Hi Beetlegirl! I just saw this post as I was perusing thru the old ones looking for some posts that seem to have been removed, and I saw the title "responsible for all the sad things" and since that's always how I feel I clicked on it and lo and behold you wrote it with me in mind! I also have never met or heard of anyone with this issue, but I'm so glad you posted this so we know at least there's the two of us! I am EXACTLY the same way about guilt as well, when I start to feel overwhelmed by the feelings of responsiblility or obligation for every suffering being in the world, I too try to move on or let go, and then feel terribly guilty for doing so. I try to spend a good portion of my time in volunteer and community service, and we donate a decent amount of money to charity, but it's never enough. If I'm at the waterpark with my little toddler, and I find myself smiling and feeling happy about how much fun he's having and how adorable he is and how lucky we are, the very next thoughts involve images of starving children and poverty and disease. I wish that doing volunteer work to help alleviate some small portion of the sadness in the world would help rid me of this overwhelming sense of responsibility, but so far it has had no effect in that regard. I agree that it is connected to the anxiety and panic, and I also have not figured out exactly how. I think it may go way back to childhood for me - my mom was very socially responsible and drilled those ideas into me from a very young age - I think the problem may be with the "drilled" part - the constant lectures and diatribes with lots of details about the horrible terrible things in the world and how it was our job to fix them. It was well intentioned but I think it made me suffer a lot of guilt and a sense of responsibility that was far too great for me at a very young age. Before this anxiety disorder took over, I was doing the same thing with my step-son who is now 12. I felt it was my job to educate him about how awful things are for so many people around the world, and to make sure he grew up to be someone who would care about these problems and work to fix them. Now I recognize this is unfair and unhealthy for children - so I have tried to stop the lectures and the guilt - instead we involv

Hi all, this is a message that I especially hope Caitlin will see - Caitlin, I saw a recent post of yours that mentioned how you feel responsible and guilty for everything 'from the dog run over on the highway to the starving kids in Ethiopa' - I have never heard of anyone with this problem - but I have it too! Sometimes it feels like these sad stories and their subjects get inside my head and I feel a unique connection to the victim and then I feel responsible and guilty, yet helpless. If I try to move on in my thoughts and allow some happiness and balance to return, then I feel even MORE guilty, as if I am abandoning them, like everyone else in the world has. It's hard to explain but I hope you understand where I am coming from. I think there is a link from this to my anxiety problem, although not directly. I think guilt and helplessness have something to do with it. Does anyone identify or am I just very strange???? :confuse: