Comparison is our worst enemy. We always compare ourselves to others, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes intentionally to either feed our ego or put other people down. In this process, we don’t realize that we’re hurting our own esteem. But when this same comparison is said in the context of health, be it mental or physical, it gets ten times worse.
While researching for my next blog post topic, a small piece of fiction I came across reminded me of a story I heard a while back which I don’t remember completely, but it somewhat goes like this.
There was a man who went to see a doctor for pain in his wrist that he suspected could be a fracture, but when he reached there, the hospital was crowded. There were so many patients that some were even standing, so he gave his details at the reception and went to stand in the waiting area, unluckily right beside a man who was in a wheelchair.
The man was holding his wrist, eyes tearing as he kept asking for his turn which directed some irritated looks from other patients. After a while of back and forth like that, some patients lost it and yelled at him to be quiet, pointing out the fact that the person in a wheelchair could be in way worse pain and yet wasn’t saying a word.
Some called him a show-off, and fake and some even called him bluff, that he was making an issue out of minor pain but when he finally was able to consult the doctor, it turned out his intuition was right, he had a fractured wrist, while the person in the wheelchair was recovering from swollen feet.
I have heard many variations of this story, but the conclusion or lesson it draws is many. The very evident one is everyone judges everyone. Even if they say they don’t. This world, this society we live in, doesn’t hesitate in judging people without even knowing the context of the whole situation. They just love badmouthing others. The second is that we should never jump to conclusions right away. Sometimes we can be right, but there’s a chance that we can be wrong too. But the moral, lesson I see from this story is that every pain matters.
There’s a version of this story where the person in the wheelchair is actually in worse pain, but that doesn’t mean that we dismiss the person who’s in less pain altogether. We never know how much worse it’s for them in person. Every body is different. Some are highly sensitive, and some aren’t sensitive at all.
This conclusion not only applies to physical pain, but mental and emotional pain as well.
We live in a world where people compare sadness with depression, or simply dismiss the illness if it’s in a mild stage. Mild depression is also depression, having no panic or anxiety attacks doesn’t mean the person can’t have an anxiety disorder.
I’ve also heard people saying that ‘oh, it’s not mental illness, it’s not pain, it’s just a spoiled brat who doesn’t get his/her way’, and while most of the time it can be true, it’s not mandatory. We are so quick in comparing mental or physical pain that we forget to acknowledge that less pain doesn’t mean that the person is in no pain at all.
Everyone has different ways of dealing with different situations, and that same applies to mental, physical, or emotional pain. Since the time I started this journey of self-development, I realize that many times what I thought was affecting me mentally were just complaints, but many times they weren’t. I might have lived a better life compared to people with the same issues, but that doesn’t dismiss the fact that I had tried to hurt myself, and have anxiety issues and some underlying issues that I might still not be aware of.
We don’t know what other people have gone through, yet we are quick to judge, only because “it’s not as bad as that other person with the same problems”. Mental health matters, every type of pain matters, be it mild or severe. This society we live in keeps complaining about the increase in suicide rates, and while many are due to astonishingly petty or stupid reasons, most of the time it’s because their own family dismisses their pain because it’s nothing compared to the actual issue.
The people who are in “less pain than others” feel rejected by their own loved ones that they don’t know where to go or whom to talk to. We as citizens should bring this to light and try to change this mentality because no matter the shape and size of the issue, it’s there, and it needs to be dealt with, through love, support, care, and proper medical guidance. It might be nothing, or it might be a big thing, but it’s there, and we all need to change our perspective and see less pain for what it is, pain. Maybe it can result in a decrease in suicide rates.
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