Am I a bad Person?

Below is an example fictional case study vignette for educational purposes.

Kate came to therapy after ending a long-standing friendship.

Over the years, she'd become the person her friend relied on for everything. Every crisis felt urgent, every phone call needed answering, and Kate slowly became exhausted. Rather than telling her friend how overwhelmed she felt, she began replying less and eventually stopped responding altogether.

Her friend accused her of being selfish.

Kate couldn't stop thinking about those words.

"What if she's right?" she asked. "What if I'm just a bad person?"

As therapy unfolded, it became clear that this wasn't really about one friendship. Kate had grown up believing that mistakes, anger, or wanting space meant there was something fundamentally wrong with her. As an adult, setting boundaries felt almost impossible. When she finally did, shame quickly followed.

At first, therapy focused on helping her see the context. She had been overwhelmed. Her friend's demands had become unsustainable. Ending the friendship didn't automatically make her cruel.

But each week Kate returned with another confession.

"I ignored her on purpose."

"I wanted her to know how it felt."

"Part of me wanted her to suffer."

Every new disclosure ended with the same question:

"So... what does that say about me?"

In supervision, I realised something important. Rather than exploring Kates feelings, motives and responsibility, the sessions kept becoming a trial about her character. Kate wasn't only asking about what she'd done, she was asking me to decide who she was.

When I stopped trying to answer whether Kate was "good" or "bad", something shifted.

Instead of reaching for a verdict, they stayed with the complexity.

Kate had every right to end a relationship that had become overwhelming. She had also withdrawn in a way that caused genuine hurt. She had felt trapped, angry and resentful. She had acted those feelings out indirectly rather than expressing them openly.

None of those truths cancelled the others out.

One of the most important shifts in therapy can be moving away from "What kind of person does this make me?" and towards "What happened, what did I feel, what did I do, and what responsibility do I want to take?"

The first question demands a verdict.

The second allows us to think.