The thing about guilt is that most of us continue to use it long after its value expires. There's no automatic alarm bell that goes off when we become able to fend for ourselves that alerts us: “Now is the time to stop mirroring the emotional dysfunctions of your family; continuing to make yourself feel bad for your ‘sins’ will no longer garner the sympathy of your caretakers, it will only drain you of energy and eventually sap you of the will to live.” And even if there was such an alarm, how could it possibly interrupt such an ingrained habit?
