Can guilt cause psychosis?

Guilt is a negative emotion that can cause a variety of emotions in people.  Like with most emotions, we all can have different responses to guilt.  Our reactions to guilt will intensify in severity as long as we are not processing through guilt.  If someone is not careful and not processing through their guilt, it can lead to different forms of psychosis in some people.  One form of psychosis that could happen for some people is paranoia.  If someone does not change themselves regarding whatever they feel guilty about, that could easily develop into paranoia.  When this happens, the person can be paranoid about what others think about them.  When someone suffers from this kind of paranoia, that can negatively impact their relationships.  For example, if someone is paranoid about what others think, they could isolate themselves because they could think no one likes them. 

Another type of psychosis that can happen for people not processing through their guilt is delusions.  Delusions have a way of exaggerating the reality, and in the case of not processing through with someone’s guilt, they can start to develop delusions that they are way worse than they actually are.  Guilt naturally happens after making a mistake, but if it is not processed through then, the person can develop some shame about themselves.  This is because they will feel like they have not actually changed and learned from their mistakes.  Shame can be so toxic to someone’s mental health and could lead to exaggerated delusions. 

These types of delusions and paranoia can be really difficult to deal with.  When dealing with those, someone will constantly deal with thoughts of people thinking poorly of them and/or that others think they will continue to mess up.  Those kinds of thoughts can monopolize someone’s mental health to the point that they cannot hold a stable job, stable relationships, stable friendships, among other things. On top of that, these types of psychosis can be coupled with severe depression, severe anxiety, among other severe mental health issues.  Therefore, processing one’s guilt is extremely important, and if they do not, it can have such a severe impact on their life.