Can We Please Stop Competing in the Suffering Olympics

What’s with this obsession of comparing woes and undermining individual suffering?

Unsplash+ with Victoria Romulo

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You think you’ve got it bad? Others have it worse.

Oh, toxic positivity and silver linings, you have a lot to answer for. And I tell you something else: being told that someone has it worse does not make us feel better. I mean, it’s not like we skip around thinking, oh yay, I feel really crap, but someone else feels crappier; now I feel better about things.

I’ve spent my life grappling with complex feelings triggered by complex situations. Yet, I’ve always received the message that I should look at the positives and put things into perspective because at least I have [insert any of my many privileges here].

And to some extent, this is true. I have a house, food, and my health. I live in a safe country. I have freedom. Heck, my skin colour gives me privilege.

I ooze privilege.

But that doesn’t mean that any of my complex feelings are invalid. And dismissing and belittling people’s feelings does not mean they go away. They just become suppressed and poison us from the inside out.

Instead of engaging in a game of one-up-manship of pain and suffering, appropriately known as the Suffering Olympics, how about we learn to hold space for individual experiences of emotion?

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I was only 12 years old when I was sent to boarding school and thrown into independence and emotional suppression.

A mere child and I had no soft place to land and no one to keep me upright. I had to learn how to survive. No hugs. No reassurance. No real celebrations on my birthday. No one to ask how my day was. No one to turn to when I started my period.

I just had to get on with things.

A girl in my dorm had a postcard on the door of her wardrobe that read,

“Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.”

And that very quickly became my motto. No one cared if I cried. My tears were a mere inconvenience to others. So they fell in muffled silence on my pillow in the middle of the night.

It was the 1990s, after all—the era when kids were told to stop crying instead of having their feelings explored and validated. This article refers to this time as one in which many children experienced feelings of emotional neglect and rejection.

And so I became a master of hiding my feelings and thus hiding myself.

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There are consequences, though. Bottling up emotions and burying our feelings can cause both physical and mental issues. Equally, expressing them and having them minimised or rejected can also cause issues.

I believe the Suffering Olympics is one of the most toxic phenomena.

When we participate in the Suffering Olympics, we invalidate our feelings by rejecting them on the basis that other people have it worse. This phenomenon can also manifest in our interactions with others.

Being someone who has chosen not to have children, I’ve heard many variations of the belief that I can’t possibly know what it means to be tired or feel stressed. Some of my not-so-compassionate friends have responded to my challenging times with, “At least you don’t have children.”

But we are all different, with different mental and physical health, relationship status, family background, social support, childhood trauma, resilience levels, financial security and so on.

And while I recognise that children can raise tiredness and stress levels, they are certainly not the only portal to these human experiences.

Trying to gatekeep tiredness or stress is problematic.

I particularly like this quote from trauma expert, author and physician Dr Gabor Maté in his book The Myth of Normal.

“It doesn’t matter whether we can point to other people who seem more traumatized than we are, for there is no comparing suffering. Nor is it appropriate to use our own trauma as a way of placing ourselves above others — “you haven’t suffered like I have” — or as a cudgel to beat back others’ legitimate grievances when we behave destructively.

We each carry our wounds in our own way; there is neither sense nor value in gauging them against those of others.”

I don’t know what it is like to be you; you don’t know what it is like to be me. But I believe you when you say you are struggling or suffering. And I promise not to utter any words to belittle your feelings.

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Recently, I was trying to express some of the challenges I’m currently experiencing, and my confidante replied, “At least you have a husband.” As if having a husband nullified everything I was saying. I felt completely unheard and dismissed.

There’s that “at least” term again. It’s just so reductive and dismissive.

As Brené Brown says, no sentence starting with “at least” carries empathy.

Sure, I get it. In this situation, the person recruiting me into a battle of Suffering Olympics is single and desperately wants a meaningful marriage. So because her lack of marriage brings her anguish and is something that I have, by her deductions, I am not allowed to have any negative emotions.

We are all different and there are infinite ways we experience suffering or pain.

All her words did was squash my sense of being and diminish our connection. It’s not like I miraculously overcame my challenges once she pointed out how lucky I am to have a husband.

And I’m not even going to express my colourful choice of words for the person who responded to the news of my dog passing away with, “At least you have another one.” I mean, come on! As if the grief over one being can be eliminated by the existence of another.

A quote attributed to Helen Keller says:

“I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

While I understand the sentiments, this type of statement gives me the ick. Where does it stop? Should the person with no feet feel better about himself if he meets someone with no feet and no hands?

There is always someone who has it worse. And gatekeeping other people’s suffering is one sure way to lose friends and alienate people.

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While mulling over this weird battle of comparison, invalidation and emotional dismissal, I found myself humming Raph McTell’s song The Streets of London.

Despite coming out in 1969, over a decade before I was born, it features in my childhood soundtrack, reaching number 2 in the UK singles chart, and at one point selling 90,000 copies a day.

This song poignantly portrays homelessness, suffering, and loneliness on the streets of London and raises awareness of the plight of forgotten war veterans.

But I can’t help but wonder if the lyrics encouraged a whole country to play one big game of Suffering Olympics.

The lyrics invite the listener to walk through the streets of London to see things that will encourage them to change their minds about their own struggles.

“So, how can you tell me you’re lonely?
Don’t say for you that the sun don’t shine…”

The song suggests that you can only be lonely and experience a gloomy world if you are homeless. Yes, homelessness is a desperately despairing way to live. I’ve worked with the homeless and heard many harrowing and heartwrenching stories. But I also recognise that it’s not the only way to suffer.

I can’t help but feel that this song is problematically reductive of all the many ways we suffer, feel loneliness, or experience pain.

Fast-forward just over 50 years, and the sad reality is that we are in the middle of a loneliness epidemic.In 2023, the WHO declared loneliness a global public health concern.

Why is this? Why are we lonelier than ever? I blame the internet. As this article perfectly outlines, online connection often leads to feelings of isolation

Thanks to social media, we can now engage in the Suffering Olympics with people across the world, not just in our immediate spheres. Oh, yay!

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Look, I get it; life happens.

Sure, someone will always have it worse. But that does not reduce our struggles or mean they are wrong. And while our woes may seem less than in comparison to others, they do not feel less to us.

Whatever it is that causes you sleepless nights, worry, poor mental health or stops you from thriving is valid, and I believe you.

Allow yourself to sit with all the complex emotions that come up, without injecting toxic positivity into the mix. Life is tricky, murky, confusing, and challenging.

If you can’t move beyond your struggles, you may even want to consider working with a therapist. Starting therapy a few years ago has been life-altering for me.

So next time you find yourself belittling your own struggles or even minimising someone else's, can you take a breath and show up with empathy instead of anything starting with “At least…”

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You may also enjoy my other Substack Life Without Children, a place for readers and writers of live without children, whether by choice or circumstances.

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You can also find my writings and musings on Medium, where I write about well-being, feminism & personal growth. I also own the publication Life Without Children.