Is my friend being unreasonable comparing a miscarriage to

[darleneconnor]

being bullied at work?

I fell out with said friend a while back when she was totally unsympathetic about my miscarriage.

I didn't want to have a D&C so the physical and hormonal aspects of it lasted over a month during which time I got zero suport from her.

Now, some time later, she has got in touch by text. I apologised for being short with her but I got no apology from her in return. She said she was 'also going through a lot at the time'. I thought this must have meant some serious health problem or similar with her or her family but later realised she was referring to the problems she is having with her boss. I know office politics can be horrid (I've been in tears in the office toilets myself before) but I think she is being EXTREMELY insensitive by comparing this to my miscarriage. She can choose to quit her job (she doesn't need the money), I had no choice in what happened to me. We both suffered psychological trauma but at least she didn't have all the physical and hormonal aspects on top of that too.

I dont really need a friend like this do I?

You sound very selfish. A miscarriage is a hard thing to empathise with unless you've had one, most people (myself included) find it hard to think of an early miscarriage as a truly terrible thing, unless of course ttc was very very hard. But then I've never suffered one and would always support someone who had one./ A friend of mine had one nearly the same day as I had dd, she didn't talk to me for weeks and now we're not friends. It would have been her third baby, she was five weeks pg.

i belive until someone has had a miscarrriage they don't know how it feels.

on dd i had a suspected MC and those 4 days was the worst i have ever felt in my life, the crying and the emotionon where unbearable..luckly i saw a heartbeat and dd is here.

i am sorry for your loss, but maybe your friend just don't know how physicologal a miscarriage is

Sorry but I agree with Rockbird, there could have been much more going on that you know about. I'm really sorry about your miscarriage, I've been there myself and know how hideous it is but I didn't expect my friends to consider my miscarriage more important that their own problems, which may be huge to them. You don't sound particularly good friends to each other to be honest.

People have m/c and don't feel that way though Auntie. Its not the case that everyone is truly devastated or has a hard time physically either.

Lots of people make slightly crap comments about mc - it's hurtful but it doesn't make them bad people - if you value your friendship you should put the last few months behind you and move on.

Misery competitions - I just don't get them...

You've both been in an unhappy place and needed some support. Both your issues were very important to yourselves.

I've as two miscarriages myself, but wouldn't necessarily class them as worse than bullying.

You can't compare the experience of suffering. You might reasonably say that a miscarriage is more dreadful than workplace bullying. But that doesn't mean that her experience of it isn't as bad as yours. You can't tell.

A few years ago my friend's wife was dying of leukaemia. It was a totally tragic mess. He had several DC to care for - not all of them his. I was pregnant again and suffering with dreadful abdo pains - terrified I was losing my baby. The fear of losing my baby was not as great as the knowledge that he was losing his wife and children were losing their mother to a really painful and unpleasant illness. But I will readily confess that to me my problems loomed much larger for a periods of time.

It sounds like both of you are maybe having trouble putting yourselves in each other's shoes, or listening to each other

"it may be nothing but it is my nothing"

Your problems will always feel bigger to you than anyone else.

You have two choices here, you decide that her friendship is important to you and worth saving.

Or you decide it isn't.

Sounds like you are both having a shit time, and could probably do with each others support. As for her not coming over, people deal with things differently, when I am struggling I can't face seeing anyone - no matter how much I care about them, whereas my husband needs company when he is struggling. Neither of us is right or wrong, just different. From what you've described it seems quite possible that you do both just need different things.

You are also both very emotional right now, and that can lead to you feeling defensive and angry.

Best thing I can advise is think about what good things have come out of your friendship and then decide whether it is worth losing them.

I really hope things get better for you both and you can put this behind you.

I've had a miscarriage and I've been bullied at work.

To be honest (and bear in mind, this is purely my experience) the miscarriage was a lot quicker and easier to 'get over' than the bullying at work.

The bullying knocked my confidence, made me feel like I wasn't worthy and I couldn't rationalise why this had happened because (in my mind) obviously I had done something wrong yet I didn't know what. I didn't have any choice in being bullied - I find that a slightly strange way of looking at it. Of course I could choose to leave (and I did), but that doesn't lessen the effects of the bullying.

The miscarriage was traumatic, but I didn't do anything to make it happen, and I could rationalise it that way. It wasn't an attack on my like the bullting was.

Different people cope with different things in different ways. You can't lessen someone elses trauma just because you think yours was worse.

YAB(slightly)U.

