You Don’t Have to Feel Grateful

TW: Mental Health, Depression

“You should be grateful it isn’t worse.”

“You’re not the worst off.”

“There’s people out there who feel worse/are experiencing worse/going through worse than you.”

“You don’t have anything to be down about.”

I hate these phrases.

You don’t have to be grateful for things not being any worse than they currently are. You are entitled to feel the way you do (depressed, frustrated, ill etc.) and you are entitled to feel down about that.

If we all went along with this idea of ‘there’s people who have it worse than you’, then, really, logic suggests that there is only one person on this whole planet who is entitled to feel down about their situation.  There is only one person who doesn’t have anyone else stealing the ‘worse off’ crown from them. They’re the only person entitled to feel rubbish and have a moan about it. What sense does that make? 

That one person is not the only person who is allowed to be unhappy with their lot in life. 

We need to stop comparing each others’ ‘bad times’, feeling the need to tell people that they shouldn’t feel upset, frustrated or annoyed with their current situation.

If things are bad for you right now, they are bad for you, whether other people agree or not. There is no hierarchy to feeling depressed, no hierarchy to trauma, no hierarchy to feeling fed up with things or to going through a bad patch in life. There is no ranking for everyone’s individual situation and circumstances, for which are ‘better’ or ‘worse’. Why do people feel the need to tell someone whether they’re entitled to feel a certain way, or compare their own/another’s situation to it?

All cases of depression, difficult situations, trauma, illness etc. are all valid and they are all difficult for that individual. They’re all relevant.

Stop comparing.

See also:

The book Be Your Own Thyroid Advocate: When You’re Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired, which builds on this article in detail.