Is It Okay To Feel Sad For Oneself???

[sun seeker]

Okay, here is my problem with the term "wallowing in self pity". Or wallowing in anything for that matter.

We need to make room for our feelings before we can let them go. Most people willing to work on themselves will say this is true. So far I don't see anyone disagreeing with that.

The problem is when we give others the right to tell us how long we should have a feeling for, or to make any kind of judgement of our healing process. Suppose I have a friend who is going through some intense feelings. From my outside perspective, it may seem to me that she's been feeling the same thing for a long time. She keeps repeating the same story and expressing the same feelings about it. I wish she could move on and be happier. But wait a minute. It seems TO ME that she has been there a long time. How do I know that she's actually done processing? I don't. Is there a formula I can refer to that says "Yup, your grandfather molested you when you were six years old, okay, you're allowed to grieve over that for an hour a day for two months and then you should be ready to move on."? Of course not. It would be presumptuous in the extreme for me to decide that for anyone else.

This is what we do, though, when we label people as wallowing in their emotions. It's a judgement no one has the right to make, yet even well-meaning people often do.

I know there are people who appreciate it when people take a tough love approach and force them into action. I'm very much not one of them and that approach always backfires exponentially with me, but I understand and respect that some people are different.

HOWEVER. There are several problems I see with anyone trying to tell anyone else how long they should be expressing a particular feeling. One is that for most people it creates a rift in the relationship between the person judged and the person doing the judging, just at the moment they are needing support the most.

Another is that if the feelings are the result of child abuse of any kind, the person almost definitely has a shaky sense of self worth and of their ability to know that they can make good decisions. Someone coming along and telling them they should stop expressing what they are feeling is not going to magically make them feel something else. It's likely going to increase their feeling of being not good enough, socially unacceptable, unworthy of support, and so on. This slows down the grieving process (or whatever the process might be) even more.

Also, the word itself is reminiscent of a pig, and while I have nothing against pigs, the cultural connotations are negative. The insult is obvious. Even to change to something like "You seem to be stuck in that emotion" sounds kinder.

Finally, after several such experiences the person is going to be increasingly shy about letting anyone in while they are having their feelings, because they won't know what other people's comfort level is and will always be standing in their grief (or whatever) with one foot in and one out, waiting for the signal that they've stayed there too long.

I really, truly believe that we have an inner wisdom that knows how long we need to stay in each stage of recovery, and that if we let ourselves fully experience every stage, that wisdom will tell us what is next. As they say in quantum physics, all systems are driven by potential. That includes us.

When we tell ourselves we are "wallowing" we are judging the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Essentially we are taking up the torch and turning hatred against ourselves. When we say it to someone else, we are judging their process, and that is something no one has the right to do.

Saying to someone "I don't know what to do to help you, and seeing you this way makes me uncomfortable" is legitimate. Saying "I have half an hour to listen to you, and then I have other things I need to do" is legitimate. Saying "I care about you, but it's painful to see you this way because it reminds me of my own unprocessed feelings" is legitimate. None of these are easy to hear perhaps, but they are honest statements about where the discomfort is coming from. But saying "You've been there too long, stop wallowing in self pity and get on with your life" is not legitimate. Not something anyone has a right to say to another.

That's my opinion, anyway.

 

[Lionheart]

When we tell ourselves we are "wallowing" we are judging the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Essentially we are taking up the torch and turning hatred against ourselves. When we say it to someone else, we are judging their process, and that is something no one has the right to do.

Thank you @sun seeker for helping me to see things from a different perspective, I agree with everything you have said here. I guess I am a little hard on myself because I don't want pity, which is what my father often gave instead of love, as he had the two confused.

I want to love myself and I now see that this means I must allow the sadness and pain in order to work through it and that this does not mean I am stuck or behind in my healing work. I suppose since it was such a deep wound that it has saved itself for last and will take me some time to process properly.

I feel bad for the child that I once was. I got very poor treatment from others instead of love or nurturing and this is difficult to accept, but is the truth of the matter. I suppose it is compassion that I feel for myself rather than pity and I think this is okay and I feel much freedom and validation because of all the well thought out replies to this thread.

Thanks again so much for your understanding and for sharing your insight!!!.

 

[ghotiff]

Standing ovation to your post @sun seeker

 

[Lionheart]

Standing ovation to your post @sun seeker

Yes,a standing ovation from me as well and heart-felt gratitude!!

 

[ms spock]

Developing compassion for yourself can be helpful.

