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

[comoatoupeira]

I see and hear a lot of stuff at the moment about how you can’t make people feel better by saying that it could have been worse or you’re fortunate compared to other people.

The idea at the moment seems to be that everyone has their own way of feeling sad and everyone has the right to feel sad without other people saying they shouldn’t.
I get it and I can see how it’s important to face up to your own feelings about stuff without being judged.

But I was just reflecting this morning on that mum whose daughter is in the hull of that ship, drowned for sure but she’s waiting for the confirmation, and I was comparing it to when I was waiting for some really bad news (cancer results), which was the worst fortnight of my life and I have never felt so low and I was just thinking: actually, the woman in the yaught tragedy actually does have it a lot worse. Off the scale worse.

AIBU to think that yes you can relativise sorrow, and it’s actually the decent thing to do when we live in a community?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s that reflex isn’t it when someone tells you something and it reminds you of something you’ve experienced and you just want to butt in with "I know what you mean".
But actually you don’t know what they mean and you just need to shut it and listen.

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.

I agree with you in theory.
But what about on the ground with for example mental health policy?
If so many people are getting into these bubbles where they can’t relativise, maybe also because of social media communities? How can we help all these people? Some triage is always done on a systemic level. It seems cruel.

I think there is a natural part of us that moves us towards comparing our situations. When someone loses a close family member it’s not unusual to have people saying ‘oh, I felt like this when my neighbour died,’

The reality is probably that is their only/ worst experience of grief and therefore they offer it up as a form of solidarity. Obviously it’s crap to hear but it’s said from a good if misplaced place usually.

Sorry, not sure what this means

There’s definitely sometimes an inverse correlation between the seriousness of the issue and your emotional response.

I was much calmer when I learned that my dad had died than I typically am when dealing with routine IT problems at work, when I often swear, shout and hit things. That’s not to say that they will have anything like the same long term impact.

Sometimes you give yourself greater permission to get the rage when the stakes are really low.

Of course sadness is relative. We surely all know this from our own lives.

We have minor sadnesses over small things, and greater sadness over great things.

Its bonkers to think you can't relativise this.

For years now I have lived with trauma. I now see all the things that bothered me before were quite ordinary and liveable with. I understand now there is a much more significant level of 'sadness' which effectively alters your perception of reality and changes you, into quite a different person.

I don't really understand the debate over this?

I think it's something you can do for yourself, eventually - to realise that maybe things could be worse, or to put into perspective how a particular moment in your life fits with other moments in your life before or afterwards.

But it's not something to say to other people - it's something they have to recognise for themselves. They might be able to see others doing it for themselves and eventually use that as a model, but I don't think it's usually very helpful for anyone to say, however gently, that someone could not have it as bad as they think they have. You never really know what is going on in their life, and even in the case where you might think that they could have it a lot worse, it is unlikely that telling them that will help, and if you honestly care about them and want to help them feel better, then finding another way will probably be kinder.

If they are the ones to say that someone else has it worse, or to eventually recognise that something in their past was not as bad as they thought at the time, then fine, have that conversation. But always recognise that you can't make that realisation happen for someone else, only yourself, and that to try to do it for someone else will frequently come across as dismissive and uncaring. It's the same as trying to get other people to feel positive about something or to see the silver lining - they have to come to that realisation themselves, and while modelling that to them about things in your own life might be useful, you can't make someone else actually feel positive by telling them so, until they are honestly able to see it like that themselves and come to those conclusions themselves. I hate it when people with serious diseases, for example, are told to 'think positive' because being positive is good for recovery. To me, it just makes it seem like they are being blamed for not being able to be positive.

It isn’t possible to compare. I didn’t give a shit when a close family member died but was devastated when my dog died. Who is to say that my feelings are any less valid than any one else’s?

I actually have found comfort, or at least perspective, from knowing people in worse situations. I have been in and out of hospital for the last 25 years and there was genuine comfort in the wards (before people had phones) from talking to each other. I was once the youngest in the ward by quite some margin and I knew the three older ladies felt sorry for me. However, I felt sorry for them and it helped me appreciate what I did have, which was a lot more visitors, family and friends and treatments not available when they were young.

