FRUSTRATION, PAIN, and disappointment are part of the nature of life, but it is neither natural nor necessary to elevate the universal, everyday bits of unhappiness to the tragic extreme of hysterical misery. When people stubbornly insist that they were dealt more than their share or that somehow they have been especially selected as victims of cruel fate, they insist on seeing themselves as heroic.
Probably they were faced too early and too often with more pressure and less caring than they could endure. “But I had an unhappy childhood” is a current, popular excuse. That may have been true, but what is the cause of misery now? Unwillingness to change? If so, then the smug superiority of tragic heroism really cannot be distinguished from common spitefulness and a life lived with this attitude prevailing becomes a good example of solutions that don’t serve us well.
An unhappy childhood may be a good reason for starting out badly, but it’s a poor excuse for continuing to live that way.