How can a person overcome self pity and stop feeling sorry for themselves?
Self pity is a comforting behavior that fills a need for obsessive thinking. Therefore, the key to beating it is to recognize it when it creeps into your thoughts and eliminate it immediately. Because feeling sorry for oneself becomes a pattern over time, you need to retrain your brain not to think so negatively.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Create a zero tolerance policy with yourself – this is what got me “on the road to recovery” when it came to my self pity. I simply made a pact with myself that I would not allow myself to indulge in it any more. This was a re-training of my brain; a new way of thinking for me. In most cases, this “mental policy” worked out really well for me. However, when self-pity persisted, I had to seek other means.
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2. Move your body – Physical exercise is critical for arresting this type of depression. If you force yourself to be physically active and really get your heart rate going, this will have a profound effect on your emotional well being. If you move your body your mind will follow. Physical energy and motivation can empower your whole life. Getting in shape can be a springboard to better emotional health. This can be a huge piece of the puzzle that many people will overlook or simply discount. Get active and you’ll be happier for it!
3. Choose Gratitude - This is a direct attack on self pity: you cannot feel both grateful and sorry for yourself at the same time. The two feelings are completely incompatible. Gratitude is the ticket out of misery and self-absorption. If you have to, sit down and force yourself to write a list of everything you are grateful for. My sponsor tells me to list at least 50 things. Seems a bit simplistic, but getting it all down in writing can work wonders for you.
Choose Gratitude.
It’s so much more empowering than feeling sorry for yourself.
Self pity is my favorite character defect. It is what made me into an addict. When I needed to rationalize my drinking or drug use, my favorite technique was to feel sorry for myself. Sad but true. It always worked so well for me. I loved the feeling that my life was spinning out of control, and that people had done me wrong, and that I was a true victim. This really didn’t happen all that often in my life; people were actually pretty good to me. But when ever I got the chance, I loved to feel sorry for myself, and I used the feeling to justify my drinking.
Because I’m such a shy person, I’ve grown accustomed to using rejection to fuel my pity-parties. My diseased little mind thinks that rejection is the worst thing in the world–even worse than death itself. This irrational belief typically paralyzes me and keeps me from taking healthy risks. In my recovery, I’ve worked on this character defect, and gotten a little better at it. So I take more risks, and usually it pays off. But rejection is a part of life–experiencing rejection on an occasional basis is inevitable. It’s going to happen. So I’ve had to learn how to get over my tendency to throw an “internal pity-party.”
In the beginning of my recovery, I had lots of reasons to feel down on myself. As time went on, my life in recovery got better–in almost every way–and I learned how to stop mentally playing the victim role.
For a more complete guide to overcoming self pity, check this out: Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself and Overcome Self Pity
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This is a very good discussion. I appricate what everyone is saying. I can understand self-pity because I have lived my life with it.
A year before I was born, my father was driving drunk and had a car accident that killed his best friend. Any normal person would feel extremely sad and perhaps even self-pity at this grave error in judgement, and it would be wrong for anyone to scold them for thier feelings. I agree with Max that people who try to stop the sadness and self-pity are damaging the person. BUT, self-pity that goes on and on and on for year after year is extremely unhealthy and ultimately, leads to self-distruction – which I think was Patrick’s point. Self-pity that takes a permanent hold on a person leads to misery.
My father, dispite his becomming a successful attorney and achieving wealth and admiration in our community and our church, continued to harbor self-pity for decades after the accident. Despite all the blessings of financial security, a loving wife, three wonderful children who adored him, and forgiveness from the family of the boy who died, my father clung to his debilitating mind-set, drowning his sorrows in alcohol. Recovering addicts call this “hugging a porcupine”.
Eventually, at age 45, he shot himself. The note he left behind was filled with statements like, “I am a worthless person”, and “you all would be better off without me”. A tribute to self-pity.
I think it is human to feel self-pity from time to time. None of us are perfect people. But chronic self-pity that consumes your days and nights for months and years, is a sign that you need to attend to an injury and search for healing. Unfortunately, many people like my father (and myself, for years after his suicide), find a kind of warped comfort in their self-pity. It’s an excuse to avoid taking action.
Thomas Merton, the great writer and poet, said, “Despair is the absolute exteme of self-love. It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost.”
I have struggled most of my life with my own self-pity as a result of the choice my father made. He was the most important person in my life – my hero and my mentor. He was kind, loving, and patient with everyone but himself. The best remedy I have found for it is a combination of gratitude, faith, and helping others. It takes the focus off myself when that focus has become an unhealthy obsession. When I do that – things always turn around.
Nanette, that is a killer quote there by Thomas Merton, thank you so much for sharing it.
