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

I look at it differently. I find that seeing how others deal with immeasurably sad situations - no matter how they do it - sort of “inspires” me to try and be more stoical or positive or even unashamedly sorry for myself. I also feel “wow, if that person can make it through that harrowing circumstance, I can surely deal with this less bad but still awful thing I’m going through”.

The story of the Von Erich family I found very inspirational despite being one of the saddest situations I’ve ever heard of.

This reminds me of a chat with a friend a few months after we had both suffered miscarriages. She said something like we were both in the same boat and I nodded along but I was so angry. Our situations couldn't have been more different. She was TTC 1 month, literally conceived 1st go then MC at 6 weeks, she was pg again 6 weeks later. I had been TTC almost a year and had been looking at treatment and was 10 weeks along, I didn't have that reassurance of just try again, it felt like my life fell apart. As it happened it took years and 17k and I got there in the end but no we were never in the same bloody boat. But now looking back I understand of course her loss was real too and shouldn't be diminished because my loss was worse.

Of course sadness is relative, but generally they're thoughts best not spoken most of the time. I think sometimes it can be helpful, but not often and sometimes it just doesn't matter that it's not the worst thing in the world or even in our own lives if it's currently hurting like hell.

So sorry for your loss. I don’t think you can quantify someone else’s grief is any less than yours though as people are so different. Someone with an objectively fortunate and trauma-free life could be in the pit of despair due to their MH.

Because it is incredibly dismissive and hurtful to trivialise someone else’s pain. When someone needs support they need love and empathy as they are clearly not in a place to think “at least it’s not worse.” But yes, it’s something that you can come to yourself and make you feel better.

This is interesting and I have often reflected on the overlap between gratitude and relative grief/suffering.

The other aspect of this is whether it's slightly unethical to think about how someone's suffering is worse than your own. Are we almost using their suffering to make ourselves feel better that we 'don't have it that bad'? Philosophical stuff.

Feelings are weird. I was once utterly beside myself with rage because the final day of my short uk break didn't go as I'd planned because my friend changed the arrangements and we ended up doing an unplanned hill climb.

I struggled to contain my feelings then rang my sister to offload. She was bemused then amused when she realised the trivial nature of my complaint. We both ended up pissing ourselves but those hours of fury were real. I've learned to 'stress test' my emotions by airing them to a disinterested party who can kindly tell me if I'm er, slightly over reacting. Before making an almighty arse of myself.

I think so but most people disagree. My dd died in traumatic circumstances a few years ago and people often like to compare my grief to losing grandparents or pets.

This really upsets me-like when they bring out the vicar who says this awful event has brought out the strength in the community or it’s wonderful to see people pulling together. There is no positive in people being murdered.

Perhaps the way to look at it depends on whether you are considering your own feelings or ranking other people's?

I want to suggest when you're looking at other people's difficulties perhaps a 'pain scale' approach would be kinder and more realistic. How is this experience compared to the most emotionally painful that individual has had.

For myself it does help to be grateful that my current experiences of loss and sadness are not as painful as other imaginable losses and previous ones I have actually experienced.

I think you can relativise it in your own head, but why would you be compelled to articulate it? Leave people to feel how they feel

It's very personal. For me, losing my lovely dh was a million times worse than losing my abusive mother will be. But for other people, losing their beloved mum would be far worse than losing their abusive dh. Losing a child is probably the worst for most people

It’s a philosophical question. There’s no right or wrong answer. I often think about how joyless and hard peoples’ lives were 200 years ago in this country and in many parts of the world today. It certainly can stop you feeling sorry for yourself! But we are allowed to feel sad. I was very sad when my partner died, he was relatively young, but I don’t think it could compare to the distress of the families of Bebe, Alice and Elsie in Southport or the families of Grace, Barnaby and Ian in Nottingham.

Emotions are hard to quantify. I imagine that poor woman, who has also lost her husband and friends, is in such a deep state of shock she barely feels anything right now.

Ive had a recent and very close bereavement. Mostly I still feel disbelief which is easier than the raw pain but when it appears it’s pretty all consuming. It’s not a race to the bottom though. Rationally of course others are suffering worse.

On the other end of the scale is happiness. When you feel absolutely your very happiest that’s how you feel. Others would feel differently.

@Quacksalver I hope you gave that family member a punch and then a very wide berth.

I don't think you can really expect to apply numerical data to emotional responses.

Sure, you could devise a system to quantify the severity of different life events and assign a points value to each aspect of the event to determine the severity of each experience one could have, but (1) it would never be truly objective as not everyone will agree on how each of the nuances of a situation should score and (2) people's emotional reactions are largely subjective anyway, so even if you say "this event should give you x amount of sadness", each person will react differently to the same set of circumstances.

Of course you can, but you shouldn't directly to someone who is going through something awful.

When you were waiting for your cancer results, can you honestly say someone putting a hand on your shoulder and going "at least someone out there has it worse than you" would've comforted you?

Yes you can relativise pain and suffering, and the reality is that whatever you're going through there's someone out there suffering worse than you, but you just don't say it to someone in the midst of suffering. It's insensitive and callous.

I would say that “comparison is the thief of joy” could be extended to “comparison is not comforting”. How is it anything to do with your sadness that someone else is sadder?

I don’t think you can relativise the actual direct experience as you feel it.

But if you have had exposure to genuinely life changing grief such as a life limiting illness or the death of a spouse it does increase you capacity to put things into perspective.

For example I remember as a child being devastated when a beloved cat died. If one of my beautiful cats died today I would equally be sad and bereft but having had close friends die of cancer in their 40s I would be able to appreciate that the scale of my grief was more limited.