Whispered Shadows

The following was originally posted in my LJ. Since it’s ballooned into a full article, at least in my thinking, I decided to post it here as well.

Yes, it was awful — now please shut up – CNN.com:

Poignant, tragic, funny, outrageous –most of us have at least one story we tell (and retell) to explain our emotional bruises. But there’s a big difference between understanding the past and being stuck in it.
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“Oh, for God’s sake,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Could we please stop the drama and get on with our life?”

I normally try to avoid anything dealing with Oprah anymore, but I stumbled across this article on CNN. It echoes nicely what I’ve been saying for years. For me it can be very very easy to slip into self pity. My brother died when I was eight; my father has a violent temper, though never physical hit anyone; was constantly bullied throughout school; so on and so forth. I could weep and moan and go on about how my life was so horrid.

Your life is shaped by your past experiences, not defined by it.

Probably the greatest thing about this article is the points it has to help you avoid getting stuck in that self pity rut. Teaches you how to recognize it and how to fight it.

–Below was originally a reply to a response to the above post–

It takes -years- to fully come to grips with the death of someone you are really close to. I was eight years old when my brother died, and he was my best friend (though not I his) and the person I was closest to. Don’t mistake the grieving process for self-pity though. It’s natural to think about who you’ve lost, how much you miss them. It’s been over 20 years and I still think about my brother, wonder what he’d be like now, how things would be different were he still alive. But I don’t let it stop me from living. Don’t sit there and go “Oh woe is me, my brother died when I was a child and now I’m scarred for life!”

The difference this article is talking about it’s so much the “letting go”, but those who try and let the things that have happened to them DEFINE them. Like the woman in the article who kept dwelling on her mother. It seems like her therapist didn’t properly explain things to her. What she needed to emphasize wasn’t the whole “you’re mother wouldn’t let you speak up for yourself, woe is you” but that “you have a block about speaking up because of how your mother treated you. Let’s focus on some exercises to help you overcome this bad habit you developed as a result.” See the difference?

People who dwell in self-pity, in essence, use it as an excuse to not take responsibility for their actions. Yes, someone will have difficulty with certain issues because of something that happened to them, but the whole point of therapy isn’t to use that event as an excuse, but to help you realize WHY you have that difficulty and OVERCOME it. Like the author of the article tried to tell the patient “Kristin, can you see that your mother isn’t here? Can you hear that you are able to speak? You’re a full-grown woman, with a functioning larynx, who wants a promotion. Full stop.“

Another thing people who do the whole ’self-pity’ thing commonly do is ONLY talk about that incident (or incidents) that happened to them. It doesn’t matter the conversation topic, they always find a way to insert “Oh, well my mom wouldn’t let me talk so blah.” Or the ONLY thing they will talk about are their woes and how bad their life is. It’s good to talk about the hardships you’ve been through, but at appropriate times with appropriate people. I think we’ve all met at least ONE person who, upon first meeting them, unloads all their life woe’s upon you without even knowing you or your even ASKING them to. Talking with close friends, especially when you are feeling down, is one of the healthiest things to do.

Anyway, I don’t mean to preach… more just venting. It’s a sore spot, especially I have to be careful of doing it myself. ^_^