diff --git a/bin/pwait/pwait.1 b/bin/pwait/pwait.1
--- a/bin/pwait/pwait.1
+++ b/bin/pwait/pwait.1
@@ -145,6 +145,10 @@
 .Xr wait 1
 builtin
 as it will not clean up any zombies or state in the parent process.
+.Pp
+.Nm
+will ignore it's own pid supplied as a process id to watch as invalid
+to avoid deadlock.
 .Sh HISTORY
 A
 .Nm
diff --git a/bin/pwait/pwait.c b/bin/pwait/pwait.c
--- a/bin/pwait/pwait.c
+++ b/bin/pwait/pwait.c
@@ -146,6 +146,10 @@
 			warnx("%s: bad process id", s);
 			continue;
 		}
+		if (pid == getpid()) {
+			warnx("%s: skip my own pid", s);
+			continue;
+		}
 		for (i = 0; i < nleft; i++) {
 			if (e[i].ident == (uintptr_t)pid) {
 				break;