Self-pity is feeling sorry for yourself — sitting inside the feeling that life has been unfair to you, and staying there. It is uncountable, and it lives in a few fixed phrases you should learn whole: 'full of self-pity', 'a wave of self-pity', and especially 'wallow in self-pity', which pictures someone lying in mud and enjoying it a little. English is unusually harsh about this feeling. Notice that pity for another person is kind, but pity turned on yourself is treated as a weakness, almost a shameful one — 'stop feeling sorry for yourself' is one of the most common hard things one English speaker says to another. That harshness is cultural, and it is worth knowing before you use the word about a real person, because it stings. Though actually, the harshness has been softening. Kinder writing now separates real grief and real injustice — which deserve care — from self-pity, which is the version that stops you doing anything. And people are allowed a little of it: 'I had a good self-pity session, then I got up and cleaned the kitchen' is a normal, half-joking thing to say. The clearest way to hold the word: sadness looks at the loss; self-pity looks at yourself, and stays looking.