Full disclosure, I was the toxic friend.
Before coming to MSA, I used to go to a very small private school. I attended this school from Pre-k 3 to sophomore year, making that a full 14 years with relatively the same 40 classmates. I jumped around to a few different friends groups over the years and eventually stuck with my current one in middle school.
Each of our lives were deeply complicated from a young age, due to one thing or another. When certain, intensely emotional things happen in life, the natural thing you’d want to do is talk about it with someone! However, it’s difficult to talk about it with your friends when they’ll interrupt you saying sometime like “Well, that’s not as bad as what I’ve been through!”
I have also been guilty of this. While in middle school, I somehow came up with the idea that if my life was more tragic, then that would have me better than everyone else. So I embellished my own hardships as way to invalidate other people’s.
Now at this current point in time, my friends and I are in much better places. So I’m not here to bash them or bash myself for acting this way in the past. This is just a warning to those who may be acting this way now.
Don’t. Compare. You’re. Hardships. To. Other. People’s.
This is such toxic behavior. Because my feelings were always being belittled by others that didn’t take them seriously, it took me a long time to realize that my feelings actually mattered and that I shouldn’t feel guilty about them. I know that someone will always have it worse than I will, but that should never invalidate how I feel about my own problems.
Things like grief and sadness affect people differently! And different events can trigger different emotions and reactions from different people! So everyone’s feelings are okay, because they should be allowed to feel however they’re feelings.
I have since learned how to be a better listener, friend, and just person in general. Sure, my life may be waaaay harder than whoever is talking to me about their problems. And it may not be! It’s irrelevant! What’s important is that I listen to them and encourage them to work through how their feeling, because in the end, that’s what’s going to be better for both of us!
