Pity Parties

[Philippa]

In my opinion, yes, that is hard for other people to read, of course, and it can be draining...but for the person experiencing hard trauma, of course they are going to be very negative. It's only natural, and I believe in order for that person to heal they really need to get all that stuff out of their system.

It sucks for everyone around them of course, but that's just how it is when a person has been through a lot. They can't just "get over it" straight away like everyone wants them to, to make THEM comfortable again.

It's not about everyone else, it's about that person being unable to control their intensely painful inner world and needing to literally vomit it up everywhere, before they can feel better again.

That's just how we operate. I don't think the negative should be shunned in favour of the positive, since both are a part of us.

 

[Meadowsweet]

Perhaps there is room to think about it. But is it really the term? Because Meadowsweet this seems to have more to do with the thoughts and feelings you associate with the term. Words don't hurt, it is the interpretation or my perception of them that hurt. I find, that you are tip toeing around your own experience and perceptions to discuss a term. Just trying to get you to come back to the real issue. Fear, perceived weakness, confusion, being messed up, ridicule. Words don't have a tone, voices do.

Because of how I feel about hearing people use the term, I have done some self-analysis into why it feels this way.

I look at myself first, and think about my perception and why this word effects me. As you say, words only hurt when we let them. So I used it to look at myself, where my fears sit, how they effect me etc.

So I've deliberately quite deliberately disclosed the self-analysis of my background and the issues that I found regarding my life.

I did it to show that I am aware that it is the way I take the word, and that I'm not focussing solely on semantics.

But it is a slang derogotory term that connotes the negative view of the user of others.It is akin to saying some people are stupid.

There are words such as 'you are dwelling on something', 'you need to do the work to get out of this hole', 'you cannot get better until you start looking into the why's of this issue', that say the same thing without taking the opportunity to use a put down.

 

[Red Feather]

It sucks for everyone around them of course, but that's just how it is when a person has been through a lot. They can't just "get over it" straight away like everyone wants them to, to make THEM comfortable again.

It's not about everyone else, it's about that person being unable to control their intensely painful inner world and needing to literally vomit it up everywhere, before they can feel better again.

I totally relate to this. What I am seeing, is that when it comes to that point when I really need to "vomit" and allow the negativity to get out, I usually isolate. I think I even moved away from my friends, because unconsciously felt I needed to be happy for them. It is great to get their support one or two times. But when everytime they see me, I am at that very low place, I get worried that I am straining them and being annoying.

So when people use the words "pity party" I think they are using it to express their annoyance, because they do not want to be thrown down into the pits of someone elses depression. I can totally understand this desire, but know that it means me taking a distance. Is that a result that is wished for by using that term? I suppose that is another question.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I HATE THE TERM PITY PARTY!

Sorry, I had to scream. I needed to get that off my chest!

I have a friend...well, let me clarify...toxic ex-friend, who claims I am constantly looking for pity. Ok, so two weeks ago, I stupidly turned to him when I had hit a new low. I told him how I was struggling and how when I was in church earlier that morning, I cried through the entire service because I thought God hated me. He b!tch slapped me with "you are pathetic and just want pity!" O...M...G... Those were some of the cruelest words I've ever heard from someone. Do you know what it's like to feel like God hates you? I just wanted some support, but he saw it as pity-seeking. Nope, I was just looking for a hand to grab onto before I spiraled deeper. Funny, because he NEVER talks about his problems, just buries them deeper and deeper, with the "just move on, don't look back" attitude. Yes, he was molested as a child as I was, and has issues because of it, but unfortunately thinks the way to get past them is to ignore them. Yeah, we all know how well denial works. One day he may learn the truth, and if not, I feel bad for him because you can't wish your problems away.

But in terms of pity here on the forum, I really don't see it. (Doesn't Anthony whip us into shape with his no-pity posts?!? Ok, so it's been awhile since I've seen one, but still, lol.) Specifically, I think he posted on sympathy vs empathy and how sympathy is pity, empathy is understanding another persons feelings, or something like that. (Sorry if I got that wrong!) Yes, I've been on other forums, and they have been rampant with pity, pity, pity. Just a bunch of coddling BS. Don't get me wrong, hugs of support and such I don't see as pity or coddling. I think coddling is blindly supporting whatever the OP is saying, just because they want support. I don't see the blind coddling here that I've seen elsewhere. (I've called people out on their fishing for pity, as well as the responders coddling, and I've been the bad guy who isn't supportive. But, I don't see coddling pity as support. It keeps you wrapped up in your negative place!)

