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?

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...

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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'.

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

I understand what you are trying to say. I'm conflicted on my feelings about it though.

I got divorced, lost my DD and later on my DDad, all in/around COVID. My friends found it hard to tell me their issues, they'd say "it isn't as bad, it isn't anything really.." I'd have to tell them to please not do that. Please don't minimise your grief and troubles and feel that you can't talk to me, because your troubles are big for you. Although secretly, I did feel like 'you have no idea what grief is'. I'd never say that to them though,and I didn't want them to feel that they couldn't talk to me.

My DP has dogs, who he half jokingly refers to as his kids. One got ill and he was so sad. Again, I understood his pain, and was there for him, but deep down, I felt a bit resentful that he could compare the loss of a dog to the loss of a child.

Again, I'd never say that to him. It would be dismissing his valid feelings.

So I think my view is that, yes, you can relativize sadness, but that you shouldn't, especially not in the moment!

I’m so sorry for your losses, those of you who have shared their experiences of bereavement.

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

^ OK, you lost me there. A 6 week miscarriage and the loss through suicide of an adult child… not just ‘not in the sane ballpark’ but not even the same sport, ffs.

Early miscarriages can be very sad. 20% of pregnancies end in early miscarriage. I had three after two years of trying, so fared worst than the average and am not speaking from a place of privilege.

I could never equate any of that to the loss of my child to suicide. A child you’ve borne and raised to adulthood, loved for decades, being so much in pain they end their life? Come on. That’s a nuclear bomb going off in your life.

(I think it was better for our mental health when we couldn’t know for sure if we were pregnant until later on)

You're talking about two different things. First you're talking about the idea that telling other people that there other people are worse off than them won't make them feel better.

Then, you're talking about how thinking about another person's suffering put your own suffering into perspective.

The difference is, the first issue is about how best to support other people. The second is about how you process your own feelings.

I would argue that trying to put other people's feelings into some kind of perspective for them isn't helpful, no. If someone feels sad it doesn't mean they think they are having the worst time anyone's every had. It means they have a difficult feeling they need to processes. So, a helpful thing would be to acknowledge the feeling - essentially just empathise and then they can process the feeling in their own way.

I don't think it helps to make it relative though. I accept that trying to help people get perspective if they are catastrophising or getting disproportionately upset about things. I went for therapy at one point when I realised that my reaction to something was OTT and it was helpful. But telling someone who is very sad that it could be worse is not helpful or compassionate

Yes and no. I lost my dad earlier this year and I'm mid 40s. Lost my mum in my early 20s. I gave myself such a hard time because I was heart broken and didn't feel I had a right to be. I was much older than when I lost my mum, a mum myself now, my dad was much older than my mum when he died. I didn't feel I had the "right" to feel as sad as did/do. I know people who lost both parents much younger than me. I really tormented myself for being so "weak".

I know what you mean and it can help put SOME things in perspective, but people should still be allowed to feel profound grief, sorrow and sadness.

You can relativise it on your own scale (if you must - it’s not a competition) but you can’t decide how much pain X will cause someone else compared to Y.
For example I found it much, much harder to lose my dog than my grandad or uncle. So you might not agree, but I can tell you which was more sad from my perspective!

The whole quantifying grief thing can be such a double edged sword.I have 1 DS, but after that, I had four MCs which were all between 6 and 8 weeks. I never managed to carry another pregnancy to term.
At the time, I told myself that I should be grateful to have one child, and that the miscarriages didn't count. After all, in the past, people didn't do a test until they had missed two or three periods.
I never told anyone that I was pregnant until I was out of the first trimester anyway, so nobody apart from my husband knows that the miscarriages ever happened.
I never discussed secondary infertility with anyone either. It just felt so crass and cheap because people had it so much worse.
It wasn't until I had counselling for depression that I realised that a lot of my problems stemmed from feeling that I had no right to have feelings. However, I think that this is the sort of problem that should be dealt with in therapy rather than dumping on friends, when you don't know if they have been through the same or worse.

I find it a useful tool to regulate my own feelings. But I wouldn't dream of telling someone else that 'it could be worse'.

My husband's illness and death were awful. But I found myself being so grateful for things that could have been worse. For the year of good quality life that his oncologist really didn't expect. For the fact that he wasn't in too much pain. For the fact that his chemo wasn't as horrible as most. That he, and I as his carer, had lots of support, which ultimately allowed him to die at home. I was constantly aware at each stage that many people weren't being as 'fortunate'.

For the last few month my mental health has been down the toilet, due to some awful circumstances made worse by someone's poisonous behaviour. But two weeks ago, my friend was told that he has almost certainly got Motor Neurone Disease.

