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?

I think you’re right.
Thanks for this.

If I was upset about the death of my beloved cat, or my boyfriend of two years broke up with me, and people said “at least it’s not your mum who died” or “better than your husband of 20 years leaving you.” It would not go down well. It would feel so unnecessary in the moment, as well as hurtful and in no way helpful.
I think it’s fine to let people be sad and feel their own emotions and not compare their sadness to “worse” things that have happened. Even if the thing that has made us sad isn’t the worst thing in the world, we should still be allowed to feel it.

I know it’s different but this reminds me of a time at work when I’d had a week of sleeping badly and suffering from mild insomnia, and I made a passing comment to a colleague one morning that I felt exhausted and was ready for the weekend. And she said “well imagine how Holly must feel, she’s been having so many problems with the baby keeping her awake kicking all night”. (At this point in time, Holly was 8 months pregnant and having a few struggles).
And I just found that comment so annoying. Just because Holly was quite possibly more tired than me, didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed to be tired too! I just felt it was such a silly and pointless thing to say.

When I feel awful I do often try and focus on the fact I'm very fortunate in many ways and multitudes of others live in terrible pain and poverty and violence. It makes me feel a bit of gratitude for what I have which does really make me feel better.
'It could be worse' is often quite a useful tool to get over hard times. But depression is a cloud that can't easily lift with just words. People lose the ability to experience pleasure sometimes.

I really don't think you can quantify or compare grief. I read a quote years ago about not judging a person experiencing a type of grief you haven't and that stuck with me. My sister lost a much wanted baby at 6 weeks, my best friend had a stillborn baby and my aunt lost her adult son to suicide. It was my sisters first pregnancy and it took a few years for her to conceive, my dear friend already has one child, my aunt has other sons. What right do I have to say one is worse than the other?

Poster above was upset at animal abuse and I would be too but child abuse upsets me far more.I wouldn't ever understand the loss of a pet because I don't have any and could never equate an animal life to a human one and yet on mumsnet people often say how they prefer animals to humans etc. However, when my neighbours kids were upset at the loss of their beloved dog I popped around with a box of chocolates because I care that they were upset.

IMO there is a difference between dismissing how someone feels, and minimising their pain, and being able to have perspective.
it can be very damaging to invalidate how someone else feels, and no one ever knows how someone else feels, or how something affects them.
That said, there are times when someone else definitely has it worse.
It still doesn’t mean you have to dismiss someone else though.
Someone else will always have it worse, AND we are allowed to feel how we feel.

I agree there are thoughts better left unsaid. People don't need comparisons they just need acknowledgement.

I was ttc for 15 yrs, I always felt I was 'lucky' because never getting pregnant was less traumatic than being able to get pregnant and then having a loss. But I would never have voiced those thoughts to others.

When I was younger I used to get irritated with people who were upset by having small blemishes (zits or acne for instance) when I had 90% of my body covered in psoriasis. I wanted to say 'it's only a spot for goodness sake, think yourself lucky that you haven't got 'this'. As I've got older I'm much more aware, and less judgemental, of the feelings others have about (imo) minor issues.

Everyone is entitled to their own levels of pain or grief and comparisons tend to highlight your own insecurities and do nothing to empathise with others.

But surely it's much easier to relativise when you have some distance or resolution from your own event?

So you were able to see how the mother of the daughter on the ship is worse off than you were because your have had plenty of time since that awful wait for results and (I assume) the situation has been resolved.

It probably would have been much harder to think the mother was worse off than you when you were in the middle of waiting for results, knowing that at their worst they could be a death sentence for you because of course your own event is going to be much, much more significant to you.

I agree. Losing my DH was the worst thing that ever happened to me – but I don’t think it’s as painful as losing a child would be.

That said, I wouldn’t ever openly play “grief top trumps”, so to speak, as that’s just a dick move. And there’s no denying that some people are more impacted by things than others, or are impacted differently.

I mean logically yes, there is a scale of sadness and how bad things are. But if you’re in the better off or worse off camp, for many people it’s just not helpful to have that comparison. I very much believe in letting yourself feel your feelings. Be cross if you’re cross. Be sad if you’re sad. Personally I do sometimes think to myself, when having a shit day “I’m sure it could be worse” but I also know that for many people it just isn’t beneficial.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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..

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.