However, I think we ALL throw our own little pity parties from time to time. I don't see this as a bad thing as long as we're not 24/7 walking pity-parties, KWIM? Sometimes it's these little personal pity-parties that I throw for myself that spurn on good changes in myself, and I'm able to move forward. I throw the party, rant on for a bit, realize that's not where I want to be, and decide to change something. Really, my family are the only ones to see these pity-parties, and they don't indulge me. They try to be supportive, as in positive support, not support for my pity, and let me rant on, but they don't coddle me.

In terms of the use of the phrase "pity-party", well, it's most definitely a derogatory term. People say not to throw yourself a pity-party much in the way they say to not be a victim. (Ok, don't get me started on that one, either! I was/am a victim, and if I wasn't, then I wouldn't have PTSD! Yet another way to make the victim feel like crap when we should really be attacking the perpetrator, but I digress...)

 

[Philippa]

Yeah, I actually think it keeps people back from healing a lot more when insensitive people say stuff like this. And I was once on the other side of the fence, and totally thought people in pain reaching out for help were pathetic, because I'd been raised and brainwashed that way too.

Until you are in that position, you have no idea. People need to get better at learning how to handle people in pain, and be with them, because there is no longer any community in the world, and without community, we cannot be fully human I don't think.

I had the same thing whenever I would open my mouth to vent about something, and got accused of wanting sympathy, when that isn't what I wanted at all...just to be left alone to vent my spleen so it was no longer churning inside me, and because venting helps me to look at the issue and come to my own solutions...which I tried to point out.

People think that a person venting is really trying to get something from them, or that they need to help them in some way, but venting in itself IS the way they get help. Of course, if I am really hurting I have learnt from past experiences to withdraw because I'm just gonna get accused of this, and it's probably better if I just go to my journal and write it out...but venting online, I've found, does give me a charge of release, that I no longer seemt to get in a written journal. It's like, just having it witnessed is enough to be able to move on from it...but people don't get that.

 

[Nicolette]

Here's a fun spin (after the first paragraph) on pity parties http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pity+party ;)

 

[Philippa]

And really, what is wrong with being pathetic anyway? It's another aspect of being human, which we judge, because we're judgemental beings who want everything to be all the best things all the time, and ignore the shadow sides of ourselves.

Be happy, strong, proud, stoic...all so everyone else can feel more comfortable...even if you are in terrible terrible pain and no one says anything helpful to you.

 

[Toria]

I have used the term once in my diary to describe myself - and I would only ever use the word to describe myself, I would never use it to brand someone else. I used it, as a Supporter, as a slightly ironic, slightly self depreciating term because I was in the middle of digging myself in to a self pitying hole that I could just not drag myself out of. I knew what I was feeling was unnecessary and for want of a better word stupid - and it seemed a good phrase to sum up a brief phase of emotions.

I would never, ever hurl that accusation at a Sufferer and I hope no one else would either x

 

[The Albatross]

Albert Ellis, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (whose techniques I began to use about two years before I came here) "... propose that all emotional disturbance shares a single root: demandingness." (Walen, DiGiuseppe & Dryden, A Practitioner's Guide to Rational Emotive Therapy, 2nd Edition, page 129)

Also that:"We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming--or damning." (Albert Ellis & Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 127.)
And that: "You mainly feel the way you think."

Because this is a mental health forum is exactly why, I felt it necessary to point out the perception and beliefs about the term by the original poster and dispute that it is the "words that hurt". It is not, in my case for example a derrogatory term because my experience, thoughts, and feelings are quite different than Meadowsweet's. Both are valid... the difference however is not the "words: pity party". It is the disparity between what Meadowsweet thinks and feels about them and what I think and feel about them.

