You can’t relativise sadness … but surely you can?

Yes I think you can, but I question the motive in many cases.

I just don't see the point.
It's not like there is some universal scale of tragedy where different types of sadness are more or less devastating. I don't see how using someone elses pain to quantify your own is ever really going to be helpful.
Like is anyone really going to feel better during the worst moment of their life by thinking 'well it could be worse, this awful thing could be happening and I could also be living in a warzone and have sepsis and and have a husband with an inorperable brain tumor, so really my awful thing isn't so bad'.

When someone is in pain they need compassion, it does not matter if their tragedy could be worse or if someone else is actually having a worse time.
It does nothing to help this 'person having the worst possible time' and just makes you or whoever is in pain feel guilty for being as sad as they are for their 'lesser tragedy'. Being very sad sucks, having awful terrible things happen to you sucks, it doesn't get better because 'it could be worse'.

It's awful to feel bad about feeling sad (sorry for the poorly worded phrase!) Often, I sit here feeling really sorry for myself that I had a head injury and post concussion syndrome a decade ago which changed my life forever (even though if I'd not been looking at my phone while going up a ladder at a children's play area at the time, the head injury would have been avoided).

After the initial head injury, I was injured permanently by an off label antipsychotic prescribed for severe insomnia and anxiety. I've lived with the permanent neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia now for a decade, and it has literally been a decade of absolute hell at times, having no control over my body and muscles that move on their own (to give examples, I get involuntary movements of my mouth, tongue, face and other body parts, along with tic-type movements, and tremors in various parts of my body including the feeling that my brain is vibrating).

I've sat around feeling terrible, depressed and very sorry for myself at times, often asking why I have been through all of this. But obviously I don't always express these thoughts every day, my family know how much it affects me but I try to be quiet about it unless I'm in a flare up.

I remember one time in the post natal period after my 3rd baby was born in 2020, I was having a terrible time with an incredible amount of worse symptoms (probably caused by a drop in the hormone oestrogen), and my friend sent a Christmas message in a card saying she hadn't had the energy for my problems 😳😕 Fair enough, I understood that I couldn't talk about my problems and health continuously, but being told that was quire hurtful. I think I didn't burden her with my woes more than necessary but she had a way of being very blunt that wasn't particularly kind.

Everyone is entitled to feeling the way they do about their problems, and I have found that my health conditions have hopefully made me realise how empathy and kindness are key.

Depends on what the context is. You saying ‘it’s shit that I’m waiting for this news but actually I could be waiting for confirmation that my daughter is dead and that would be a shit ton worse’ and therefore feeling comforted is good and sensible.

Telling a person who is waiting to find out if they have cancer ‘you need to get over it, it could be so much worse, at least you aren’t waiting for confirmation that your daughter is dead’ is a shitty way of delegitimising someone’s genuine anxiety and sadness when you should be offering empathy and support.

I do unfortunatley know what it’s like to have a child die and nothing has come remotely close to that pain.

People can be sad about anything but that level of grief, I changed forever after that.

I remember seeing an acquaintance at a funeral of her friends FIL, she met the man maybe once or twice. She had tears streaming down her face and left the church mid way. I had to leave early too as I was minding a restless child and saw her sobbing outside alone, big heaving sobs. She caught my eye and I looked away, embarrassed. I knew she lost her dear teenage daughter only a year before. Later she walked over and smiled saying 'Sorry about that, sometimes grief is cumulative'. It stayed with me and I think it explains what sometimes seems like an over reaction. I've tried to bear that in mind when I see someone reacting in a way that I might find excessive. I think of her often actually.

I remember reading a small article on the anniversary of the invention of the iron lung. Before that people with Polio had to be manually respirated to get them through the paralysis. This tended to fall on families and sometimes volunteers to spend 24/7 at the hospital manually pumping air into the lungs of children. Sometimes they would fall asleep due to extreme exhaustion. All I could think was imagine waking up next to your dead child realising that they would still be alive if you hadn't dropped off...

Whenever I feel hard done by I think of that article. I would never relate it to a depressed person though, and think it would make them feel better. It would be more likely to make them feel guilty and in some way deficient, that they had no 'right' to feel the way they do. Minimising other people's experince and feelings is never helpful.

I don't think it is ever a good idea to compare who has it worst. I still get upset over my Sister's dog who died over two years ago, yes really! Some people would think that I am being silly.

Knowing somebody is going through something horrific wouldn't do anything for me or change what I am feeling. I would have sympathy but have purposefully shut down feeling too strongly especially when it is a stranger/someone I don't know well. I would obviously be there 100% to provide whatever support I could to those close to me though.

