Relationships: Self Pity As A Form Of Abuse

What does self pity have to do with abuse?they are.
Well many of you may not see the direct connectionThis is essentially a form of manipulation. That is the
unless you've been subject to a partner who has"victim" attempts to manipulate their partner into
found themselves in it from time to time.sympathizing with them and this thereby allows them
Self pity is usually resorted to when an individual feelsto remain entrenched in their victim state.
victimized by someone or some situation. TheyTo be around this kind of energy is draining,
choose to fall into this state as a way of trying tofrustrating and annoying to say the least. When one
comfort themselves, hide away from the world, heal,allows themselves to be drawn into it it's usually out
and/or ask someone else to rescue them from theirof some feeling of guilt.
misery.This hooks the partner into letting the "victim"
Often the individual will also feel and appearpartner off the hook i.e. from taking responsibility for
depressed, unmotivated, de-energized, and afraid oftheir own situation and hence for doing something
taking on their normal responsibilities, to be avoidingabout it. Of course the partner then has to go on
others, vulnerable and weakened by the traumaticliving with this. So is this sounding abusive to you
incident. Often this state can become entrenched asyet?
a way of life.So you see self pity is essentially a maneuver to
The net result is that the individual essentially adoptsavoid taking responsibility for one's own situation. This
the role of a victim.in essence is abusive to the person who engages in
So how does it feel to live with someone like this?it, is it not?
Well if you've ever experienced it it makes one feelThe belief being that by doing so one can feel
drawn into rescuing such a "pitiful" individual. Suchcalmer, happier, safer and more able to have a joyful
attempts however get parried by the self pityinglife.
individual in such a way that they refuse to beWell I'll leave it to you to decide if that is true.
helped.I think that from this discussion you can see that self
In other words they hunker down into theirpity has no healthy role to play in any relationship.
victimhood and even unconsciously (and consciously)If it exists in yours and you would like to do
try to go on justifying their victimhood. They oftensomething about kindly let me know by visiting the
also go so far as getting angry with their partner ifweb link below.
they are not empathic with them as the victims that