i'm not about to pretend to know how it feels to be in your shoes. i do know that many people have that intense, rooted guilt over many things. is it REALLY over "just" being gay, or could it be something else closely related, such as hypothetically feeling like you've disappointed your family, for example? or feeling guilty about yourself over something, not necessarily about being gay but about not being something else? oftentimes there are things that are so entwined with something more obvious that it's easy to not see the underlying and identify the culprit as the loudmouth.
i'm not trying to TELL you what you are or aren't, or what you feel or don't feel. i'm just using examples to try to describe my thoughts. and probably failing. i'm babbling.
there's a difference to me between being guilty of a specific and not being at peace with what is true about yourself yet misunderstood by most others. the latter does not make it wrong or untrue...it means that you haven't found inner peace with something and haven't found a way, or people, who can honestly relate to it and help settle yourself and find peace.
the latter is much harder to see, process, validate, accept, and put to peace.
not all the time. some people are just built to feel guilty...because they constantly measure themselves against some preset measuring stick (such as a religion's, or a family's, or society's) when that measuring stick is just not accurate for themselves. they constantly fail against this stick that isn't even right for them, and they constantly feel guilty because they aren't better, or aren't quite as mainstream (which means easily identifiable), or are lacking...even though they can't figure out what's "wrong," they don't feel "right."
guilt can be either, just like any emotion to any one or another. i do think you can choose happiness oftentimes, but i don't feel like you can choose the rawness of JOY...the instinctive, unexpected, unprovoked feeling of happiness and peace as one. but then again, that's just my perspective, which is based on my personal experiences...