It's an interesting question that I actually think about fairly frequently. I don't really think you can relativise sadness because we're all different and have different coping abilities. Plus it feels wrong to tell someone in pain that another person is suffering more. That just invalidates their pain and we don't really have the right to do that.

Ok, that was nice me. Nasty me does have moments when I just want to tell people to get over themselves, like when they're still distraught over their dead dog four weeks later and my sympathy well has run dry...

The other issue here, on a theoretical level, is that “others have it worse” is often used systemically to shut down conversations about the harms caused to disadvantaged groups by social, political, and/or legal forces. How often do we hear “you’re complaining about some guy at work making a pass at you, when women in [some country, usually a Muslim one] are being murdered for [some minor thing like not covering their hair, wearing makeup, wanting education] - you don’t know what real misogyny looks like”. Even on mumsnet, women who are at the end of their rope because their ex doesn’t contribute enough to keep the children fed and clothed are told “you should count yourself lucky you get anything at all - many women get nothing from their deadbeat ex”.

It’s all part of the same attitude - the “keep calm and carry on” and “stiff upper lip” that have been so harmful to people’s mental and emotional health, as well as being used as a way to silence valid criticism of people’s living conditions.

So yes, of course everything is relative. The question is whether it’s helpful or harmful to say that, and in which contexts it can help. I think PP are right that trying to empathise with someone’s pain by bringing up your own, less ‘major’ pain is generally clumsy at best, and offensive at worst. The lesser pain is in no way invalid, it’s just not useful or kind to imply that it’s comparable to the greater one.

I also agree with PP that relativising pain is most helpful when it comes from within, as a realisation that the pain or harm we’re experiencing is manageable, and exists in the context of a community, many of whom are also suffering in various ways.

But too often the relativism is either internalised as guilt (“I have no right to grieve for my friend, when her husband feels so much worse than I do”; “I have no right to complain about microaggressions, when ‘serious’ racism kills so many people”); or it’s imposed from outside as a way to dismiss someone’s hurt (“You’re being ridiculous to grieve for a dog - it's not like you lost a human relative”; “How dare you ask for a living wage, when there are homeless veterans starving on our streets?”). And that is really harmful - both on a personal level and on a systemic one.

I wonder if the comparison making falls under the umbrella of inappropriate attempts to find a solution. More often than not when a person is mentally suffering they just want their pain acknowledged. They don't want the listener to attempt to come up with a crap solution for their pain.

While I do agree, pointing this out while someone is feeling sad is not the most helpful thing to do. If I’m sad about something I want someone to listen or maybe help depending on what it is. I don’t want to be told that I shouldn’t feel sad because there are people who have it worse. While it’s true enough it doesn’t help my current situation and just makes me feel guilty.

i like the broken leg analogy.

it’s hard when you’re in the moment tho.

I lost my dad (whom I was very close to, absolutely adored, and think he was the person in the world who loved me most, no matter what), very unexpectedly less than two months ago.

He was absolutely fine, then my mum went out shopping for an hour or two and came back and found him. As it was so unexpected, the paramedics, then police, then coroner (by this point 6 hours later, they had to leave his body outside where he lay) and autopsy were all involved.

It has been horrific.

i (logically) KNOW it’s not top trumps. But I’ll be honest, I find it very very hard when older neighbours and friends have compared it to their own losses, where their parent was in the 90s and had been ill for sometime.

I didn’t get to say goodbye or tell him how much I loved him. No one knew it was coming. I didn’t get to give him his Father’s Day card. It was going to be a few days late, but I was seeing him later that week. I’m devastated.

so I make appreciative noises at their comments, whilst inside feeling complete rage.

But someone having it worse doesn't or shouldn't diminish your own situation

This - completely agree with this - I know other people are hurting more but it doesn’t help me feel ANY better.

In fact it sometimes makes me feel worse because I feel like a weakling compared to the suffering of Southport parents, people in Gaza who have lost everything, earthquake victims etc.

It's a fascinating post OP. I have a friend who lost her DH and I feel behaves in a way that suggests this trumps all pain; another mutual friend went through a divorce and the first friend commented at least her husband hadn't died. Another friend's second DH died, she said her divorce from her first husband was more painful because he had chosen to leave her and had chosen someone over her. Another friend said her divorce was more painful then being told she had cancer because she knew she would survive. Sometimes this sounded startling to me but maybe some forms of sadness impact us more because of how we balance things up..

I'm not sure I get your point.

Of course some things are sadder than others. Almost all adults would agree that, but I am not sure how it's helpful or relevant to mention a worse scenario to someone suffering! You aren't aware of how strongly they feel any incident that might happen. People's feelings vary in intensity and context.

