Telling Your Story and Then Being Told, But There's Someone Worse Off!

A fictional analogy: I tell my sad story to someone, hoping she will understand the frame of reference where I am coming from. She smiles sadly and says to me, well, it could have been worse, there are many people in the world worse off than you, you know. I feel a part of me die inside. All she had to do was listen to my story, and it would have helped if she had said she understood, and that that's the past and we can move forward. I know there are people starving and dying and incapacitated all the time, all over the world. But right here, right now, I feel like my world is crumbling. When will someone understand me? I guess she might think I am terrible if I tell her that, I then think guiltily. And the cycle of shame and guilt repeats.

I once sat in on a group where people shared any number of horrifying stories. I realised that it really does help to hear the stories of what other people have been through and to realise that there are many parallels in life, and that bad things happen to many people. That one's own story may not be the lone story and that people do cope and move on. But I also realised, there is no aid to healing if you tell someone your own story, and it is brushed aside as not as bad as it could have been, or that there are many people with worse stories out there. If you are able to tell your story with conviction and truth, and you obtain a measure of understanding, which may even be mere silence without judgemental reaction, indicating acceptance, then your story has been shared in a healing way. But if you share your story and it is minimised, then you may carry your story around with you as a burden for much longer, and the opportunity for healing may come and go and damage may be done. Be careful how you tell your story and who you tell it to. You may decide never to share it, and that may work for you too. Healing seems to come from an internal acceptance and understanding of your journey, aided when shared with an understanding and non-judgemental confidant.