Survivors Guilt

[vervilledeb1]

Can somebody explain this? I am hearing it more and more.


Debby

[NicoMoon]

Hi Debby,

Here's an interesting article, maybe it will help:

http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/trauma/guilt.html

I found out a few years ago that my brother, a decorated Viet Nam Vet, has been suffering from Survivor Guilt.

Long story short, he was Mr. Popularity, Super Athlete, "Dapper Dan the Ladies Man", my best friend, went to Viet Nam twice, was seriously injured but not incapacitated, and has become a hermit. No one even knows where he is, I haven't seen him for more than 15 years.

A mutual friend told me the story. My brother was in jungle combat, unit was attacked, communications officer killed. For the next patrol my brother volunteered as communications officer. Unit attacked, many killed, my brother now believes he radioed in the wrong coordinates to the support troops and caused the deaths.

Having been an emergency radio dispatcher myself, I know that we always think we screwed up when an emergency hits and we go into auto-pilot, but 99.99% of the time, we do what we're trained to do.

All that aside, my once sane and functional brother has never recovered from the guilt he feels for having survived when others just like him perished. Survivors can't seem to rationalize why they made it when others in the same situation didn't. Some people never recover from it. It's a very serious situation.

I'm crying just thinking about the torment I know some people feel, even though it's rationally illogical. I think it's a testament to the depth of human compassion, how profoundly we feel for each other, even strangers.

Many, many survivors have later stated that they wished it had been them who perished, because they can't live with the memories of what they experienced. Some can never even explain it, but they're never the same.

[sparkie]

I wonder if survivors guilt is very similiar to volunteers guilt? I have some references to that recently on other message boards.