

I have a multiple friends who, whenever they find success, almost immediately feel guilty and apologize to anyone else involved. In every case, those friends come from backgrounds where they were surrounded by narcissists. The guilt and apologies are a programmed response because “friends” and family would always frame their success as someone else’s, usually their own, loss. This is now the lens they see every success through.
Win at a game? Apologize to the people you beat. Interview well and be offered a new job? Feel guilty about the other applicants. Hell, go out for a meal with friends and your food comes first? “I’m so sorry, guys.”
Narcissists have programmed these friends to believe that they are undeserving of success, or even good luck, and that they should apologize for existing. I do my best to reassure them when I can, “you earned this,” or “you had nothing to do with this happening,” but ultimately it’s something they have to grapple with until they can figure out for themselves how to grow past that programming.
I have no idea if this applies to your situation, but it is a lens to consider.
The vast majority of the Bible was simply guidelines to keep people healthy and happy. All this “the skin of the pig is unclean” stuff? They hadn’t figured out germs yet. No sex until marriage? No contraceptives, so don’t create in cared for children. I won’t waste my time on it but, when examined in context, this is the vast majority, if not the entirety of the bible: lessons on how to be safe and happy relative the time, made digestable and relevant to the common person.
Sucks they had to get there via fear of imaginary, post-life pain, and it sucks twice as hard that they’ve neglected to rationalize that part as the rest of the belief structure has modernized.