The Pain Olympic Review

There is no objective scale of suffering. A paper cut can be the worst pain in the world to a hemophiliac; a divorce can be less traumatic than chronic bullying. Pain is subjective. The only person who can measure your pain is you.

Instead of escalating, try responding with: "That sounds incredibly hard. Thank you for trusting me with that." You do not need to match pain; you only need to acknowledge it. the pain olympic

When suffering becomes the central pillar of one's identity—"I am a survivor of X" or "I am a person with Y disorder"—then any threat to the severity of that suffering feels like a threat to the self. If someone else has it worse, what remains of their identity? There is no objective scale of suffering

Instead of comparing your pain to others (horizontal), compare your present self to your past self (vertical). Are you coping better than last month? Are your symptoms less frequent? That is the only competition that matters. The only person who can measure your pain is you