The ancient myth that explains modern guilt
In ancient Greece, there was a prince named Orestes.
His father, Agamemnon, was murdered — not by an enemy, but by Orestes’ own mother, Clytemnestra.
And Orestes was faced with an impossible choice:
Let the crime go…
or kill the woman who gave him life.
He chose vengeance.
He killed his mother.
And the gods, instead of granting peace or praise, sent the Furies — spirits of guilt and torment — to follow him.
They did not care about his reasons.
Only that blood was repaid with blood.
Orestes became a symbol — not of justice, but of internal war.
Not because he made the wrong choice…
But because he made it alone.
Many of us live like Orestes.
We’re not killing anyone.
But we’re carrying pain that came from impossible decisions — moments where we had to pick between two things that mattered.
Telling the truth vs. keeping the peace.
Protecting someone vs. protecting ourselves.
Staying in the family vs. saving our sanity .
And when we choose, there’s no parade.
Only guilt.
Rumination.
A quiet torment that feels like Furies still whispering in our ears.
Psychologically, this is called moral injury — when your actions violate your own deepest values.
Not because you’re evil.
But because your options were impossible.
And here's what makes it worse:
Most people carry that injury in silence.
They overthink.
They numb.
They obsess over making perfect choices in the future —
because the weight of one past decision was too heavy to bear alone.
That’s where addiction to control begins.
To certainty. To approval. To checking, editing, managing everything so it never happens again.
But here’s the truth:
Healing doesn’t come from having chosen differently.
It comes from not being alone with your truth anymore.
Even Orestes was finally freed — not by fixing the past, but by standing in public and telling his story.
In the final part of the myth, he’s put on trial.
And the goddess Athena does something radical:
She listens.
She acknowledges the complexity.
And she ends the cycle of punishment..
That is the real “first step toward freedom.”
Not fixing yourself.
But speaking your truth in a space where punishment isn’t waiting for you on the other side.
We’re not promising that your life will change overnight.
We’re not pretending that truth will fix everything.
But we are offering something real:
A space where you can stop hiding.
Where you can speak without performance.
Where you don’t have to be wise or healed or “ready” to be honest.
Because most of us don’t need more advice.