That is the essence of why I love to indulge in self pity. It is my own little pleasure and I can put the rest of the world inside of this different box and say “they are all ok, and they do not feel my pain and sorrow, nor do they care. Woe is me.”
That is the gist of it anyway. Man I can be sick. But I choose not to go there today…..
Over the last 9 years I have been working my way through doubt and confusion and have just realised today that I have used self pity as a tool to disect and analyse who I am and what I mean to those close to me. Though prolonged and painful it may prove to have been a necessary surgery but as with any invasive operation there is always scaring and only time will tell how bad that might be.
I had a great need to know and understand both myself and the world better and I have achieved that to a profound and satisfying degree through self pity and self enquiry but at some expense to myself and those close to me.
I can’t help but agree with a lot of what Max says, had I received greater understanding and compassion I might not have had to look to myself so much, but there I go again! As long as you keep your self pity objective and in balance I think it can be helpful, but it’s like an internal drug for the brain and like normal drugs or alcohol it becomes addictive and in the end a danger to your mental and physical being.
It’s been a helava long trip, perhaps one I’ve had hard wired into me even before birth if my family history is taken into consideration. BUT today I am going to try and give up Self Pity!
Hi Katheryna
Self analysis is a useful tool but if we are just using it as a means to create drama in our own mind then it is probably becoming a problem.
What makes resentment so destructive? It eats up mental energy. It is obsession. We relive the anger over and over again. This takes away from our mental energy and robs us of our happiness. We think we want to be angry and feel justified in our anger. All the while we could be happy and content.
Self pity, or obsessive self analysis, is the same way. Any obsessive thinking is robbing you of mental energy and happiness.
I agree with Max that we should not try to invalidate someone’s feelings. But self pity is more than just a natural processing of feelings or emotions; it is an unhealthy, obsessive state of mind that linger on for too long….
Hello, this is a great site that has given me great insights. I just want to say thanks to all. I am currently traveling and was working in a beautiful orphanage. Yet though such great fortunes were around me, i still indulged in self-pity. It made me at times blind to the magic around me and caused me great anger as it would make me feel trapped. I am currently still struggling with these feelings but from reading this site i don’t feel so alone and that to me is of utmost importance.
Wow….I am completly speechless. I had suspicions that I indulged in self pity…. And the affirmations of everyone around me confirmed it. I can’t believe I never saw it before reading this article. I want to say thank you to everyone who contributed to this discussion because it surely has helped me. Now if there only was a way for me to undo the years of damage and time wasted that I have inflicted on myself. A special thankyou to the contributor who said that the two best ways to overcome self pity is to get off your a**!!!! And stop comparing yourself to others. I cannot express how helpful this was. I would only like to add that music is such a strong power that can be harnessed to either improve or destroy your current mood. Good luck to all!!!!!
My boyfriend is a wonderful person with endless potential but he wallows in self-pity. In the past, I’ve wondered if he does this seeking reassurance, but lately, I suspect that the problem runs deeper. I feel that he suffers from some sort of complex that has resulted from his past traumas.
I feel that his obsession with all that has gone wrong in his life seems to hold him back from all that could and should go right. I love him and don’t want to miss out on seeing him blossom into his potential; but, I’m afraid that by constantly being caught in his wake of sadness, boredom, and stagnation that he’s holding me back from reaching my own potential. I am coming to the realization, however, that there is nothing I can do for him if he wont do so for himself.
I wish he would help himself so that we can grow together. He would be more than wonderful if he could just get past his past. If he could become proactive rather than reactive.
If you’re suffering from self-pity, you should do your best to overcome it as fast as possible. If you don’t, you could be hindering your relationships. Don’t let your life pass you by…
People always say that “love conquers all” but if you can’t love yourself first, you can’t love someone as they deserve. I know that I must love me, so I can love him. For that very reason, I can’t watch his continued self-destruction. If I stay as he continues to tear himself apart, I’m simply advocating or condoning this negative behavior. If I go, maybe it’ll act as a catalyst for change. Either way, it’ll benefit both of us as I can’t continue to live under his rain-cloud and he can’t continue to think that he can survive with me as his emotional crutch. Tough love :( He needs to change.
Advice to you, if you’re attending your very own self-pity party: cheer up! It could be worse! Every new second brings with it a new opportunity to start over again, start over, don’t give up, if you fail, try again, if you fall, get back up, if your house is destroyed, build a new one, keep it moving, keep on smiling, keep on dreaming, if your dreams shatter, make new dreams… if you’re moving forward you’re not moving backward and you’re not staying in place! Take a chance!!!! Find a reason to smile, if you can’t find one, give yourself a reason to smile. Like remembering something good, something fun, something healthy…
Take care of your body, take care of your mind, take care of your heart, spirit and you’ll see that life will become so much easier if you just change your perspective.
