It Is Permissible to Feel Good
On Guilt, Loyalty, and the Fear of Moving On with Life
Some people become uneasy when life begins to feel easier.
They may long for calm, closeness, and joy. Yet resistance arises when something good actually happens.
A pleasant day is followed by guilt.
A safe relationship awakens suspicion.
Laughter suddenly stops.
A holiday, falling in love, or a moment of bodily well-being may be met by an inner voice:
You should not feel this good.
In the conversations that formed the foundation of my doctoral dissertation, A Study of Shame, this duality appeared in different ways. People could long for a freer life while simultaneously feeling that freedom was forbidden. They carried not only the pain of what had happened. They also carried a loyalty to sorrow, to the family, to the child they had once been, and to a world in which something serious had never been fully acknowledged.
Then the good may feel like betrayal.
If I laugh, it means that what happened was not serious.
If I love, I have forgotten.
If my body experiences pleasure, perhaps I have accepted what happened.
If I move on, I abandon the child who was left behind.
In this way, life may become bound by an invisible law:
It is not permissible to feel good.
When Joy Awakens Guilt
We tend to think of joy as uncomplicated.
A person who has suffered deserves something good.
When life finally becomes easier, relief ought simply to be welcomed.
But feelings do not always follow this moral logic.
Joy may awaken guilt precisely because it creates distance from pain.
The person notices that she did not think about the abuse for several hours.
She laughed sincerely.
She was absorbed in work, a conversation, or a meal.
Then the thought comes:
How could I forget?
It is as though suffering demands constant attention in order to retain its truth.
If I feel good, perhaps what happened no longer counts.
Sorrow then becomes a form of testimony.
I still suffer; therefore, it was real.
Letting go of the pain may then feel like weakening the evidence.
Pain as Loyalty
Suffering may become connected to loyalty.
To the child one once was.
To others who were subjected to abuse.
To a parent who had also lived a difficult life.
To siblings who still struggle.
To people who never received help.
The person may think:
How can I be happy when she is still suffering?
How can I move forward when the family remains divided?
How can I live well when others endured something worse?
Joy then becomes more than personal.
It is entered into a moral account.
One person has received something the other lacks.
One becomes freer while the other remains trapped.
It may feel like leaving the community of those who suffer.
Sorrow keeps the person close.
Joy creates distance.
Abandoning the Child One Once Was
The adult may feel deep care for the child she once was.
She may look back and think:
No one protected her.
No one came to take her away.
No one saw how frightened she was.
Later, when life becomes safer, a strange unease may arise.
The adult enters a warm room while the child still stands in the cold.
She experiences intimacy while the child remains alone.
She sleeps safely while the child still wakes in fear.
Of course, these are not two different people.
But the experience may feel that way.
Living well in the present can feel like turning one’s back on the person one once was.
The person may then hold on to some of the pain in order to prove:
I have not forgotten you.
I am not abandoning you.
But perhaps the child does not need the adult to continue suffering.
Perhaps the child needs her to live in a way the child was never given the opportunity to live.
When Healing Feels Like Betrayal
We often describe healing as an unambiguous good.
But healing may threaten established loyalties and identities.
If I am no longer governed by shame, who am I then?
If I no longer need the same help, what happens to my relationship with the helper?
If I set boundaries, am I betraying the family?
If I stop carrying the responsibility, who will carry it?
The painful may be difficult to live with.
But it is familiar.
It has a place in the self-image and in relationships.
Change makes life more open, but also more uncertain.
It is therefore not always illness, shame, or sorrow alone that keeps a person trapped.
There may also be fear of what freedom will change.
The Family’s Invisible Law
In some families, there are rules that are never spoken aloud.
We do not talk about this.
We protect the family.
We do not show anger.
We manage on our own.
We do not make our parents unhappy.
We stay together.
The child learns to read these laws long before being able to formulate them.
When the adult later seeks help, tells, or sets boundaries, she may feel that she is breaking something sacred.
Even when the family is no longer present, the law may continue to live within her.
You must not do well if doing so makes others visible as responsible.
You must not become freer than your mother.
You must not thrive if that means acknowledging how painful life at home was.
A good life may reveal the old life.
And that revelation may feel more dangerous than suffering.
When Relief Feels Like Ingratitude
Some people have been met with messages such as:
You had a good childhood.
We did the best we could.
You had everything you needed.
Others had it worse.
Acknowledging pain may then feel like ingratitude.
But getting better may also awaken guilt.
Help from outside can make clear that something was indeed missing at home.