Most reflective adults may think , " could be worse ... Look at this on the news ..." but that's for personal reflection, not for another to say to them . That would sound like they are never entitled to their feelings unless it's catastrophe scenarios.

I think we do, naturally, categorise sadness or grief. For example, my husband of 26 years who was a seemingly fit, healthy 47 year old dropped down dead in front of me 8 years ago. There was blood coming out of his eyes and nose as he collapsed in the hallway and my clothes were splattered in the residue. The paramedics called the police because he was young and it was a sudden death and the police called the coroner's ambulance. The whole process took 10 hours, with god knows how many interviews whilst my husband's body still lay in the hallway in a pool of blood and my son had to be sedated. The post mortem (the results of which took 2 months) showed my DH suffered a devastating brain haemorraghe. I will never fully recover.

A few months later I bumped into a friend who I hadn't seen for a couple of years. She asked after my DH (she knew us both) and I told her he had died.

She put her hand on my arm and began to tell me that she knew exactly how I felt because her mum had died a few months earlier. She had died peacefully at the age of 97 in a nursing home. For reference, my friend has been happily married to her husband for 40 years and in her own words, he was her rock when her mum died. I did not have "a rock" because he had died. Both my parents died long ago so it's not as though I am a stranger to that grief either.

So no, I don't think her experience was on any level comparable to mine and if I had been her I would not have dreamt of trying to frame it in the same way.

@WhatNoRaisins Agree about "dumping out" negative emotions. It came from ring theory mentalhealthathome.org/2020/02/13/ring-theory/

I haven't read the thread but I think the crux of the problem you are saying is really in the moment of sadness you don't want cheering up - you qant to be allowed to feel sad - would you say to that mum who knows her daughter is drowned, well at least it wasn't all your children?? Of course not.
When you were waiting for a cancer diagnosis would it have helped if someone said 'well at least it's suspicion of x cancer and not y'. Would that have helped in that moment?
My dad once told me I should get over being raped because at least I wasn't physically hurt
I didn't speak to him again and its been 25 years. You can't dismiss someone's feelings because it could be worse.

The problem with relativising pain and sadness is that you're always going to find someone worse off than you. Yes, that poor lady lost her daughter, and that pain is unimaginable. But some people lose multiple children. Some people lose their children AND their partners. Some people go through all of the above AND are subjected to the worst torture imaginable in genocides, wars and disasters.

So yes, you can relativise pain, but what good does it really do? Every single person has at some stage been through what they'd describe as the worst pain they've ever experienced. And they're all correct.

Lol I lost my 22 year old son in a tragic accident in 2022 and somebody did actually say to me "at least you know how he died there are some people out there with missing and murdered kids" I don't think they were quite prepared for my response though because I burst out laughing and told them they should really look into taking a grief counselling job. It made me laugh because I could imagine my sons response to that comment and he would have found it hilarious and in a way I really needed that laugh. I also lost my fiancé in February of this year and I think people thought I would be fine because pftt just another death innit. I know things could be a lot worse but fucking hell they could be better too. My losses don't trump anybody else going through something shit though because to that person their situation is shit

I haven't voted anything on there.

However, why do we need to compare grief or sadness at all? Life isn't a competition.

Maybe that miscarriage was a woman who hadn't ever fallen pregnant and had been trying for years and all her hope died in that moment?

Maybe that person doesn't have a family and their dog was the one thing that loved them and the only thing they had to love them? Maybe it did feel like losing a relative to them?

I've never understood the point of this discussion. It feels of one upmanship.

We cannot live in another's brain. We can only perhaps empathise from our own experiences. You don't know what it has done to their brains, what they feel inside. Just the same for you.

I will never be a grief thief and compare myself to anybody.

This just feels like another conquer and divide. Just have empathy for everyone when they feel loss, sadness and grief. The human heart is capable of that.

There is no need for comparison at all.

I agree with this. If it's the greatest pain or sorrow someone has experienced it is the 'worst' thing. That's not to say they wont experience a greater pain or sorrow at another point in their lives, and it's as diminishing to their emotional experience to dismiss their pain as 'not enough' as as it is to do the opposite (as in some of the examples people have given here about bereavement being compared to losing a pet).

These are ways that people are trying to relate to each other's emotional experience though and while they might not hit the mark it's surely better that people at least attempt to emphasise with each other than not?

It's completely unhelpful.
If you're in a hospital bed with a broken ankle
And someone is in the next bed with 2 broken angles - you've still got a broken ankle.
And also remember the Mumsnet favourite- it's not a race to the bottom.