Self Pity

Self Pity is a term that refers to a person who expresses depression or sadness in a tone of 'poor me'. It commonly is associated with the words "pity party". It's also seen as feeling 'sorry for oneself'.  To have these feelings one has a combination of 'resentment' and 'sadness'.  Sadness is merely an experience of feeling low with loss.
Self pity in contrast to sadness carries an element of entitlement and anger that 'blames' someone or 'other' for the loss.
The value of 'self pity' is the 'secondary gain' involved.  If I feel 'sorry for myself' and feel 'entitled' to something more then I can refuse to 'accept' the 'value judgement' of others or the world and 'believe' that my own 'self assessment' of my own 'worth' as 'what ever' is the 'true' or 'absolute' value.
Hence I am equal before God or equal as a single vote in a democracy but I may not be 'equal' as a fighter pilot commander.
Often people who express 'self pity' get their own 'intrinsic' expectation that they feel 'society' should pay them in status or money mixed up with what they would 'like' or 'desire'.
The 'desire' is translated into 'what should be'.  As things 'arent' then someone 'should be blamed'.
Commonly people with self pity will present as 'depressed' when the depression isn't just sadness but has this 'anger/sad' component. Further the reason for 'self pity' might be defused. In this case a single girl will feel self pity for being alone and blame her situation on the refusal of men to treat her with the attention she wants. A single man might feel that women don't pay him the respect he feels he deserves.
All of these positions involve 'entitlement' and entitlement says I don't need to 'earn' the attention but rather I am 'owed" the attention.
When working or being with a person with simple depression there is sadness but the person with self pity 'gets under your skin' because they often implicity blame you in part for your good fortune.Often people who express self pity want to be rescued.
Rather than improve their happy dance so people throw money at them they attempt to embellish their 'unhappy' dance so that you will feel guilty and throw money at them.
In children self pity is seen as a 'pout'.
In adults it's seen as often as 'painful'.
Interestingly , antidepressant medications have worked well with treating the 'sadness' whereas antipsychotic medications work better with 'self pity'.
Philosophically 'self pity' is tied to a theory or meaning of the greater whole whereas sadness is commonly see in people who actually don't tend to 'blame" others as easily as those who have 'self pity' or 'poor me".
A sad person will say I am poor. A self pitying person will say "Poor me".
Historically sadness was seen as a neurotic position whereas 'self pity' was seen more in the personality disorder spectrum.
 We all have self pity at different times, like when we say "I should have won the lottery" or "I shouldn't have to pay so much in taxes".  The "pity party" is the individual who always goes on and on about it.
In Narcissistic Entitlement the person without shoes is going on and on about how they should have shoes and trying to get legless men to pay for their shoes since they obviously don't need shoes.