A safe helper shows what protection could have looked like.
A respectful partner shows that boundaries can be heard.
A warm community shows that closeness need not cost self-erasure.
The good in the present casts light backwards.
It reveals the difference.
The person may therefore both long for care and feel that she is betraying those who did not provide it.
“I Have No Right to Complain”
Comparison can make one’s own pain impermissible.
Others had it worse.
I survived.
I have work, a family, and a home.
Why should I find life difficult?
The same comparison can also make joy impermissible.
Others suffer more.
How can I enjoy this?
The person becomes trapped between two prohibitions.
She has no right to grieve because others had it worse.
She has no right to rejoice because others are still suffering.
Then no feeling is legitimate.
Sorrow is selfish.
Joy is selfish.
The person must continually measure her own life against the lives of others.
But suffering and joy are not limited resources.
My joy does not take joy away from others.
My sorrow is not false because someone else has known greater pain.
A person can acknowledge the suffering of others without making her own life impermissible.
When the Body Becomes Suspicious as Soon as It Feels Good
After sexual abuse, bodily well-being may be particularly complicated.
Relaxation may feel dangerous.
Pleasure may awaken shame.
A pleasant touch may be followed by disgust or self-accusation.
The body responded positively.
Does that say something about what happened?
Does the body’s capacity for pleasure mean that it participated?
Here the distinction must be clear:
The body’s capacity for well-being today says nothing that excuses earlier violations.
Pleasure is not consent given retrospectively.
It does not rewrite history.
The fact that the body can experience something good does not make what was wrong any less wrong.
It means that the body has not been completely conquered by the violation.
When Joy Is Followed by Punishment
Some people notice that they destroy good moments.
After a close conversation, they begin a conflict.
After a successful day, they criticise themselves.
When the relationship becomes safer, they withdraw.
When they feel joy, they do something that restores the old unease.
This may seem incomprehensible.
Why does she ruin things for herself?
But self-punishment may have an inner logic.
The good creates unease.
The unease diminishes when familiar pain returns.
The conflict confirms:
No one remains.
Self-criticism confirms:
I do not deserve this.
Withdrawal protects against the vulnerability of having something to lose.
The painful may feel safer than the good because it is familiar.
The Fear of Loss
Feeling good also means acquiring something that can be lost.
A person who expects nothing cannot be disappointed in the same way.
A person who lets no one come close also avoids the fear that they will leave.
Joy opens the person.
It makes life larger.
But in doing so, it also makes loss possible.
The person may think:
This will not last.
Soon they will discover who I am.
Something will destroy it.
I must not become too happy.
By holding joy back, one may hope to reduce the pain when it disappears.
But the price is that the loss begins before anything has actually been lost.
Anticipatory Sorrow
Some people experience sorrow in advance.
They imagine everything that could go wrong.
The partner may die.
The children may be harmed.
Health may fail.
Work may disappear.
The good day becomes filled with future catastrophes.
This may provide a sense of control.
If I have already imagined the loss, I will not be surprised.
If I do not permit myself full joy, the fall will be smaller.
But anticipatory sorrow does not necessarily protect against later pain.
It merely causes the person to suffer several times:
before anything has happened,
while it may never happen,
and again if it actually does.
Feeling good therefore requires a particular kind of courage.
Not the belief that nothing painful will happen.
But the willingness to be present within the good without a guarantee.
When Others Cannot Tolerate the Person’s Change
A person does not live alone with her shame.
She belongs to relationships that have adapted to particular roles.
One person is the strong one.
The other is ill.
One helps.
The other needs help.
One remains silent.
The other decides what the family may discuss.
When the person becomes freer, the entire pattern may be disturbed.
She says no.
She demands respect.
She tells.
She no longer needs the same protection.
Others may react:
You have changed.
You have become selfish.
You think you are better than us.
The help has made you difficult.
The old life may then appear to be the price of belonging.
If I want to belong, I must continue being the person I was.
The Person Who Becomes Healthier May Become Lonely
Change may create distance from communities built around shared pain.
In a group, people may find powerful recognition.
They understand one another’s reactions.
They do not have to explain everything.
But when one participant feels better, she may experience guilt.
Have I abandoned the others?
Do I still belong?
Can I speak about joy without hurting them?
This does not mean that the community is unhealthy.
It means that identity and belonging must also be able to contain change.
A good community does not say:
You must remain wounded in order to be one of us.
It says:
We know your history.
And we can bear your life becoming larger than it.
When Suffering Provides Identity
Shame and pain may be unwanted.
