Your Hurt Matters, Too

I’ve been told time and time again that “someone has it worse,” “and you think you’ve had it hard,” and my personal favorite, “everyone has depression.” 

It’s true, everyone is hurting, but no one is fighting their minds exactly the way I am. Not everyone stays awake at night imagining a burglar breaking in and killing their dog. Not everyone is terrified of a bathtub not only because of a gory picture they saw, but because they keep imagining themselves sitting in it with a blood covered body or maybe that one day they’ll be in the shower and giant gob of hair comes out of nowhere even though they’ve constantly cleaned the drain and everything else. Not everyone is imagining themselves going over to their parents house on Sunday and walking in and finding their parents brutally murdered. Not everyone imagines a life where their brother doesn’t care JUST because he hasn’t sent a letter back. Not everyone cleans and cleans their home because of the fact they have these thoughts and they feel dirty and gross because of them. 

I know it sounds scary, gory, also ridiculous, right? But “everyone has it hard.” With all that said, here’s a message to you and everyone who’s hurting.

Don’t let anyone tell you that just because someone may have a worse situation, it means that your pain doesn’t matter. Your pain, your hurt, your ideas, thoughts, and everything that makes you who you are does matter. You do matter. 

Everyone is hurting, but nobody’s pain equals yours and yours doesn’t equal their’s. Nobody’s pain is equal to anybody’s because we all handle things differently. What seems to be a small set back to someone is a big one to someone else and vice-versa. Nobody feels things exactly the same way and everyone is fighting an invisible battle no one else knows about. 

So, if someone opens up to you about something they’re dealing with, don’t point out that “everyone’s hurting” and don’t compare a situation of your own because you “handled it better.” They’re not you and you’re not them. The last time I checked, no one can read minds.