Why is there always this "beef" “I'm sicker than you”?

[cali22♡]

Title.

Depression or mental health in general has become a trend and whenever I look at the comments I always see people railing against it

Why is it like that?

 

[Namelesa]

I assume its cus people feel like if they aren't "sick enough" then their problems aren't valid. People with mental illness are often told "other people have it worse than you" so they might have taken that and applied it to other people with mental illness as to make their problems seem more valid. The truth is everyone's problems are valid and all deserve to be able to vent and talk about it, no matter how little or big it is so we shouldn't try to compare each others problem in terms of how bad it is as that is going to cause someone to feel invalid for the way we suffer.

 

[InversedShadow]

I think that people in general will always underestimate the pain of 2nd person and think theirs is bigger in some way, trying to emphasize their own, and trying to make the pain of the 2nd person smaller, they would have to be dying sick, after something really major for the other person to leave some impression, sadly.

all deserve to be able to vent and talk about it, no matter how little or big it is so we shouldn't try to compare each others problem in terms of how bad it is as that is going to cause someone to feel invalid for the way we suffer.

Big agree on that, it should be handled in such a way... no need for comparing, but there should be more trying to be understanding and compassionate towards the other person

 

[derpyderpins]

Life is full of competition, and therefore resentment and self-doubt, which leads to lashing out.

A big, looming question for all of us is how much of the outcome is pre-determined. [ @Alexei_Kirillov ] There's this perception that your success is a measurable calculation involving both things in your control and out of your control. Things out of your control would be socioeconomic status growing up, family stability, genetic gifts like IQ or athleticism or just being healthy, etc. What's in your control are the choices you make, what you do with your time, where you focus your effort, how much effort you put in, things like that. (Note that I don't necessarily agree with all of this. I've written that I think capacity for effort is its own sort of talent, but this is a regular perspective.)

We all can't be winners in the various competitions in life. Most of the big things we selfishly want - be among the most rich, top of your profession, with the most beautiful partner, most popular, etc. - have very limited slots. The people who feel like they came up short - whether they admit it or not - want to feel better about themselves in comparison to others. Because they're told/they believe that the non-deterministic 'things in your control'/'things out of your control' dynamic is proper, they want to tell themselves that as many of their shortcomings as possible fall into the 'things out of their control' category. They do this by comparing themselves to others.

The result is a race for the bottom. To keep it overly simple, let's say "Success" = X + Y, with X being what's under your control and Y being what isn't. You know what your estimate of your success is, so we have a guess at the sum of X and Y. You want to say that your X is the highest possible, and the only reason others did better than you is they were lucky and born with/fell into high Y. You start adding up Y factors to compare with people around your level of Success. Most can be seen (even if our perception is bad, we're biased to think it's good): 'oh you grew up in a rich household, higher Y,' 'oh you lost your leg in an accident, lower Y.' Mental health is largely unseen, though.

So say I'm making my comparison with someone in a similar circumstance to me (similar perceived "Success") and so far all the Y factors are pretty equal and what's left is our mental health issues. I have depression, and I want to argue this falls into category Y, a hindrance like missing a limb, meaning my X is higher: I'm doing the best one could hope to do with my circumstances. But now, the person I'm comparing to also says they have a mental health issue, be it anxiety or ADHD or whatever. You can see where this leads. My ego, to protect myself from having a bad self-image under the paradigm I have created, lashes out to put down the other person and protect my self-image. "Their issue is exaggerated, it's not real like mine, they're just making excuses because they aren't trying hard enough."

It's ugly, and it's cruel, and it's misguided, but it comes from a position of not being happy with themselves. Pain leads to pain.

That was a little long and maybe convoluted but I think that is part of the Ego's thought process in choosing the behavior you describe.

 

[Life_and_Death]

People with mental illness are often told "other people have it worse than you"

telling people "their problems arent bad enough" is actually part of the dbt therapy work

accepts acronym - the second C - comparisons -Comparing your current situation to a time when you coped successfully or to someone who is worse off. This can help put your current distress into perspective

when theyre actually teaching you "youre fine"

 

[Namelesa]

telling people "their problems arent bad enough" is actually part of the dbt therapy work

accepts acronym - the second C - comparisons -Comparing your current situation to a time when you coped successfully or to someone who is worse off. This can help put your current distress into perspective

when theyre actually teaching you "youre fine"

What the fuck?! Reading this now I don't want to do DBT therapy now. I constantly hate myself for not being able to deal with my problems so that just going to make me feel worse.

 

[Life_and_Death]

What the fuck?! Reading this now I don't want to do DBT therapy now. I constantly hate myself for not being able to deal with my problems so that just going to make me feel worse.

well the rest of it seems fairly helpful. its just that 1 letter ive found an issue with though.
find whats best for you, maybe theres something else you can replace it with like, compassion? treat yourself gently. or something like that.

 

[Jack_Nimble]

It can be attention seeking also. Just as it's cool to be the baddest boy.

 

[Regen]

I agree with the previous posts. I would also like to add that sometimes it may also have something to do with growing up in a situation of deprivation as a child. You didn't get enough of what you needed and now you're trying to be loud enough to get something. Mmh, I hope you understand what I mean, difficult to describe. I avoid this mental illnes competions and don't read these things.

 

[cats333]

i think it has something to do with seeking validation in struggling, just trying to feel seen but going about it the wrong way

 

[harlow-paige]

coming at this as someone who spent a lot of time in that "i'm sicker than you" toxic mindset for a long time and used it to justify acting like a complete [insert choice of word here], at least for me a lot of it came from a place of feeling so little control over even my own life; that almost the only way to feel like i was special in any way was to be the "worst" / most mentally ill.

To me anyways it became sorta almost like an identity, something that i leaned into way too hard and almost ironically did make my mh even worse.

there was honestly a bit of spite to it too, the worse i acted and the more sick i seemed, the more it was a "look what parents/exes/friends from my past did to me, look how awful they treated me and what they turned me into". almost as if my struggles didn't count if they weren't bad enough.

tho i learned far too late that treating it like a competition just pushed me into and kept me stuck in those shitty behaviours and cycles. turns out acting like the insane sickest girl, gets you treated like that by people and just breaks you down even more. it even stopped me from getting help or even support from friends for/with anything because it was something i wore proudly too (ugh), so instead of getting help or meds or whatever i needed it just turned into a chaotic spiral consuming everything.