Even so, they may provide a form of identity.
I am the person who was abused.
The survivor.
The person who works with shame.
The person who helps others because I know from experience.
This identity may provide meaning, language, and community.
But it may also become constricting.
What happens if the experience no longer fills so much of life?
Am I still credible?
Do I still have the right to speak?
Will others think it could not have been so serious because I am doing well now?
The person may feel that she must preserve some of the pain in order to preserve the truth about herself.
But history does not disappear because life changes.
What happened was real, even on a good day.
The Right to a Life Without Constant Proof
A person who has been subjected to abuse may feel that she must document its seriousness through continued suffering.
If she functions well, others may say:
You turned out all right.
You do not seem traumatised.
Perhaps you are exaggerating.
Recovery is then used against her credibility.
The person may feel trapped:
If I struggle, I am seen as damaged.
If I feel good, I am not believed.
But a person’s functioning today does not determine what happened then.
A good life is not retrospective evidence that the violation was minor.
It is an expression of the fact that a person is more than what was done to her.
When Sorrow Becomes a Moral Duty
Some people feel that they must grieve in a particular way.
Long enough.
Deeply enough.
Visibly enough.
Otherwise, they may appear cold or unaffected.
But grief has no correct duration or form.
It may come in waves.
Disappear for long periods.
Return through a smell, a date, or a bodily response.
A person may laugh on the same day that she grieves.
She may feel relief and longing at the same time.
She may feel good without having completed her grief.
Joy and sorrow are not always opposites.
They may live within the same person.
Carrying the Dead Without Dying with Them
Some people carry grief for those who are no longer alive.
Perhaps someone who was not protected.
A sibling.
A friend.
A child who did not survive in the same way.
Then one’s own life may feel unjust.
Why was I allowed to continue?
Why should I experience joy?
The person who died may become an inner witness towards whom the survivor feels responsible.
But remembering someone does not require that one stops living.
The dead may be carried in love, language, actions, and memory.
One does not need to die a little each day to prove that they mattered.
A good life may also be a way of carrying them.
Not as compensation.
Not as explanation.
But as a continuation they themselves were not given.
The Survivor’s Guilt for the Consequences
When the truth emerges, the consequences may be great.
The family divides.
Relationships end.
A person is reported.
Some become angry.
Some lose their old image of the family.
The person who told may feel guilty:
Everything was calmer before I said anything.
I destroyed the family.
But silence was not the same as peace.
It merely concealed the conflict and placed the cost upon the person who had been abused.
The telling did not create the violation.
The violation made the telling necessary.
Even so, guilt may be powerful.
The person may feel she has no right to joy after causing distress to others.
She punishes herself for the consequences of the truth becoming visible.
Giving Responsibility Its Proper Address
A central task in working with shame is to give responsibility a more precise address.
The child was not responsible for the adult’s actions.
The survivor was not responsible for the fact that the family built its peace upon silence.
The adult is responsible for how she acts now, but not for protecting others from the truth about what they did.
This does not mean that every choice is simple.
Telling, reporting, breaking contact, and confrontation may have difficult consequences.
But guilt and responsibility must not once again be placed upon the person who already carried too much.
Perhaps the right to feel good begins when responsibility is moved away from the person who was harmed.
“I Do Not Deserve It”
This is one of shame’s most fundamental sentences.
I do not deserve love.
Rest.
Pleasure.
To be prioritised.
The good must be earned through achievement.
The person works hard.
Helps others.
Shows up.
Makes herself useful.
Only then may she perhaps allow herself a little rest.
But rest is still accompanied by guilt.
It feels stolen.
The question is whether human worth can depend upon merit.
Children need care before they have achieved anything.
People need rest because they are alive, not because every task has been completed.
Love given only to the flawless is not love.
The right to the good must not depend upon the person first proving her worth.
Learning to Bear a Good Day
Perhaps joy must be practised in small doses.
Not as forced positivity.
But as the ability to allow a good experience to be good without immediately examining what is wrong with it.
This meal tastes good.
The sun is warm.
I like this music.
It was good to be with her.
I do not need immediately to ask whether I deserve it.
I do not need to turn the moment into proof that life has been healed.
It can simply be a good moment.
Bearing a good day does not mean promising that tomorrow will be the same.
It means allowing this day to be true while it lasts.
Joy as a Bodily Experience
A person who has lived in a state of vigilance for a long time may struggle to experience joy as more than a thought.
She knows that something is pleasant, but the body remains tense.
She laughs, but breathing remains shallow.
