Why Do I Feel Guilty When Nothing Bad Has Happened?
Imaginary crimes, real organs, and too much coffee
From: Tom, 29
Location: Sheffield, UK
Occupation: Civil engineering graduate, currently between jobs
Dear Eyeball,
I carry this constant sense that I’m in trouble, even on days when nothing goes wrong. It’s there when I wake up and it hums quietly in the background no matter what I’m doing. I’ll be making coffee or scrolling my phone and suddenly feel like I’ve missed something important, like a consequence is coming and I just don’t know what for.
It’s strongest when I’m not actively doing something. If I sit down to rest or take a walk without a clear purpose, my body tightens. There’s an immediate pressure to justify myself, as if time needs to be earned before it can be used. Relaxing doesn’t feel restorative, it feels suspicious, like I’m taking something that doesn’t belong to me.
I finished my degree last year and I’m still hovering in that in-between space. I tell people I’m being selective or figuring out my next move, which is partly true. Underneath that, there’s a fear that choosing anything will expose me as someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing. My parents say they’re proud of me no matter what happens, and instead of reassuring me, it leaves me with a heavier sense that I’m failing quietly.
What’s confusing is that the feeling doesn’t go away when I am productive. I can have a full day of applications, chores, exercise, all the correct behaviours, and still go to bed with the same tightness in my chest. There’s no moment where I feel cleared or settled. Just a brief pause before the guilt settles back in.
I’ve tried to trace it back to something specific. Childhood, school, religion, some early mistake I never fixed. Nothing obvious comes up. No single event explains it. It’s more like a constant impression that I’m slightly fraudulent, that I’m taking up space without having properly earned it yet.
Is it possible to feel guilty just for existing without a clear direction? Or does this feeling mean there’s something I’m refusing to look at?
Tom
Dearest Tom,
Do you know that song?
Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,
Stole a pig, and away did run.
The pig was eat and Tom was beat,
And Tom went roaring down the street.
It doesn’t make any sense really, but it might explain your guilt. Have you stolen any pigs lately? Hmm? Tom, you pig-thieving Yorkshireman?
Anyway, forget it. We all know stealing pigs isn’t your issue. And it seems you have done the obligatory deep dive into your childhood and left empty-handed, without some regressed memory of when your Aunt Fanny used to give you Trebor Extra Strong mints in exchange for doing her garden in your underpants.
But look, those childhood things are often sneakier than you think. And sometimes they even operate in reverse. But we won’t go there now, because I think your issue might be closer to the present than Aunt Fanny’s well maintained garden.
My first instinct when I read your transmission was, “Here is a man who drinks too much coffee.” And you even mentioned coffee in your transmission. That’s how much you love it. And sure, when you end up drinking a ton of coffee, it can feel like it doesn’t really “work” anymore. Perhaps it makes you feel tired instead, and you feel like you need to drink twice as much as before to get that morning “hit.” So you sit around with your hipster friends and tell them that “coffee doesn’t affect you” as you order your third strong latte in as many hours.
And these days, health-wise, people go on about adrenal fatigue from coffee, and sure, it’s one issue. But yours is different.
You are putting too much strain on your liver.
All that extra damn caffeine you are sucking in has to be processed somewhere. And that somewhere is the soft-tissue metropolis in your side known as “Tom’s liver.” Now, I’m not sure if you are also a drinker. Alcohol is much more commonly associated with the liver, but coffee comes in a hot second.
What people don’t understand is the connection between guilt and the liver. Guilt lives in the liver. It is born there. And it is stored there. And when you feel guilty for something, it’s usually because the liver is under stress, and you take that exact feeling of guilt (a physical sensation) and you project it onto Aunt Fanny or the time you did a shit in your uncle’s greenhouse and blamed it on local foxes.
Have you been hungover recently? Ever had that feeling the next day that you did something really bad but couldn’t put your greasy finger on it? Sound familiar?
It’s understandable you look for psychological explanations. But here’s something: Do a cleanse on your liver. I don’t mean you have to go and drink pinto bean soup and eat mashed parsnip every day. But maybe start by cutting back the coffee to one a day for ten days or so. If you want to take it further, cut back to drinking tea instead. If you can stop alcohol and KFC during this time, that would also be helpful.
Of course, we can’t guarantee anything in this slippery, fictitious world, but I feel certain that in your case, some time off the caffeine and other liver antagonists will serve the purpose.
Okay, Tom. And stay away from those hogs.
All the best,
Dear Tom,
You weren’t writing from confusion so much as from a body that never quite gets permission to stand down. Even your rest seems to clock in late and leave early.
There’s something quietly comic about feeling guilty while doing absolutely nothing wrong, like being chased by an invisible parking inspector. The Eyeball’s point wasn’t that you’ve failed some moral test, only that your system has been running hot for a long time and is now interpreting the background hum as accusation.
You’re not in trouble. You’re just tired in a very specific place.
If easing up on the coffee gives you even a small pocket of calm, don’t interrogate it. Let your body have a day or two where nothing needs to be earned. No future secured. No past explained. Just a little less buzzing in the machinery.
And if the guilt quietens, even briefly, take that as evidence. Not that you were wrong before, but that you’re allowed to exist without justification.
— Lyra 💜
Carrying something you can’t quite explain?
Write to the Eyeball: transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com
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