 

[sun seeker]

I want to love myself and I now see that this means I must allow the sadness and pain in order to work through it and that this does not mean I am stuck or behind in my healing work.

My hat goes off to you. You've just put together something very important. My sense is it may have taken a long time for the pieces to come together and you were just waiting for one last piece before you could give yourself permission to move on to the next step in your journey. You've done the work. We've just confirmed it.

 

[ms spock]

[DLMURL]https://www.myptsd.com/c/albums/the-mindful-way-through-depression-full-youtube.802/[/DLMURL]

This has a lot about compassion for the self and not judging yourself @Lionheart777

 

[moonbeam]

I think there's a crossing of wires here. While I agree nobody should be able to tell someone when they should stop feeling an emotion, or be over it or anything like that.

Its okay to feel self-pity. Its okay to be sad. Its okay to mourn what's lost. My T recommends grieving for what I was deprived of. The problem I notice is some people think any negative emotion is them wallowing in self-pity. There is a thread right now that started today titled "Happy Birthday to Me, warning self pity party" or something close to that but if you read it what the OP thinks is a self-pity party really isn't. Its an honest expression of emotion and frustration at a really shit situation. Its far from a self-pity party.

The problem is sometimes people are wallowing in helplessness. While helplessness is a shitty but real emotion, my friend has cancer I am helpless to him in this aspect, an appropriate emotion. It becomes an issue when its wallowing because it means the person suffering has reached the point of believing they are incapable of everything including change. They stop trying. No help can come in this state and they potentially worsen. All emotions even negative ones are healthy in doses. Its when they become overpowering that it becomes a toxic issue. While nobody should be able to tell you how long it takes to process there is a real danger to mental health if its severe enough and/or a pattern (patterns are shit to break).

An example for myself:

I am sad and angry at the shittyness of my childhood and everything I missed out on. I am devastated by how it still affects me now, and my adult life with my husband, and I really wish I was at a better point than I am. My father said he wished we were never born and we ruined his life. He told me I was a burden. And I still feel like a burden on people and like I ruin lives a lot of the time.

The above because I can't make up arrows is me expressing real negative emotions I am still processing. Is there some self pity yeah. Its still a healthy expression of negative shitty feelings. And I am working on them.

Its okay to say I can't do X. Like I can't swim or I can't change in public locker rooms. That's okay. Nobody's perfect. And everyone has days that are better than others.

It becomes wallowing and an issue when its I can't do ANYTHING. Or when it stops us from functioning at all.

Yes its important to feel negative emotions and nobody can say how long that takes. But it is possible to become stuck in them where it becomes less feeling them as a process of healing and more just feeling them.

A lot of alleged pity party's aren't. And sometimes when people say its a pity party they are trying to motivate you to say "you are wallowing in an unhealthy place and its horrible to watch. While you are in this toxic mindset you can't improve."

I'd also just like to say breaking that cycle is insanely difficult and none of this is easy and emotion is always confusing and difficult and a mess of stuff. If it were easy the forum wouldn't exist because we would all be cured right now.

Other other thing. I don't have one yet due entirely to cowardice but I have noticed that its easier to express negative emotions in a trauma diary. People can stay out if they don't want to read it, you can view how you are doing from month to month in one thread. Plus people have a tendency to try and help advise and its easier in a trauma diary to just say "I have read your thoughts and acknowledge your feelings. Here is a hug if you want it."

Other other other: here's a hug if you want it :hug:

 

[Lionheart]

Thank you @moonbeam I agree with you and gladly accept a hug.

I feel badly for the losses I incurred as a result of being abused and it may take me some time to work through it, Still, I feel like it is okay to feel sad for myself and if that means I feel a bit of self-pity then that is okay as long as I don't get overwhelmed into feeling powerless to do anything about it.

I guess I thought that any feelings of sadness or self-pity was the opposite of loving myself....at any rate, I feel okay to allow myself to grieve and feel bad for the poor, abandoned, and abused, young man that I once was. I believe I can get on with the business of processing my feelings and allowing whatever negative feelings I have to take expression as I move towards healing from the past.

 

[sun seeker]

@moonbeam I actually agree with most of what you are saying. What I still question is

But it is possible to become stuck in them where it becomes less feeling them as a process of healing and more just feeling them.

