Karma? do we deserve it?

PTSD and the resulting incredibly rough Anxiety have consumed my life. They have destroyed my confidence and self worth.

I keep finding myself in situations made difficult by past experiences. I have been told to challenge the automatic negative thoughts and resulting negative behaviours. My problem? I just don't feel deserving and worthy of doing so. I don't feel I deserve goodness. Likewise I keep asking myself what had I done to deserve the traumas, attacks upon me, and the barrage of negative situations that were a constant in my life.

I had a meeting with my Veterans' Affairs case manager yesterday and she - rather annoyingly flippantly - told me that karma will eventually lead the transgressors in my life to get what was coming to them. But I pointed that if karma existed then I would have had to do something to deserve my own punishment.

I’ve had this very same thought many times. When I was younger I spent a lot of time wondering what I did to deserve all the crap that happened. Now that I’m older I spend a lot of time feeling remorse for bad decisions I’ve made... I see where I have hurt people when I never meant to and I regret it. It’s this never ending cycle of... stuff I didn’t deserve that happened... and stuff I didn’t mean to do.... I totally get what you’re saying here and I wish I had a good answer.

I sometimes imagine it would be easier to be a pure victim. That way I could at least claim the moral high ground. As it is (or was I guess would be more accurate), while I started out being the victim, I then turned around & did different but even worse to other people who deserved infinitely better from me.

So I fully deserved everything I got. However I got my punishment first & then created my bad karma. It's sort-of like someone said: "You're going to be a really bad person in your life. So we're going front-load you with a bunch of crap so we make sure & get it in." Reverse karma? I haven't had any confidence or self-worth for many years now. But I have boatloads of anxiety. And it's getting worse as I age.

None of what you experienced is punishment and you must not decide that you ever deserved to be traumatized or that you are being punished. I know how easy it can be to start thinking that way and I also know it's not helpful for you and impedes the healing you need to experience and deserve to experience.

I have had a lot bad things happen to me and have experienced some very toxic individuals that left me hurt. Yet, the one thing I know is that part of my problem was because I simply don't think that twisted, it's just not the way my wheelhouse works so I was not prepared for these dysfunctional toxic mind games others played and most of the time it's due to their need for complete control too. Human beings can do some very nasty crappy things, it's just part of our life experience sometimes.

I don't think of karma as a zero sum game. It's far more complex and beyond my understanding. Who am I to think I understand life? Life is suffering and finding contentment in the midst of it........I tell myself that often, but it's a damn hard philosophy to hang on to.

I don't believe in karma. It seems like a very cruel philosophy and I don't need that belief in my life.
Bad things happen to good people and good people cause harm to others. That's just life and we will never know the reason why.

Karma is our hidden pain reflecting back at us.

I don't believe in karma. I believe that people who do their best to be positive and good toward others are more likely to live peacefully...they aren't carrying anger or bitterness around...which is better for health...they aren't engaging in harmful behaviors which may cause more harmful behaviors when people respond to them. People who do their best to harm others or willfully disregard others' feelings/boundaries are less likely to find peace. That's a different concept from karma. If you don't have peace, it may be helpful to ask: 'what would bring me peace?' (big or small) as opposed to 'why don't I have peace' etc

I grew up in a highly dysfunctional family with an abusive parent and another who wasn't much better. This caused me a great deal of suffering in childhood. I was a young child...I didn't choose my family...I didn't do anything to deserve two horrible parents. Who we are born to is a crapshoot. No karma there. That's just one example. There are times in life when I feel it is really important to say "I have no earthly idea why this happened to me, I may never know and I'm not going to spend too much time on the why...instead I'm going to focus on possible options for dealing with this."

That said, I am sorry you are struggling WishfulThinker. You deserve peace. I hope you find it in the future