This is a wonderful and thoughtful post. It brings to light some of the potentially harmful effects of what might otherwise be a well-intentioned consolation. The truth is, it isn’t, and instead of helping someone, it can do further damage. The other truth is, everyone has their own set(s) of issues that affect each person differently. It’s not good to judge one person’s set(s) of challenges against another’s. This post is spot-on, and a great read! Applause all around. 🙂
“Telling someone not to be sad because others have it worse is like telling people they can’t be happy because others have it better.” I saw this quote earlier this week and could not find the original author. This is a wonderful analogy though.
“You’re better off than most” is a phrase that, believe it or not, is helpful to some. When I hear this, however, I get so frustrated. It may be true that someone with a life-threatening disease has bigger problems than me, but that doesn’t make my problems invalid. People like to say “you shouldn’t be so depressed, because there are those who live with cancer”, and it makes me feel ashamed to be the way I am sometimes. I’m probably not the only one who feels this way.
Despite what others say, your problems, big or small, are valid. If someone says that you should quit…
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the silent wave 
Oh this is a phrase that makes me see red! I immediately strike the person saying it off my list of people I want to converse with.
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Hell yes! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼. Same here. Like Grandma said in her comment, I tell myself that enough, and I don’t need anyone else saying it to me! There are a tiny few times where someone could say that to me and we would both know that it wasn’t intended to be condescending or anything else. But that’s a *really* tiny few, and only at certain times, in certain situations. Very specific and out-of-the-ordinary. Most people, oh *hell* no, not cool, not called for 💞🌺🌻💚
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hey, the living dont have real problems they have to deal with– everyone else is dead!
the funny thing is, when people dont get anything about what youre going through, they can always dismiss your problems through false comparisons. its a sorry excuse to not bother caring or understanding, but the only reason youd use that excuse is if you dont care or dont understand.
dont have too many friends with this attitude– theyre not friends, its that simple. theyre acquaintences at best. we screwed up when we made the real thing a short and easy word, and the more likely thing the one thats too long to bother saying– most people arent friends, theyre “quaints.” if anyone asks though, laina is a friend, always. ❤ ❤
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Awww 😘😘🤗💓. You’re awesome, have I told you that? 😉💚💙. I love your “quaints” term! Must steal 😉👍🏼🌺😎😍💞
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made for stealing, please steal ❤
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That’s exactly what that kind of phrase is, its dismissive, denigrating, and smacks of I’m not interested enough to care. Its why it infuriates me sooo much.
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on the other hand, its very easily translated to “i dont care about you, these arent the friends youre looking for, youre free to go now.”
i mean i would probably just say “thanks” and pick up my stuff and go at that point “hey! where are you going? was it something i said?” “not at all! i just remembered, i left my life in my other friends.”
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Yes!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼😘💖
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Yes! I say this to myself often enough. I don’t need someone else to remind me that it could be worse. We are all different and we deal with things differently. What might seem small to me may be huge to someone else and vice versa. I think the only yardstick one should ever use is oneself, and even that should be lovingly & with kindness. That analogy quote is awesome. Thanks for finding & sharing this😍🌹💖🌻💞☯😎
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My pleasure, dude! The writer is very talented and such an amazing person, too. Very kind. Great blog 😊.
I totally, totally agree with your comment! 👏🏼👏🏼😘. I like your idea of the individual yardstick 👍🏼🌷🌴🌻🌎☀️🏆☮💟
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on a tangent: ive been thinking about this person i know who says im “a little weird” (but im ok, he says.)
thats fine– i dont mind if people think im “a little weird.” thats alright, i always knew i was a little weird. its kind of annoyingly pithy though, if its the reason we arent friends. ive always had weird friends, many of whom were gems of people. save your “a little weird” comments for people you actually care about– then its fine (at least by me.)
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Exactly 😊. I like the way you think! 👍🏼😘❤️
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I hate it when others diss your emotions with that kind of attitude.
On the same time… “i complained that i had no shoes until i met a man without legs” like some persian old proverb says (either of no shoes or about the shoes) – if it’s an interal realization (and kept internal) it can be just a normal though. “It’s not so bad”, in other words. (Just keep it internal, otherwise… you’ll always end up comparing to someone who you think has it worse but they don’t think so. Like “i can’t see but at least I’m not deaf, it’d be so much worse…” then a deafblind friend chimes in, “at least I’m not autistic” and so on).
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So true! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼. I agree; I think it’s fine to say stuff like that inside as long as 1) I’m not putting anyone down in a cruel way, even in my head; 2) I don’t use it to berate or judge myself or bully myself into pushing myself harder than I should; 3) (I forgot what I was going to say for #3 lol). 😉💖
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I did another aspect for this… since we always get the talking down for any ASD issues (“you are so mild case/so high functioning” etc), what if we tried it with NTs when they try to tell about their issues? like, NT: “my head hurts” comeback: “your headache is so mild… this friend I know had brain cancer, and this other guy I knew died after a killer headache”
https://blinkiefrustrations.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/comparing-the-functional-levels-why/
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Omg! One of the best posts on this I’ve ever read 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼😊💓
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Thank you so much for the reblog, Laina. I hope that people can see this and learn how to properly help others who are having problems.
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Absolutely, dear friend! Thank you for the permission to reblog! Such a profoundly terrific post 😊👍🏼💖💜
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Absolutely right – when you are depressed or even just down in the dumps, that statement is no help whatsoever.
Slightly off topic, but my problem is that I say this to myself and it’s one of the big stumbling blocks in deciding whether I’m autistic or not. As in, despite all the experiences I have in common with autistic people, I still think my life is “too good” and I haven’t got it “bad enough” to be autistic. I can cope with a lot of things other people report great difficulty with.
So whichever way you look at it, that statement isn’t going to help anyone. Good post, and thanks for drawing attention to the blog.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts, my friend! I can relate 😊
I don’t think having “too good” a life disqualifies someone from being on the spectrum 😊. After all, the “good life” is a nurture factor and neurological orientation is a nature factor 😉💙💜
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Yep, the good old “mine was bigger”…
I was taught as a child to confront these people with giving them a false account about “eating small bits of poop when I was a baby”. And won’t you believe it, but I had some replying without even thinking, that they ate much bigger bits…
Unfortunately this is just a falsely “polite” way of downplaying someone’s misery…
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O. M. G. that’s awesome!!! 🙌🏼🎉🎊. I should totally try this with a few people lol. 😂😂
Especially the “everybody’s like that” crowd. You know, the ones who, when you try to describe how your different traits make life challenging sometimes, they say, “well, everybody’s like that”.
Can you imagine?
“I eat little bits of poop sometimes.”
“Well, I think everybody eats a few pieces of poop sometimes.”
“….”
Lol! 😂👍🏼😁💓
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Trust me, you should try it only if you can pull a serious face, otherwise be prepared to run 😉
I did an experiment with one very annoying person, while making the other one aware of what I’m about to do, as this one kept playing down anything we said, so we invented something randomly to feed this nasty one. Guess what, to our surprise the person jumped right on the hook, so we had to leave for outside the office as we were choking…
Mwahahaha 🙂
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