When you are in a restaurant, and you talk so loudly that someone from the next table comes over and asks you to tone it down, it's not your fault.

When you can't control your fear of dogs, and they smell it and bark at you, it's not your fault.

When you carefully follow your psychiatrist's orders -- to stay away from caffeine and get brisk exercise before bedtime, go to bed and get up at the same time each day, and refrain from napping -- and you still cannot sleep through the night, your insomnia is not your fault.

If you are so depressed so much of the time that your friends criticize you for whining or order you to "relax", or complete strangers order you to "smile", it's not your fault.

When you are bored or tense, if you cannot help biting your nails, picking at your cuticles, or whatever, annoying those around you, it's not your fault.

When you are at a party and you slip and accidentally say the wrong thing, risking someone's anger, it's not your fault.

It you are disabled by your mental illness and must live on Social Security payments, and your "friends" criticize you for "mooching" off the government, they are wrong. It's not your fault.

If your feelings get hurt by the slightest things your friends say, or if you become afraid too quickly and easily, it's not your fault.

If you sit or sleep the wrong way, or otherwise do something that activates sciatic, arthritic or back pain, it's not your fault.

If you try repeatedly but fail to find friends you can trust, it's not your fault.

When you were in high school, and the music teacher urged you to play the piano onstage at a huge assembly, and you were so frightened that you stayed home from school on assembly day instead, alienating the music teacher for a couple of years, it was not your fault.

When you were in fifth grade, and the teacher said that under no circumstances must you let a spot or stain mess up your composition book, and your brother accidentally spilled soup on the book, making your teacher angry with you, it was not your fault.

When you were in kindergarten, and you kept looking around so curiously and so much during lunch period that you did not finish eating until well into nap time, greatly annoying your teacher, it was not your fault.

Your disorder is not your fault. You did not ask to be born with genes that make you constantly tense, screwing up some of what you say and do.

And, most important, if you are constantly putting yourself down, or if you cannot seem to stop blaming yourself for things that are other people's fault (or nobody's fault), that's not your fault either. It's not your fault if you have not yet come to understand that the things you cannot control are not your fault. You will understand when it's time for you to understand.

So live a guilt-free life!