My situation will resolve. His... well it doesn't need saying. My attitude to my own troubles changed overnight.

But if someone was telling me about their troubles, it would be really crass to undermine them by either referencing mine or his for comparison.

I think the concept of resilience in the face of devastating tragedies can be unhelpful because it tends to be expected too quickly. In the immediate aftermath of a bereavement for example, while it's something that yes, one has to live with in the long term, it takes time to process the emotional impact and it takes everyone very differently.

I'm a widow of 2.5 years and I'm constantly berating myself internally because others have it worse and I don't feel I have the right to be emotionally erratic. I hide as a result. We live in fast moving times and getting the chance to truly process such events which generate so much bureaucracy and change in one's life on a practical level is difficult.

The expectations of others are the big problem often. If someone is hurting, they just need comfort. If it is naturally given and a person us allowed their process, they will learn resilience in their own time, hopefully. I mean true, internal resilience, not superficial "stiff upper lip" service.

I've learned alot these last two years, mainly that ultimately only I can deal with my emotions in this new world. Comparisons with others are unhelpful, and just prolong the agony I find. I've weathered other storms, all different, but this has been in the top 3. Perspective comes with time. It's no good telling a drowning man how pretty the beach is, nor that at least they're not being eaten by a shark, just drag them onto the boat and head for shore.

I used to work with someone who was signed off work because their rabbit had died.

You are right, of course. But it is not necessary, or helpful to tell the sufferer that other people have it worse. This is always going to sound invalidating.

For mid-range emotional pain, it is better to make it clear you accept that they feel the way they feel. If I had to say anything more it would be words to the effect that they will feel better in time and then just leave it there.

It's not about what other people are also feeling, it's about what the person who is sad feels and how much. Take your example, you were devastated. Would it have changed anything if anyone told you how much worse they had it? Surely you knew there are people all over the world , losing their lives, their loved ones etc. Maybe you even know some personally that have suffered loss. Did that stop you feeling scared and sad and upset? Of course not, because in that moment it was all about you. As it should be.

There's no point in comparing anyway, or playing misery top trumps.

I think there is a commonly accepted hierarchy of sadness, based on how the majority of people would categorise the relative events themselves. The death of your child coming above the death of your dog, the dog above the death of the 96 year old you say good morning to on a Friday and so on. You will always get some who might categorise differently. People who might think their own cancer diagnosis was worse than their grandads death, people who'd think the opposite. That's when you get the grey areas.
There are also people who reserve the right to think whatever is happening to them is by default the 'saddest' and that they are entitled to sympathy because their feelings matter more than their situation. These tend to be the people who say that all feelings are equally valid, its not a race to the bottom and so on. They tend to be s bit self centred and self indulgent.

It is not an olympics of pain. Yes objectively speaking some tragedies are worse than others but people experiencing their various challenges can feel as bad as they like about them. The fact that people elsewhere are worse off does not reduce an individual’s pain.

When you were waiting for results would people saying 'well it could be worse' be helpful?
A few years ago I lost both parents, my fiance and my best friend. It could have been worse but the pain I felt and still feel is very real.

When I had an MC I didn’t think I could feel worse. It was only when I had a SB that I found I could.

I have a few linked thoughts on this.

• you'll only ever be yourself so you'll never know how someone else experiences something or feels. I watched a documentary recently about a famous person who died by suicide and one of her friends spoke very movingly about (I'm paraphrasing) how she would sometimes think 'oh come on, it can't be that bad' and now realised that for this person it genuinely was that bad, she felt very deeply.

• if you're sad, it's kind of irrelevant that other people are sadder. You're still sad. Sometimes sure it's helpful to think 'oh things could be worse, think about poor mrs x' if you're trying to buck yourself up, but I find that only really gets me so far. The slightly different angle of 'counting my blessings' is more helpful for me.

• Sometimes the things that really impact you are not the things that people expect. The times I've been lowest in my life are not the times the 'worst' things have happened to me. Similarly, I remember once feeling a bit of a sham when I was getting a lot of support for something that externally seemed awful but which just hadn't impacted me that much emotionally. The friends I value (and the friend I try to be) are the friends that step up when you say you're struggling, rather than basing how much understanding/support they'll give on what the external event is and how awful they might think it is.
• Pet loss is quite a good example of this for some people I think. You might know that that a human dying is so much worse than your pet - but actually the experience of losing a pet can feel so devastating. I definitely have been sadder about my pets dying than grandparents.

Thanks OP for a thought provoking thread!