Comparing problems

I hate it when people compare their pain to someone elses.

There are serious problems around the world, I get that there are starving children in Africa and other countries. There are homeless people all around the world, there are people who murder others or murder themselves. There are terrorists. Some places have guns more than other places. Some people are obese, some are anorexic, some are in between.

I could name every problem I can think of, and there would still be more.....



Ok, so I'll tell you what I mean by all this:
 I'm not allowed to call myself chubby. When I say that I have a muffin top, or my thighs are bigger than they should be, or my arms are starting to sag with fat like a tuck-shop ladies arms..... I get in trouble. I get in trouble by people who are heavier than me. One of my friends says "Darl, you've got nothing to worry about!". Well actually I do have plenty to worry about. I eat too much junk, and I snack a lot. I don't exercise enough, and I have a family history of heart problems. Just because I'm not as overweight as my friends, does not mean that I am not overweight at all. Obesity is a real problem in this world. I think it is healthy of me to want to lose weight. I should be encouraged, not criticized.

Second thing:
 I hate people comparing depression with starving children in Africa. For a world full of depression, there sure are a lot of people who don't really know what depression is. If you are one of the people who don't, then here is the definition from Dictionary.com:

de·pres·sion

[dih-presh-uhn] 

noun

1.

the act of depressing.

2.

the state of being depressed.

3.

a depressed or sunken place or part; an area lower than the surrounding surface.

4.

sadness; gloom; dejection.

5.

Psychiatry. a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason. Compare clinical depression. 

  

 

You can't tell someone with clinical depression, to just get over it. It doesn't work.  It is common for a depressed person to not even want to get out of bed in the morning... that isn't laziness, it is illness. A big symptom of depression is anxiousness. I know someone who has bouts of serious depression, and he described how he felt as living in hell. He felt so anxious that he couldn't contain it. Depressed people, just like anyone with a mental illness, can't help their problem.

My point is that yes, some people ARE "better off" than other people, some problems may seem more problematic than others, and some ARE more problematic than others... but we all feel problems differently, just like we are passionate about different things. People hide things, and some people have problems that can't be hidden because they are a different sort of problem, does that make it worse?

 

Think before you speak, before you compare.