I've had two miscarriages. Both utterly devastating (I am very sorry for your loss).

But I have also suffered bullying at work, and it absolutely destroyed me for months and months. It was one of the worst experiences of my life, to be honest.

Regardless, there is no competition. You both had some extremely hard times and weren't there for each other when you needed a friend. The questions is, can you move on and heal your friendship now?

I am sorry you had a miscarriage however I think YABU I was in a abusive relationship in which involved mental,physical and sexual abuse. I became pg through rape and lost the child. I left and a month later I started seeking my friends support my one friend was unable to support me because she was having difficulty in her own relationship her partner was cheating. For a split second I was angry at her and then I became angry at myself because who the hell was I to judge whther her pain was as bad as mine. To judge whether her pain was severe enough to require support.

It may not have been as bad as mine but it was painful to her and as a result she was unable to support me because she had to take care of herself.

Thank you to those who've completely belittled the pain of miscarriages.

I've been bullied at work, I've had more than one miscarriage... I'd take the work bullying any day. You can walk away from work at the end of the day - can't walk away from grief at all. Bullying at work was a piece of piss to deal with compared to the pain life's thrown at me this year.

Oh and thanks for playing the "rate the eligibility of a miscarriage for grief" thing too like someone did.

Fucktards.

Emptyshell, no one has done that. Just pointed out that you cannot compare your pain/grief with another persons pain/grief. And that for some people bullying is worse, while for others it isn't.

Having had both a miscarriage and been bullied at work (not at the same time, thank goodness) I know how both you and your friend must have felt.

As others have pointed out misfortune is not a competition, and it seems that both of you have been tied up with your own problems to be able to be there for each other.

A miscarriage is devastating, but you do get over it. Being bullied at work impacts on your whole life and sucks your self confidence out of you. It can go on for years, and if you have never been bullied I think you can understimate the damage it does to your self esteem.

Having read your follow up points - it sounds like your 'friend' was not bullied but had a difficult boss/work situation - two totally different things.

I think in light of your clarification your 'friend' has been a cow.

Thats you emptyshell, and you know, its not all about you.
I've also had more than one m/c and they weren't the most dreadful things to ever happen to me. Everyone is different, nobody is talking about YOU.
People have killed themselves over workplace bullying. You have just belittled them and their grieving relatives. I'm not going to call you names for that though.

Now stop calling people fucktards for no good reason.

But how exactly did she compare it? You haven't really clarified anything tbh, just said she compared it and you thought that was already clear. It seemed very much as though you had both been through terrible situations and because she hadn't given you the sympathy and attention you thought she should've, you thought she wasn't valuing what you had been through.

I don't think her making excuses is any real measure of how much she cares either, she just might not have known how to support you and instead of saying that, went about it in a slightly daft way.

You have both been through terrible things, neither of which anyone should have to go through, but it sounds like your friend has more of a reasonable perspective on it, and is not thinking of ending your friendship. I do believe if you were to do this, you may well end up regretting it.

No one is belittling what you went through, just trying to help you gain an outside perspective on it. People don't always understand what they haven't been through themselves, and it seems like perhaps both you and your friend are stuck on that.

Don't like what I say, don't like the fact I have the lack of consideration to miscarry, grieve and not hide away in the designated little hole you'd like to hide us in... tough.

Report me for abuse if you'd rather - I'm going nowhere.

A few crappy words and some aggro at work, over the loss of your child. Yeah of course the nasty little miscarriage isn't as bad.

I almost committed suicide over mine by the way - hell it's the only way I'd get to be with my children.

madamdeathstare That wasn't the OP calling people fucktards.

es, you don't think your perspective might be just a little bit skewed? You don't even know who you are having a go at.

emptyshell what you've been through is awful, no one is denying that. And no one wants to shut you away.

We currently do not know what the OP's friend is going through. So to try and compare it is silly. And even if we did, we can never know how much the situation is hurting her. This is not about comparing grief.

You are already hurt by what you see a comparing your grief with someone elses, it works both ways.

No one has said that miscarriage isn't absolutely awful and horrific. But you have dismissed grief caused by bullying, in a really nasty way.

Does it occur to you what bullying has done to others? For some it leads to nervous breakdowns, self harm, life long depression, even suicide. Same as miscarriage.

For others it is possible to get over it, same as miscarriage - as others on this thread have said.

Let me simplify it, do you think it is ever ok to tell someone that their grief is not valid? If you don't then your post is offensive. If you do, then you should expect the same treatment (not that you've had it here)