Trauma · Core
Survivor Guilt Worksheet
Separate the grief from the verdict
Survivor guilt is loyalty in the wrong shape — the sense that living well is a betrayal of someone who did not. This page separates grief from verdict, and asks what the guilt is being used for.
The comparison being made
Who did not make it, in role terms (a friend, a colleague, a patient — no names)
The sentence the guilt says
How true that sentence feels (0-10)
nonemost
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What was actually in my control
What I knew, could see, and could reach at the time
What was decided by chance, position, orders or seconds
What I would say to someone else who had been standing where I was
What the guilt is doing
- Keeping a connection to them alive
- Making sure it is never treated as nothing
- Preventing me from being someone who moved on
- Punishing me so that no one else has to
Another way to keep faith with them that does not require my life staying small
One thing I will let myself have this month
Do not argue with the grief
The loss is real and does not need reframing. What can be examined is the verdict attached to it, and the assumption that a good life dishonours the dead.