While this is certainly true, is there any way to decide that for another person? How can we know that someone is stuck in negative emotions as opposed to just feeling them? I don't see a way of knowing that for anyone other than ourselves. I've heard a lot of people saying "there comes a point when you have to move on", and I agree, but I haven't seen anyone able to define where that point is. "Well they're just going on and on and getting nowhere", people say. (I'm not saying you are saying this, just that it's a typical example.) Yes, but again, how can anyone say that for someone else? "Too long" could be an hour for one person, a month for another, or whatever. There is no objective formula. You can't tell from the outside. That's why it is crucial to respect each person's inner knowledge. Unless, I suppose, you ask the person: "It seems to me that you are stuck in a negative pattern here. Does it feel like that to you? Can I help?"

Even if we do come up with an objective way to define being stuck, I still object to the word "wallowing" for the reasons given above. Being stuck or learned helplessness are so much less judgemental. I'm going to stick with those.

 

[sun seeker]

There is something else I'd like to explain here, now I think about it. It's about where I'm coming from and why I feel so strongly about this issue. I have some background using co-counseling, also known as reevaluation counseling. This is a method invented in the 1950s and taught all over the world to enable people to work on their own problems instead of or in addition to paying a therapist. Its foundational belief is that everyone has an essence of zest, compassion, curiosity, etc. but that essence gets covered up by distressing experiences when that distress is not expressed. (I'm paraphrasing.) If you watch young children (well, young children who are not being abused, anyway) you see they have no shame around showing how they are feeling. They get hurt, and they look for someone to hold them while they cry. They get scared, and they scream and shake, and don't try to hold it in because it's "inappropriate" and people are watching. And so on. Once they are done processing, which they do very unselfconsciously, they are all sunshine and go right back to whatever they were doing before the upset.

But most of us don't grow up with support to do that. Whether or not there is obvious abuse, most of us are socialized to hold in our emotions. "Girls don't get angry", we are told. "Big boys don't cry." "Suck it up." We are goaded, cajoled, teased, and otherwise socialized into holding in our emotions. It can even happen when well-meaning people tell us "Don't cry, everything will be all right." They are confusing the expression of the emotion with the emotion itself. Then what happens? The expression, or discharge as the jargon goes, doesn't happen. It looks as if the emotion isn't there. But that resiliency, that ability to bounce back and face life with enthusiasm, goes out the window along with it. As anyone who has read about trauma processing knows, our bodies are wired to use certain mechanisms to complete the fight, flight or freeze response. It goes beyond trauma though. There are chemicals in tears shed from sadness that help us feel better when we get rid of them, for example. (I'm bad at remembering details on things like this, but I do remember learning about that process.)

So this is how co-counseling works. Two people who have taken a basic training take turns. One supports the other as they go into their stuck emotions and express them through crying, shaking, yelling, punching pillows, or whatever they need to do. The support is simple yet profound because most of us have had too little of the experience of another person entirely focused on us, allowing us to process without judgement or trying to shut us down. It does require some training in what to say and what not to say to support the process, but not a lot. After an agreed amount of time, usually half an hour to an hour, roles switch and the person doing the discharging now becomes the supporter. This is an important point. It is based on very different premises than the usual client-therapist relationship where one person has the problems and the other is supposed to have their life together and offer the solutions. It respects everyone's ability to give as well as receive. It also puts tools in the hands of anyone who wants them, whether or not they can afford to pay a therapist (out of pocket or through taxes, we do pay).

When used correctly, this method does help people move through their stuck emotions and on to a lighter place. I've practiced this some and it is pretty well accepted among my friends and people I connect with. I don't have the chance to do as much of it as I'd like, and there are things it doesn't cover, so I do work with a therapist too, but I have lots of respect for the method. I do think that for some very serious traumas, a trauma therapist will have better training in pacing and teaching grounding skills and such, and that the relationship built over time is therapeutic in itself, so I would hesitate to recommend co-counseling in those cases unless a person is confident that they have those skills and know how to take care of themselves that way. As I say, I personally use both.

Someone trained in co-counseling would agree that we can get into negative patterns where our emotions are stuck and we feel helpless, and the solution offered would be support in releasing those emotions, including the helplessness. Thought patterns, as far as I have seen, are not addressed. No one is ever told to suck it up or get on with their life without being offered support to discharge the emotions getting in the way.

I'd almost venture to say that is the culture I am coming from, though it definitely isn't the culture I absorbed from my family. That is why I will never tell anyone they are wallowing in self-pity and probably why I am more comfortable with somatic experiencing than therapies that focus on cognitive patterns, though I will concede that both can be helpful.

I just thought I'd clarify that and offer this information in case it is helpful to anyone.