As for my boyfriend, I just hope he sees me before it’s too late.
Hi , I’ve been wallowing in self pity since my husband left , 5 years ago ! We had been to-gether since childhood so it was , to say the least , a shock , I am in my middle fifties . I live in France and my great problem is loneliness , I know if that could be addressed I would not be so addicted to self pity . It has become an addiction , as has been posted by others it becomes familiar , comfortable . France is not the place for making friends easily . I do feel when it is know one is on their own folk do avoid .
To be able to write about it is of great help .
I don’t have work and to wake up everyday to find something to do that I feel is worthwhile is soul destroying . I walk but I don’t get the buzz to lift my spirits .
This has really been good , to be able to write about it a little . How to find the lift to go through life though ?
Take care .
My man left me because I drove him away with the whole being a needy victim thing. Said that I really just needed to work on fixing me. Perhaps after that has started he could find his way back to me. Rather than taking his advice for what it was, I decided to swim in a pool of self pity. Woe is me, my man left me and my girls all alone. I managed to drive away my brother who I just met in only one night. Then even after my man and I had a deep meaningful talk that really offered hope of a future together down the road, after I fix some of those me issues, I managed to somehow dive head first into that familiar pool again, and in all likelyhood, drove him further away and dont even know why I was continuing on with my party for one! I restarted therapy and have been waiting for her to offer some insight or some helpful little tools to begin the repairs that I so desperately need. Then I stumbled on this page and have already began using the tools offered here. Thank you for posting this web site!!! It has already been more help than a months worth of therapy been. THANK YOU!!!!
Oh and yes I am a recovering drug addict, and yes I have found myself thinking of using to “supress the pain”. I have been clean for almost three years and I have not relapsed. I am proud to say that I instead chose to use the internet to try and find some type of aide to change the pattern and the thinking that I tend to follow. So I would have to say that the fact that I have grown that much would be high up on my list of things that I am grateful for!!! YEA ME!!!
hi,
thank you for this site, just this morning i am suffering from self-pity and it made me cry and unproductive. I am a pastor’s wife and i feel my husband is not giving me importance for not trusting and giving me money. Whenever he does this same thing, it often leads me to history because since we got married it always happen. We’re married for almost 15 years. He always hide his financial to me but later on he tells or i am the one who discover it. I feel sorry for myself because i have no resources to buy things i like for my kids and myself and i have no chance to help my parents and siblings in terms of financial.Reading your posts and other testimonies helped me. And first of all i know God is the one who can and able to help me overcome this. He led me to your site. God bless.
Hey all,
It’s nice to see that other people are feeling the way I am — which some might call depression and some might call self-pity. I don’t think either name has more validity than the other, and there are some other words that probably work as well. I have gone through periods in my life with this feeling, but usually I’ve been able to stay hopeful because I can objectively say that things are good. And I do have a lot to be grateful for still, but the way the world is going right now (i work in the media, which like many industries is experiencing radical shifts in work and pay) makes it hard for me to have that objective rock to hang onto. So I feel a little lost in the river, and scared, and wondering if it’s all really worth it.
One thing I’ve noticed about self-pity and gratitude is the way other people feel about it when you’re in it — as though you are consciously choosing to feel bad, and I don’t think it’s that easy. It’s not through a fault of your own that you end up this way. This is a normal emotion in the human spectrum, a feeling of defeat that prompts us to withdraw, so we can live to fight again another day. Makes sense. But some of us see defeat where it doesn’t exist; I know I do.
Anyway, I guess I just wanted to put it out there that, in my experience, the judgments we put on self-pity (BAD!) and gratitude (GOOD!) are part of the problem. When you consider that being grateful is merely a tool to feel differently about your own life, it’s just as selfish as self-pity is. This might sound like some abstract argument for a theology class, but it comes from a very real place: it took me a long time to reason out and understand why having people tell me to “Cheer up!” always made me feel worse. Because it’s a value judgment that said I was bad for feeling this way.
But really, in my own experience, these two emotional states suffer from the labels of good and bad, because when you are labeled “bad” you resent the pious righteousness of the “good,” and when you are “good” you look down on the “bad” as weak or willful or, well, bad.
Really, self-pity and gratitude are neither of them states of good or bad. They are more like seasonings like salt and sugar. If you don’t like the taste of how you feel, maybe a little bit of one or the other will help, so give it a try.
When we look at these things in this light, we are able to have more compassion for each other and the ways that we feel, and compassion is a far more valuable tool than judgment, since it brings us together, while judgment only holds us apart.
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