Just Because Someone Else Has It Worse

Awareness about what other people are going through doesn’t have to mean invalidating your own pain.

When I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis (PsA), I was working full-time as an oncology/bone marrow transplant nurse. Because of that, I was very aware of the fact that there were a lot of people whose medical situations were “worse” than mine.

I use quotes there because my therapist now always likes to gently remind me that there is no comparison when it comes to the various difficult things we all go through in life. She likes to say, “There is no grief Olympics.” And I like to think someday I’ll get that printed on a T-shirt for myself.

Either way, early on, I experienced a lot of guilt for feeling sad, angry, and heartbroken about my arthritis diagnosis and for grieving what l had lost because I knew there were other people right around the corner (in fact, right through the doors of my workplace) who were losing “more.” Their diagnoses seemed scarier, harder to cope with, or more difficult to manage.

I think it’s really good and important to have a certain level of awareness of what others are going through and of the fact that each and every one of us has something going on. I think that awareness is what waters beautiful seeds of compassion inside our hearts that ultimately bloom into flowers of loving action.

I once heard Rachel Brathen, a yoga influencer on Instagram, say “We all feel the same things, just not always at the same time.” I’d add: and not always because of the same things. We all feel pain. We all feel anger. We all feel sadness. We all struggle. We’re all human. We’re all going through different hard things.

Wherever you look, whatever you’re going through, I can guarantee you’ll usually be able to find someone who has it “worse.”

What I’ve realized over the last 5 years is that comparing and deciding that someone else over there has it worse actually doesn’t take away that you have what you have. It also doesn’t change the fact that what you’re struggling with is difficult for you — and that it’s allowed to be.

If awareness of other people’s struggles waters seeds of compassion, denying ourselves the right to feel however we feel about whatever struggles we have going on is the opposite. In fact, maybe it uproots seeds of compassion for our own selves.

My PsA diagnosis stripped away my life as I knew it and forced me into a new normal. It would be silly of me not to feel happy about something in my life just because someone else in the world somewhere is feeling happier. So, why is it different with sadness and grief? It isn’t.

This article is as much for myself as it is for anyone else. It’s OK to grieve what you’ve lost even if someone else has lost “more.” It’s OK to struggle with accepting your diagnosis even if you feel someone else’s may be worse. It’s OK to feel what you feel and to share those feelings with the world.

It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s OK. You can appreciate someone else’s struggle without minimizing or feeling guilty about your own. Grief and loss are two things that are impossible to compare: apples and oranges. We are human. This is pain. This is life. Humans feel.

Our feelings demand to be felt. So, please don’t hide yours away just because someone else out there may feel or have it “worse.”