Why You Tell Yourself Others Have It Worse
There's a quiet habit a lot of us share. The moment something feels hard, a voice steps in to remind us that other people have it harder. A layoff somewhere. A friend going through something bigger. A whole world of suffering that makes your own day feel small. So you swallow the feeling and move on, telling yourself you have no right to be upset.
It sounds like humility. Often it's just a way of avoiding your own emotions.
Where the habit comes from
Most people learn this early. You mention a bad day and someone points out that things could be worse. You're handed perspective before you're given permission to feel anything at all. Over time you internalise the lesson: my pain only counts if it's the worst pain in the room.
So you start doing the math automatically. You rank your struggle against everyone else's, and yours almost always loses. The feeling gets filed under "not bad enough" and pushed somewhere out of sight.
Why minimising backfires
Comparing pain doesn't actually help anyone. Your friend's harder situation isn't improved by you ignoring your own. All that happens is you lose touch with what you're feeling, and emotions you refuse to name tend to stay. They go quiet, then they resurface as tension, irritability, or a flat, foggy mood you can't quite explain.
Two things can be true at once. Someone else can be going through something heavier, and your hard thing can still be real. You don't have to win the comparison to deserve your own attention.
How to let a feeling exist without ranking it
The shift is small but it changes things. Instead of measuring a feeling against everyone else's, you let it exist and ask what it's pointing at.
This is where a daily reflection practice helps. Using the journaling space in SelfTalk, you can write down what you're feeling without the usual disclaimers. No "but it's not a big deal," no comparison. Just the plain version of what's going on. Naming it on the page is often enough to take some of the pressure out of it.
SelfTalk's mood tracking can show you something too. When you log how you feel over time, the days you brushed past start to stand out. You begin to notice the pattern of dismissing yourself, which is the first step to interrupting it.
And when you're not sure what a feeling is even about, the AI chat can help you talk it through. It asks the questions you skip when you're busy convincing yourself you're fine, and gives the feeling room to be examined instead of ranked.
A few questions to sit with
Next time you catch yourself reaching for "someone has it worse," pause and ask:
- What feeling have I told myself I have no right to?
- What would I say to a friend who felt this exact thing?
- What is this feeling actually trying to point me toward?
You can be deeply aware that others are struggling and still make space for your own experience. Compassion for yourself and compassion for everyone else aren't in competition. They tend to grow together.
If you've been brushing past your own feelings lately, open SelfTalk and write one down without justifying it. Let it take up space for a moment, before you rank it against anyone else's.