She rests, but the muscles continue to wait.
Joy may therefore need time to become bodily.
The warmth of the sun.
A bath.
A slow walk.
Music.
A hand that holds without demanding.
Food enjoyed without shame.
Sleep uninterrupted by watchfulness.
These are not luxuries.
They are experiences through which the body learns that well-being is not always followed by danger.
When Help Becomes Too Focused on Pain
Helpers may also contribute to making the good invisible.
Conversations continually concern problems.
Symptoms.
History.
Setbacks.
Risk.
The helper asks how the past week has been and immediately directs attention towards what was difficult.
But the person may also have experienced something good.
An evening without unease.
A conversation with a child.
A day in the garden.
Laughter that came by itself.
This should not be used to minimise pain.
But neither should it be overlooked.
The good helper may ask:
Was there anything that felt good this week?
What happened then?
Were you able to remain in it for a little while?
What made it possible?
In this way, joy is also given a place in the story of life.
The Danger of the Demand to Be Positive
The right to joy must not become a new command.
Now you must look forward.
You must focus on the good.
Do not let the past win.
Such statements may make sorrow impermissible.
The person may feel that she disappoints the helper when she is still in pain.
Then we return to the same logic:
There is a correct feeling you ought to have.
But freedom does not mean having to be happy.
It means having room for several experiences.
I may grieve today.
I may laugh tomorrow.
I may feel relieved and angry at the same time.
I may have a good evening without life therefore being good in every respect.
Joy becomes free only when it is not demanded.
Giving the Good a Place Without Making It a Solution
A good moment does not necessarily heal a wound.
A holiday does not remove shame.
A safe partner does not eliminate every bodily response.
Work one enjoys does not resolve the past.
But the good does not have to solve everything in order to have value.
It can be part of life beside what is painful.
We tend to ask:
Did it help?
Did you get better?
But perhaps it is also enough to ask:
Was it good?
Were you able to be there?
Some things must be allowed to exist without being turned into treatment.
Joy Needs a Witness
Just as sorrow may need a witness, joy may need one too.
A person may have learned to hide the good because it awakens envy, criticism, or danger.
Do not become too happy.
Do not think you are something special.
Something will surely go wrong.
It may then be meaningful to meet someone who can bear the joy.
Someone who does not pull it down.
Who does not immediately remind the person of everything that is still difficult.
Who does not turn it into an achievement.
Who simply says:
I am glad that you had a good time.
The other person allows the moment to stand.
In this way, joy may become more real.
When the Good Awakens Sorrow for What Was Missing
Safety in the present may open grief for the past.
A partner respects a no.
The person suddenly feels how many times her no was not respected.
A helper remains.
Then the absence of earlier protection becomes visible.
A good meal around a safe table may awaken sorrow for the home that was not safe.
This does not mean that the good causes harm.
It means that the contrast becomes visible.
Joy and sorrow arrive together.
I am grateful for what I have.
And I see more clearly what I never received.
Both experiences may be true.
Grieving Without Surrendering Joy
When sorrow comes in the midst of something good, the person may fear that the moment has been ruined.
Now I have started crying again.
I can never simply be happy.
But tears do not have to erase joy.
They may be part of it.
I cry because this is good, and because it was once not like this.
I cry because I have received something I long believed impossible.
I grieve for the child while sitting safely in the room as an adult.
The sorrow does not necessarily show that joy has failed.
It may show that something has become meaningful.
Living Well Is Not Approving the Past
This distinction must be repeated.
Moving on does not mean accepting what happened.
Feeling joy does not mean forgiving.
Experiencing bodily well-being does not rewrite the violation.
Building a good life is not a reward for the person who caused harm.
On the contrary, it may be a refusal of the violation’s demand to own the entire future.
What happened may remain serious.
But it does not have the sole right to determine every day that follows.
The Moral Right to Joy
Can joy be a right?
Not as a demand that life provide happiness.
No one can guarantee a life without loss.
But perhaps as a moral permission:
I am allowed to receive what is good when it is present.
I do not need to reject love in order to prove that I was harmed.
I do not need to remain unhappy in order to demonstrate loyalty.
I do not need to punish my body for what others did.
I may remember and live.
Grieve and laugh.
Carry the history and still enter something new.
A Sentence for the Child Who Is Still Waiting
Perhaps the child within the adult needs to hear:
I have not forgotten you.
I know that you were alone.
I know that you did not receive the protection you needed.
But I will not prove my love for you by continuing to suffer.
I will bring you with me into what is good.
You may sit at this table.
