may fantasise about going  

to a police station and handing themselves  in. There could be such relief in finally  

being able to tell the officials: I am awful,  I am guilty, I have done so many wrong things…

One could be put into handcuffs  and led to the cells and there,  

finally, gain some relief from the awful tension.

Needless to say, there will be no such  benefit in reality; the only way to cure  

the guilt is to unpick its origins, that  is, to realise that we are not bad at all,  

rather that we have been bullied without  justice into thinking we might be so.

We need - at last - to exchange self-flagellation  

for a little bit of righteous anger  against those who have done us wrong.