The Guilt of Being Here

Sometimes I think the worst thing I ever did was exist.

Not because I want to die. Not because I am planning to leave.

But because I can’t shake the feeling that everyone I love would have been better off if I had never been here at all.

If I hadn’t been born, maybe my mother would have been free. Maybe she’d be taking morning walks, sipping quiet coffee in a sunlit kitchen, instead of cleaning up the wreckage of my father’s moods and pretending that everything hurts less than it does.

Maybe my father wouldn’t have turned so bitter. Maybe he’d smile more, talk softer, find peace in silence instead of resenting it.

Maybe my boyfriend would sleep through the night without wondering if I’m okay. Maybe he’d laugh deeper, text lighter, love someone who doesn’t break at the seams.

Maybe my counselor would have one less name in his notebook. One less story to carry. One less person to remind that staying alive is still worth it.

Maybe my friends wouldn’t have to deal with my moods, my mess, my endless feelings that don’t know where to go.

It’s not that I want to disappear.

It’s not that I want to leave.

It’s just that sometimes, the guilt of existing sits so heavy in me that breathing feels like stealing something I didn’t earn.

I know how it sounds. I know I am loved. I know that my existence has given people memories they would never trade. I know that sometimes I make them smile in ways that nothing else can.

And still.

The guilt stays.

It hums underneath everything. A quiet voice that says, “They would have lived lighter lives without you.”

I don’t always think about dying, but I think about not being here. The thought creeps in without warning, soft as a sigh.

It’s what my therapist calls passive suicidal ideation — that strange grief for a life where I was never born, where nobody had to carry the weight of worrying about me.

Most days, I don’t want to die. I just want the world to forget I was ever here. Not to punish anyone. Not to hurt anyone.

Just to make it easier for them. To make it easier for me.

There are ways I have tried to carry that heaviness quietly, ways I have tried to stay in control when my own mind felt too loud.

There were nights when the hurt inside me needed somewhere to go. Nights when I carved grief into my own body,

carried it in my thighs,

my arms,

my wrists.

Places that still remember what my heart tried to forget.

Sometimes it was about control. Sometimes it was about punishment. About making the guilt visible. About hurting myself first, before anyone else could. About answering every unkind thought with proof written in red.

It was never about wanting to leave. It was about trying to stay. Trying to stay in a body that didn’t always feel like it belonged to me.

Pain was simple. Pain made sense when nothing else did.

And after the hurt, the guilt would come, heavy and sharp. Guilt for the damage I caused myself. Guilt for the sadness in the eyes of the people who noticed. Guilt for asking them to stay when I couldn’t even stay steady within myself.

And that guilt doesn’t stop with what I’ve done to myself. There are things I’ve done to other people that I still carry like splinters. Words I wish I could take back. Silences I let stretch too long. People I pushed away just to see if they would come back.

There is guilt for the harm I caused. And guilt for needing others to keep loving me anyway.

It is a strange kind of pain, being loved more than you believe you deserve. And a stranger kind of ache, to keep asking people to stay when all you can think about is how tired they must be.

They say they choose to stay.

That I am not a burden.

That I am not too much.

That I am worth the weight.

And some days, I almost believe them.

Some days I feel it in the way they laugh at my jokes, in the way they show up, in the way they sit beside me in silence and call it love.

Other days, I can’t believe anything at all.

Other days, I drown in the weight of the times I have failed to be

the easy daughter,

the steady friend,

the strong girlfriend.

I feel the guilt stick to my skin like a second heartbeat, louder than anything else.

But I am trying.

God, I am trying.

I am trying to be softer with myself, even when my mind spits venom.

I am trying to believe that staying is not selfish, that needing people is not the same as ruining them.

I am trying to carry the guilt without letting it swallow me whole.

I am trying to live not because I owe it to anyone else but because somewhere deep inside, in a place I don’t visit often, there is a small, stubborn part of me that still wants to see what happens if I stay.

Maybe I will never fully unlearn the guilt. Maybe I will always feel a little sorry for being here.

But I’m here anyway.

Still breathing.

Still trying.

Still choosing to stay.

And for now,

maybe that is enough.