I think we have lost this now everyone sees their hospital stays in isolation as something only happening to them. I think maternity wards are similar, there was bonding and reassurance in these wards for my parents' generation which we have lost.

Perhaps it isn't relativising sadness, but it is recognising context and perspective. Perspective can be compared to others but also understanding where people are at. I would be more sympathetic to a teens first heartbreak, even over a fairly short relationship, than a month long relationship for someone in their 30s. Similarly I can empathise a toddler being upset that their teddy got dirty.

What's going on in people's heads isn't easy to relativise, it's complicated, you've got to consider their mental health and what their "normal" was beforehand.

For me hearing about another person's suffering does nothing at all to inspire me. For example I hear about a woman who raised 10 kids in a cottage with no electricity and I just feel sorry for her. It doesn't make me feel like I could cope with having more children because she had it harder.

On a practical level I do think it's important to try to "dump outwards" with our very negative emotions. For example I'm having a bad time at work and need to talk, I probably shouldn't pick the friend who just lost all her family to burden with this.

Yes, some situations are certainly worse than others. Of course they are.

But the point is that, just because Person A's situation is more sad than Person B's, that doesn't actually alleviate the sadness that Person B is feeling. Person B isn't feeling as sad as Person A. But knowing that Person A is feeling worse doesn't make Person B feel better.

Think of it like physical pain. If you're sitting in A&E with a broken arm, you're in pain. Someone might be sitting next to you with two broken arms. They're definitely in more pain than you. But knowing this doesn't miraculously make your physical pain reduce. Same applies to grief etc.

It's pretty much true that there is always someone out there worse off than you. But their existence doesn't make your own problem disappear.

I reckon when someone responds to our pain with a comparison, maybe it’s them showing us that they are afraid of the intimacy that is involved in really meeting us in our pain.

Sorry, not really sure either.

Just a general worry about feeling we are becoming less resilient as a society and the costs that that might bring us.

When I had my first miscarriage I got “well you are still young - you have time”

Later on when I had another one it was “at least you have a child”

when my grandma died suddenly of a horrible cancer it was “well she had a good life”

when my friends sister died it was “at least it’s not your sister” when I was the last person to see her alive

….

yeah it could have been worse. But it was still fucking horrible and sometimes all you need is someone to acknowledge that what you feel is hard and sad and heartbreaking.

I feel empathy for other people in horrible situations but I don’t see them as better or worse, just different.

you just need to shut it and listen.

Exactly @comoatoupeira I've learned this lesson now but possibly was insensitive in the past. It was only when I went through losses that I noticed how insensitive others can be.

I think a few months down the line it's ok to say I know how you feel, just not there and then when someone is in the throes of grief.

@anicecuppateaa I am so so sorry.

I love the way you have put this - totally agree that something being worse than your situation doesn’t alleviate the pain you are in.

I really worry that people see “less resilience” when we need to feel our emotions to be a functioning person. I don’t think invalidating anyone’s experience helps in any circumstance

More people I know do the opposite. I grew up hearing "you pity yourself with no shoes til you meet the man with no feet" every time you were upset about something. The attitude was you should never complain about anything because there's always someone in worse circumstances. It's a ridiculous attitude really (and really unhelpful when you suffer from mh problems as I did). Comparing one persons pain/ suffering/ sadness either way is pointless and unhelpful. Like pp said, it's fine to think it but it's usually not something other people need to hear.

I agree with you OP, but it's tricky. I had a single women at work who I manage, no kids, ask for a week off for grief because her cat died.

It's two years later and she's still devastated about the cat - too much to get another one yet.

I get that it's relative tho - I have kids and when my cat died a slow, painful death of cancer I was upset. But I took an afternoon off work to take her body to the vets and cried for a weekend then got over it.

My colleague is still grieving two years later, but then again she doesn't have a partner, doesn't have kids, doesn't have anything else in her life.

I still feel, however, that she can't equate her grief to other people who have family members etc ill - yet she does, which I don't think is right.