Feel the warmth.
Hear the laughter.
You do not need to remain in the old room for your story to be true.
A Sentence for the Person Who Feels Guilty When Life Is Good
Perhaps the adult needs to hear:
The good does not take the truth away from you.
Joy does not make the violation less serious.
You abandon no one by living.
You do not owe the past every future day.
You may feel good without betraying the person you once were.
You may be happy without promising that sorrow will never return.
This moment is allowed to belong to you.
When Joy Must Be Learned Again
For some people, the right to joy does not arrive as a great insight.
It is learned through small repetitions.
I rested, and the world did not end.
I laughed, and no one punished me.
I said that I was happy, and the other person was pleased for me.
I enjoyed the touch, and my boundary was still respected.
I went on a trip without explaining why I deserved it.
I bought something I liked.
I ate when I was hungry.
I slept when I was tired.
In this way, the good may gradually lose the character of theft.
It becomes part of an ordinary human life.
From Guilty Joy to a Permitted Life
At first, joy may need to be defended.
I am allowed.
I am doing nothing wrong.
Later, perhaps it becomes less self-conscious.
The person no longer needs to examine every good moment morally.
She laughs before she has time to stop herself.
Becomes absorbed in something interesting.
Loses track of time.
Experiences a calm that does not immediately need to be explained.
This is not forgetting.
It is participation.
The history remains.
But it no longer stands at the door of every room demanding entry.
When the Good No Longer Has to Be Repaid
People who have learned that care carries a price may feel compelled to repay it immediately.
Someone helps me, so I must make myself useful.
Someone loves me, so I must be easy to live with.
Someone gives me a gift, so I owe them something.
Then joy also becomes work.
Receiving without immediate repayment may be difficult.
But a freely given gift does not create debt.
Love is not an account in which every good moment must be repaid through obedience.
The person may slowly discover:
I can receive this without surrendering myself.
Joy as Resistance
There is a form of joy that is not frivolous.
It knows the seriousness.
It knows that the world can be brutal.
Even so, it opens the window.
Puts on music.
Cultivates something in the soil.
Prepares food.
Invites another person in.
This joy does not deny suffering.
It simply refuses to grant suffering exclusive rights over life.
In this way, the good may become a quiet resistance.
Not a heroic victory.
But a daily act:
This was done to me.
Even so, not everything that happens within me will be determined by it.
From Survival to Life
Survival is first about getting through.
Enduring.
Protecting oneself.
Reducing danger.
This work may be necessary for a long time.
But a person cannot live an entire life only in relation to what threatens.
At some point, other questions arise:
What do I like?
Whom do I want to be with?
What awakens my curiosity?
What gives me rest?
What do I want to create?
At first, such questions may feel foreign or self-centred.
But they are signs that life is no longer organised only around harm.
The person begins to orient herself towards something, not merely away from something.
A Life That Does Not Need to Be Justified
Perhaps the deepest change is not that the person feels more joy.
It is that she stops putting joy on trial.
She does not need to provide evidence for why she deserves a peaceful day.
She does not need to explain who has suffered more.
She does not need to promise that she will never forget.
The good is allowed to exist without a defence speech.
This is not self-centredness.
It is a restoration of the person’s place within her own life.
It Is Permissible to Feel Good
The old law says:
You must not be happy.
Not after what happened.
Not while others suffer.
Not when the family is divided.
Not while you are still not whole.
But life follows no such fair distribution.
Joy does not come only to those who are finished, innocent, or free from sorrow.
It may come in the midst of an unfinished life.
A person may experience joy and still carry shame.
She may love and still be afraid.
She may laugh and still grieve.
She may feel good without everything being good.
Perhaps this is precisely what must be learned:
The good does not have to wait until the whole story has been resolved.
It may come now.
In a cup.
A gaze.
A hand.
A day without unease.
A conversation in which one forgets oneself for a while.
Then the person does not need immediately to withdraw.
She may remain.
Breathe.
Receive.
Not as a denial of what was.
But as an acknowledgement that the past does not own the entire future.
It is permissible to feel good.
Not because what happened was less serious.
But because it was serious—and because the person should not be condemned to continue the punishment for something for which she was never responsible.
It is permissible to feel good.
Not because what happened was less serious.
But because it was serious
—and because the person should not be condemned to continue the punishment
for something for which she was never responsible.
This essay was developed through a new reading of the focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews that formed the foundation of my doctoral dissertation, A Study of Shame (2009). The text is part of the series Conversations About Shame and was written in conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT.
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