Your Struggles Are Valid

As most of you probably know, I very recently experienced a huge and unexpected loss. As a group of us were traveling to MS for a church missions trip, two friends and fellow church members, a dad and his son, were caught in a terrible car accident and didn't survive. In the midst of dealing with this tragedy, I have had numerous friends tell me they were praying for me, my church family, and the family and friends of the two men. During one of these conversations, I asked a friend if there was anything I could be praying for him about. He was hesitant to answer, saying that my pain at the moment was much worse than anything he was dealing with, and he didn't want to bother me with it.

I think this is common for many of us - I know it is for me anyway. We downplay our hurt, thinking it isn't valid in light of others'. If a friend is hurting and they ask me if anything is wrong, I often say no, or gloss over it. I think it's a combination of not wanting to focus on our own hurts or problems for fear of seeming like we want attention and genuinely thinking that the other persons pain is worse than ours, therefore ours doesn't deserve notice.

The thing is, though, out pain isn't diminished by the fact that someone else is hurting more. Just because someone else broke their arm, it doesn't mean running into a wall doesn't hurt. It's the same with emotional pain. Just because I just lost two close friends, you can still be hurt by the fact that you think your friends don't care about you anymore, or that you're struggling with depression "for no reason," or for something that happened five years ago that rose to the surface suddenly for no reason. 

In all honesty, we can ALWAYS find someone whose pain we think is worse than our own. If we constantly downplay our pain because someone else has worse hurt, I could point out that the close family of my friends lost a husband and son, a boyfriend, a cousin, etc. and I therefore have less reason to feel pain. That's the beautiful thing about all of this though - we get to share in each others pain. That means that I have friends coming close to me to make sure I'm doing okay with this tragic experience, but at the same time, I can make sure they're doing okay with the stuff they have going on in their own lives. 

That's what it's about - recognizing that we all experience pain, simply of differing degrees than each other, rather than trying to invalidate our pain because we feel like we shouldn't feel our hurt in light of someone else's. So it's okay to understand that someone else is hurting more than you. That's okay. But it doesn't mean you aren't hurting. You can hurt at the same time as someone else without feeling guilty. Your pain isn't made greater or worse by someone else's. No matter what you or society tell yourself, your struggles are valid.

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