Self pity or grieving?

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If someone has been through a lot of c**p in their life and is struggling to deal with it and make sense out of it. plus feels angy at why they've had to go through it, would that be self pity or is it the natural grieving process that people go through? I'm confused about the difference. What is self pity anyway? If someone loses their husband or child, for example, and goes through intense grief as a result of this, surely that wouldn't be self pity?

Sorry this is vague but someone has said by dwelling on past events it is in fact self pity, and what we should do is make the most of life now. But what is there is a lot of pain related to those events?

My son died in 1996 and it still hurts a great deal. It probably will never stop. There is nothing wrong about feeling bad about that. It's natural and probably inevitable for most people. But the important thing is to not let it control your life. Some things can be dealt with and eliminated. Death cannot but you probably have time of your own to do something with. It's worth the effort.

i deal with anger over a lot of personal issues and find it difficult to stop. i would say self-pity has become a habit for me in a sense. But if I talk about it (like on wp) it gets less intense, give it a try!

Sand, I'm so sorry for your loss. I don't think you can ever get over something like that. Fortunately I've never experienced the loss of somebody close like that, apart from my nan when I was a teenager. I suppose I'm speculating why some people would see grieving as being self-pitying. In my own situation I am grieving for events that have happened to me and I find very difficult to accept and find peace with. Somebody has said my that I'm dwelling on the past and being self pitying, but I wonder where the line between genuine grief and self pity is. Maybe self pity is the inability to move on from a situation and it is used to define a person's life? I don't know. This has made me more confused because I do want to accept my situation and move on, but I'm physcially trapped (my chronic ill health). I also have a severely autistic son, who I love dearly, but life is very tough. I don't know if that makes me self pitying...God I could analyse this for hours.

Mikemmlj thank you for your response. It probably is a good thing to talk about the anger you experience and then it has less of a hold on you. I'm trying to do that myself especially as I've only recently started feeling strong emotions connected to my situation. Maybe it's a natural process I have to go through, but it hurts to think I might be dwelling on stuff.

It depends upon circumstances, but whom can you be angry with? My son was quadriplegic on a respirator for about thirty years after he was hit by a reckless driver and the legal situation never did much more than fining the man who was quite rich. I could have been angry with the man who could easily have avoided the accident but the man meant nothing to me before the accident and I couldn't see what punishing him would do for improving my son's condition. Anger would be a useless impediment to salvaging what was left of our lives. Grieving is not anger. It is extreme depression and regret at a loss and it never ends. I have learnt to live with it.

Sand I do feel for you, that must've been very hard to deal with. I have to say though, that anger is one of the stages of the recognised grieving process. Obviously it's individual to each person and someone like yourself may experience only a little anger or none at all, or someone else might be consumed by it, and in some cases remain "stuck" in the anger stage instead of moving on to the other stages; bargaining, grief and depression, and finally acceptance (although the pain never ends as you rightly say).

I accept what you say that anger doesn't achieve anything in such circumstances and I admire you for how you've coped. That is something I'm trying to work through, that there is no one really to be angry at (that ties in to my loss of spiritual faith as well) and that I need to reach some kind of peace with my circumstances, somehow.

Thanks for your contribution to this thread I appreciate it's a very sensitive issue for you.

Much of spiritual faith rests on the supposition that the progress of events is embedded in a compensatory system of fairness where frightful things do not happen without just cause and, since I never had any religious inclinations, I do not deal with guilt and punishment on the level of accidental or natural events. I deal with occurrences and consequences on a purely neutral level and to that extent it gives me the peace I need to utilize whatever time I have in life to make the best of it.

Yes you've hit the nail on the head precisely with what my issue is. I have a very strong sense of justice and fairness and I simply can't work out why people have to go through such terrible things and suffer so much. I'm always trying to reason it, and find a purpose for it, when perhaps there just isn't one. I can certainly see how that would change your approach to grieving and help you to accept the consquences of a terrible event rather than get angry at something/someone for it or continually seek out ultimate answers for why it occured.

Self pity...when I hear the word self pity I think of someone feeling sorry for themselves or having negative thoughts that can be redirected through cognitive therapy.

I think losing both my grandparents and a nephew isn't what I'd define as self-pity exactly. I had to be hospitalized after my nephew died and I don't really remember what happened. Grieving is still a process I go through when least expected. It comes and goes just like sudden mood swings. I can never predict when it'll take place...small hints maybe but not in a way I would feel if I was just feeling sorry for myself and thinking gee my life sucks right now.

Then again, I've had some serious mood swings involved with clinical depression. But I guess it's all in one's perspectives. Incoherent feelings are not always easily defined without some empathy at work....

there is nothing wrong with self pity or grieving. i think both are funny, especially grieving, dying is hilarious

It's evident you have no concept of what it involves. From your comment I can only gather you have never experienced it or are an emotional cripple.

you have no idea
1. i would never make another person to die im not that selfish
2. being invited to go to a funeral is hilarious

Not being religious I am fully aware that a funeral is a gathering of people who have felt the extreme loss of someone they valued and it is an opportunity for them to exchange memories and feelings about something terribly upsetting. That you find this amusing categorizes you rather well.

why? when i die, i want people to laugh. it will be more of a celebration

In all probability it would be if the people gathering were delighted you had died. That is not the usual group.