The Guilt Death Spiral

The effects of sin are far more profound than we typically speak of. I was meditating over the concept of repentance when I came to understand far more completely the full depths of the consequences of sin. It is far more profound, dangerous, and vital to understand than the simple causality of sin = repentance or hell. It is far deeper even than the consequences listed in the talks and lessons we receive in church each week.

When we sin, not only is there a literal consequence attached to it, but there is a sociological consequence as well. The literal consequence is a result of justice. Many times the consequence is immediate and natural. Sometimes the consequence, when the culprit is caught, is a punishment enforced by a justice system. Other times the consequence is postponed until final judgment and hell fire. But we believe that regardless of when the consequences are suffered, they are unavoidably suffered until justice is satisfied.

But these consequences are only a part of the effects of sin. And, having failed to learn and understand the other parts, we have put ourselves in grave danger of underestimating the power of sin, and thus we fall prey to it far easier than we ought.

It’s a concept that I call the guilt death spiral. Guilt is an interesting effect of sin. Why we feel it is somewhat of a mystery. Do we have a natural and inherent yearning to be right with God? Is it something God created in us to encourage righteous living? We’ve never even really learned what it is. I think D&C 19:20 gives us some insight into this. “Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit.” I think it’s guilt that they tasted. It’s some kind of spiritual punishment, accompanied or caused by the withdrawal of the Spirit.

Regardless of what, specifically, it is, guilt is a natural byproduct of sin. All feel it when they do something immoral, whether they believe it to be immoral in their mind or not. This is due to their inherent spiritual understanding of what is right and wrong, the Light of Christ, their conscience. This spiritual suffering throws us into a downward spiral. Our guilt racks us, causing a real, but spiritual, pain, a pain that can be incredibly severe relative to the severity of the sin (“how hard to bear ye know not”). It is a wound that will continue to bleed if not tended to. This pain causes feelings of animosity and hatred towards ourselves. It is a strange idea to hate one’s self, but it is you who caused the pain, and thus you who deserves the blame.

When we find ourselves with guilt-induced pain, we confront a decision.

We may choose to let the wound bleed. A surprisingly many either choose this path or are forced onto this path (as I will describe below). They feel that the pain is deserved and justified. They feel that, in order to satisfy justice, they must suffer the pain. This is not untrue, which make the practice commendable, though pitiful. Many have come to try to explain this depression in chemical and scientific terms, but a vast majority of these cases are incurred by the guilt of sin. Sadly, many sins hold such a harsh spiritual consequence as to seemingly exceed the capacity of most men and women to suffer. Thus, as they permit themselves to suffer it, they find themselves in such torment as to wish to end it by whatever means possible. Some turn to drugs, others to other distractions, but these only last for a moment. Several turn to death as an escape, a cheap and easy exit, as they well know, but an exit nonetheless. I could never understand suicidal feelings until recently. It made no sense for someone to have such little value of their life as to choose to forfeit it just to escape a guilty conscience. I now understand that I thought that way because I had never suffered the extreme guilt that other have. It is an unfortunate choice, because this suffering, as we know, will not end with death, and suicide accomplishes nothing except rid one’s self of their chance to escape it while in mortality. But, considering most of these do not understand post-mortality, it is an understandable choice.

We may choose to numb the pain by justification. This does not heal the wound, and allows it to bleed, but we can stop the pain. This is easily the most popular choice. We feel that what we did is wrong in our spirit, but we convince our mind that our spirit is wrong. We do this by pointing to others who are seemingly happy while committing the same error. We try to find logical reasoning for why our sin is justified. We convince ourselves that the sin is less severe than it feels. Thus we numb the pain and do not have to endure it. But part of the justification is proving to yourself that the sin is not so bad. So you do it again. At this point, either the guilt becomes so great that it cannot be ignored, or you successfully convince your mind and accustom your spirit to the sin. At this point, the past-feeling point, the sin becomes routine. If and when this happens, you find yourself in a dangerous situation where your conscience is numbed and other sins now seem less dangerous. This is where the spiral comes in. We might start by justifying small mistakes. But when we pass feeling those sins, we begin to fall easily to other sins. At those, the same process applies, and we must justify or suffer. Accustomed to and high on justification, we find ourselves trapped in this spiral that pulls us to greater and greater guilt. If we are unable to break from the spiral, we end up in a situation where we become racked by a guilt too great to justify. At this point, depression sets in, as described above. If this break-out point is too low, the depression will be too severe and again may lead to extreme self-hatred and suicidal desires. If there is no break-out point, there can be no light in that person, and they are left to the darkness.

The only way to break out of the guilt death spiral early is to choose to repent. This is often difficult to choose because we must immediately accept the consequences of our sin, suffer, fix and forsake it. These consequences are much less desirable than the prospect of skipping them by justification. But by suffering through the punishment of our admitted error, we put ourselves in a position where our guilt may be erased by the Atonement. The spiritual consequences of our sin was already suffered by Christ, thus the torment is not set on our spirit. How this works is a mystery to me still, but it is a miracle regardless of our understanding of it. Thus we may, as Alma, have our guilt taken, our torment stopped, and our spirit truly healed, and thus break out of the guilt death spiral and return to life and happiness.

May we get off the spiral path toward, not just spiritual death, but a torment so great that it may ultimately cause us to choose physical death. May we step up, face the guilt and consequences, and repent, and thus save ourselves from the pain at the end of the spiral. And let us praise Christ for the chance.