The Dobby Effect: Do You Feel Guilty About Everything?
If you are familiar with the world of Harry Potter , the name Dobby is probably familiar to you. Dobby is a house elf who often self-injures himself when he doesn’t meet his masters’ expectations (or believes he can’t). This, despite an attempt at a comedic scene, horrifies those around him. After all, who would want to harm themselves? Nonetheless, it is a reality that many people experience. This is why it became popular as the Dobby effect.
The Dobby effect is directly related to the form that the endearing elf treats itself. Feeling guilty about doing something that goes against our values or that we call “wrong” is, to some extent, normal. The problem arises when we constantly punish ourselves because we feel guilty about everything. It is then a much bigger problem. We are excessively responsible.
Excess guilt
In the society we live in, there are many reasons for feeling guilty for no real reason. Often times, guilt arises because we have not met the expectations of others or what society expects of us. Here are some examples that will help us better understand:
- Being a bad mother: Many women suffer from what is known as postpartum depression. It makes them guilty. Indeed, being a mother should correspond to “absolute happiness”. Thus, in the -many- cases where this expectation is not met, guilt may appear.
- Deserve the blows of his partner: Abused people often justify the physical violence of their partner because of actions or attitudes they would have had. They are thus not able to abandon them because they are the ones who are guilty.
There are more situations in which a person can relate to the Dobby effect. The woman going through postpartum depression feeds her by feeling guilty. The mistreated person does the same by justifying the violence he suffers. In fact, it is a kind of indirect self-flagellation. She’s not the one hurting herself, but she allows someone else to do it for her.
Responsibility in the Dobby Effect
Guilt doesn’t have to be harmful. Nevertheless, it is when it becomes the motor of a punishment without any type of finality beyond that of experiencing suffering. A guilt that becomes perverse when it ends our assertiveness, by allowing others to harm us. This is exactly what Dobby was going through.
This responsibility that we carry on our shoulders sometimes begins in our childhood. Perhaps our parents were pouring out all their frustrations on us. They might tell us over and over again that we don’t deserve this or that. It all stuck in our minds. As we grow, we learn to anticipate that “It’s your fault” or “You did it wrong”. We take it upon ourselves to castigate ourselves.
Despite everything, we can get rid of this Dobby effect. The best way is to do work that allows us to improve our self-esteem. Once we have successfully improved this concept of ourselves, we can begin to be more flexible with our mistakes. But, above all, we will stop exaggerating our responsibility.
If you feel that you are trapped in some kind of cave and the guilt echoes, if you have identified yourself with the Dobby effect, do not hesitate and seek professional help.
Your internal dialogue will improve as well as the way you treat yourself, protecting you against phenomena as dangerous as the emotional dependence of people who are ready to satisfy their interests with our most vulnerable side.
Our thoughts When you have a good relationship with your body, you can easily detect the factors that affect your body’s balance.
