Do you ever feel guilty for something you didn't do?

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I feel guilty whenever my girlfriend is upset or not feeling well even if it's due to something unrelated to me.

also worth mentioning. that i feel guilty for failing to maintain a paying job. not contributing to society. feel guilty for not flushing the toilet. feel guilty for not sorting the recyclables. feel guilty for not saying "hi", "how are you?" and other meaningless statements. feel guilty for not enlisting in the military.

I feel a lot of pain and remorse for what our race collectively has carried out at various points, or whenever I come across individual pieces of unsavory business. I always reach the rocky cliff edge where I see that no matter how strongly I'm torn, I can't put anything right except conduct myself as well as I can following my moral compass and being thoughtful toward my fellow humans, so I tend to feel very apologetic and sorrowful toward victims of what humans have done to others. I go out of my way to make amends if I hurt someone else, and to give ground in my understanding of those who hurt me but try to take back some of it.

Yes.

Sometimes I've been guilty for not doing anything wrong. Guilty of things I didn't do. And more so guilty of not doing a thing. I'm guilty of doing the right and good things.
If I feel guilty for doing a good deed, let alone a misdeed especially when it's nature is malicious or cruel.
The safest way I had is apathy. Something that is subjectively neutral with no other party involved other than myself.


... I HATE it. It held me back all too much. It made me indecisive than what anxiety could've done. I wish I don't feel guilt and I wish I find a way to.
I could afford remorse, pity, sympathy. Because it's reasonable enough... But not guilt itself -- because mine is very unreasonable.

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On rare occasions I'll have dreams like that, and yes, I will feel bad about things I did wrong in dreams. It will take me several hours to get over it. I will also feel guilty for something I didn't do in reality if I know someone is blaming me for it anyway. For example, when I was a kid, we had a blanket on the back of a couch that had fringe on it. One day my mom realized that the fringe had been severely tangled. I had recently learned how to tie knots (later than most kids, I don't remember what age specifically), and I was very proud of my new skill, so naturally, the blame fell on me. I hadn't touched the blanket, but still my mom was very upset with me. I felt horrible every time I saw her working to untangle the fringe (which took several frustrating evenings), because I knew she was mentally fixing all her frustration on me. Several years later, she apologized and told me she'd realized it was actually just the movement of people rubbing against the blanket that had tangled the fringe.

And on the other topic that has come up, I also communicate much better in writing than in person, probably because I have plenty of time to think about what I want to say and how to say it, and can look it over and fix my mistakes before sending it. I absolutely hate talking over the phone. I'm hard enough to understand in person, I don't stand a chance over the phone. And being asked to repeat myself just makes me more nervous, which makes it even harder for me to speak clearly

I have a great deal of empathy, but I have no idea how to show it appropriately. For example, I can feel someone else's sadness as if it was my own, but I won't have the slightest idea how to make them feel better, so I won't do anything for fear of messing up and making it worse. If I knew what to do, though, I'd do it in a heartbeat, even if it was at significant expense to myself. So from the outside, it probably looks like I don't have empathy.