When you feel sorry for yourself, or overly sad about the difficulties you face, you're indulging in self-pity.
We all go through mood swings and sometimes, we just end up feeling like crappy about ourselves or the lives we lead. During such a phase, one tends to be sad, stressed, or just grumpy and such feelings are as common as feeling joyful or excited. To say the least, they are always changing.
And self-pity isn't inherently bad. It's a normal state of mind when bad things happen. Feeling frustrated for yourself because something difficult happened is healthy — as long as it doesn't last forever. Leaning into the negativity for a bit is OK, but it's important not to let it become a pattern.
Self-pity might be a negative emotion recognized by hopelessness, sadness, and a sense of injustice about your life circumstances. It often entails dwelling on past hardships or current difficulties and feeling remorseful for yourself.
Self-pity makes a narcissist feel like a hero.
They have a grandiose sense of self and very often can't look beyond themselves. But this form of self-esteem is not authentic. So, feeling self-pity and playing the victim acts as a substitute for that lack of authentic self-worth.
People with major depressive disorder (MDD) are more prone to experiencing moral emotions related to self-blame, such as guilt and shame.
Self-pity can include ruminating over problems, feeling angry about what life has dealt you, craving the sympathy of others, and unfortunately sometimes falling into a pattern of one upping other people's struggles.
But self-pity is a dangerous, deceitful, heart-hardening sin (Hebrews 3:13). It's a spiritual deadener, choking faith, draining hope, killing joy, smothering love, fueling anger, and robbing any desire to serve others.
Guilt, Fishkin says, is associated with activity in the prefrontal cortex, the logical-thinking part of the brain. Guilt can also trigger activity in the limbic system. (That's why it can feel so anxiety-provoking.)
Shame anxiety appears in first‐person experience as a corrosive, undermining and persistent anxiety about being objectified, judged, labelled and rejected by others.
Toxic guilt is when we feel guilt without actually having done anything wrong. For example, this could be the guilt felt when you decided to pursue a career in welding when your parents thought you should be a lawyer… like them.
When your guilt is triggered, your body releases cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Cortisol is designed to help you with the flight part of a fight-or-flight response.
Lower Back = Guilt, Shame, and Unworthiness
Lower back issues often correlate with feelings of low self-worth and lack of self-acceptance. Feelings such as guilt, shame, and even sexual inadequacy or trauma can be stored here as well.
Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness. Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters. Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities, such as sex, hobbies or sports. Sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much.
You may be diagnosed with mild, moderate or severe depression. Your mental health professional may diagnose you with depression if these symptoms: happen most days. last for at least two weeks.
Feeling emotionally numb commonly arises as an unconscious protective response to feeling difficult emotions, whether due to anxiety, stress or trauma. Experts regard it as a form of dissociation, a process that allows us to unconsciously protect ourselves from emotional pain.
Feeling empty is a complex emotion often caused by physical, psychological, and social factors. These may include the loss of a loved one, a major life change, depression, anxiety, unresolved trauma, and poor relationships. Feeling empty may also be caused by disconnection, loneliness, and boredom.
Feeling as if you don't care about anything anymore may be related to anhedonia or apathy. Anhedonia is a mental state in which people have an inability to feel pleasure. It is often a symptom of mental health conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder, and substance use.
The feeling of self-pity typically arises when an individual attributes failures to external factors perceived as uncontrollable. Although the primary focus of self-pity is on the self and one's own emotions, it has a strong interpersonal component as well.