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QuiversWhiskers
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06 Oct 2015, 5:25 am

I found this article while looking up guilt and depression because I have depression pretty badly and a lot of guilt, even for things that other people would say I have no fault in.

Notice in the article where it says that people who experience depression tend to have an incomplete understanding about whether or not wha they did was appropriate or inappropriate behavior. This is reminiscent of ToM and difficulty with understanding social expectations in ASD, is it not? Am I "grasping at straws" here?

Could this be part of the reason depression is so common in folks on the spectrum?

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2 ... epression/



justkillingtime
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08 Oct 2015, 11:15 am

That's really interesting. I was wondering if hyperfocus on what we feel we did wrong and on worrying is a factor. I know most people would say my guilt is inappropriate but I feel I am correct and they are wrong.


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QuiversWhiskers
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09 Oct 2015, 12:01 am

I also have the same or similar thing.

I also seem to have huge trouble with intentional vs. unintentional sin. I feel more condemned and guilty for unintentional things than for intentional because I think that I should have known better about something and should have done more research in advance in order to prevent something from happening. Say for instance, and this is an extreme example but illustrates the concept even though I haven't experienced this particular thing, if I fed someone something and they had a severe allergic reaction, I might feel responsible for their death or whatever because I should have known more about their health or body chemistry and should have had them tested for allergies before giving them the food. It's like I expect myself to have the knowledge and the awareness to prevent any and all negative eventualities and if I didn't have the knowledge I feel even more guilty because I should have known better. I assign guilt to myself for things in the past that I didn't know better about or didn't know at the time to the point of thinking I need to go back and correct those things and that that is the only redemption for said event or action. I have obsessive anxiety over what I should or should not have done and end up settling on the worst case scenario (that I did do something really horrible) just in case. I accept blame for things easily because of the hyper-responsibility that comes with OCD and because I have trouble assuming someone else had fault. I even feel responsible for other people's sin. My moral thinking is so rigid and so black and white that it is painful. From what I read, this is courtesy of OCD. No wonder depression is something I always seem to have to some degree.