Some other sources that support this position are:
"Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them." (Epictetus, 55?-135?: Greek Stoic philosopher)

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it: and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 121-180: Roman philosopher & emperor)

"Our life is what our thoughts make it."--Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, Book IV
"Things can never touch the soul, but stand inert outside it, so that disquiet can arise only from fancies within." (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, Book IV)

"Most people believe they see the world as it is. However, we really see the world as we are." (Anonymous )

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you handle what happens to you." (Anonymous )

"When you correct your mind, everything else falls into place." (Lao Tzu)

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." (Wayne Dyer)

"Thinking about a stimulus causes a response to that stimulus." (Kevin Everett FitzMaurice)

"Cognitive psychotherapy boils down to learning the habit of looking for and uprooting self-disturbing thinking whenever you notice you are disturbed." (Kevin Everett FitzMaurice)

"Cognitive psychotherapy can be understood as forcing yourself to face the negative consequences of some negative thinking until you make such negative thinking not an option." (Kevin Everett FitzMaurice)

If I find that words hurt, then I need to self examine and take a look at my emotional sensitivity. What feelings are underneath my reaction? Rejection, shame, guilt, hurt? For myself, most often, it is not necessarily what is actually said, but how I feel about it that creates the disturbance.

However, empathetic people choose to express themselves in ways that will take into account the person with whom they communicate. I might use it at an AA meeting, where the term is largely accepted and understood - though often not welcomed by the other person... and most likely would not here, unless I had a special relationship with the person and knew them well enough to know it would not cause offense. But when we think of those things... aren't we really then discussing compassion, civility and empathy then (or the lack of it?)

 

[The Albatross]

But it is a slang derogotory term that connotes the negative view of the user of others.It is akin to saying some people are stupid.

There are words such as 'you are dwelling on something', 'you need to do the work to get out of this hole', 'you cannot get better until you start looking into the why's of this issue', that say the same thing without taking the opportunity to use a put down.

As I've shared twice above now. In certain recovery terms, "pity party" is not considered derrogatory nor does it infer as you suggest that it in any way is similar to saying someone is stupid --- in my opinion and based on my experience. The difference isn't right or wrong, it is your direct personal experience and my own. When you hear it, it sets off a cascade of thoughts and feelings. When I hear it it is like a "wake up call" and I take a look around and try to see what the person is observing in my behaviors to see if I need to take some actions.

My shrink (another term that people don't like very much at times, but he didn't mind so why should anyone else) said that, in my therapy... though I may opine for people and situations to be different, it is most often an unreasonable and unrealistic expectation for the world to conform to me... it is up to me to learn how to cope and tolerate my difficulty with the world. I didn't like what he said one little bit. He used the example of being a diabetic and having to use insulin and be on dietary restrictions. Is it reasonable or rational for me to expect others to be on the same dietary restrictions or have to test their blood sugar or dose themselves with insulin?

It was something I could understand. I realized he wasn't going to let me delude myself. I would sit with my pain, fear, frustration and be stuck... or I could learn how to tolerate and cope in my family, in my marriage, in my job, in my community.

When I get tangled up in terminology, I'm usually avoiding the deeper feelings I associate with them.

 

[Meadowsweet]

Perhaps I might view it in a more positive light if it was something that was said directly to me, and at a time when it was an appropriate kick up the butt.

I've only ever heard it used a generalisation here and I've not felt it was directed at me personally.

Albatross, I'm sad if you've read the thread as an expectation of people to conform. That isn't anything that I've expressed here at all.

The self-analysis I've shared on the thread is useful to me and I hope I will always look inward first. But sometimes after doing that looking at myself, it still seems an unpleasent word.

And I think sometimes it's ok to say that, to let other people hear my opinion. It's ok for others to have a different opinion too.

But some people might read and think, aha, I never thought others might feel like that, I could try a different word next time I want to say that.

Or I might read and think, ah, in certain circumstances, the word pity-party might be appropriate.

So I don't think it's bad that I've shared it.

 

[The Albatross]

I don't believe I said it's bad you shared it. But then I also don't believe I said that people need to conform. All I've said it's perceptual and that word's don't hurt, the feelings we associate with them do. I'm not trying to stiffle discussion, I am expressing my own point of view.