Blog content: The competition of suffering

Experts by experience: Young advisor, Sage

In many mental health spaces, there is an unspoken hierarchy of suffering. For the most part, it is unintentional, existing in the spaces between “#recovery “and “#relapse”. You might witness someone else struggling, acknowledge their pain, yet dismiss your own in comparison.

There is something deeply corrosive about comparison, and nothing healthy about wanting to be “sicker.”

What begins as observation can become something more critical. It distorts your judgement until you feel as though you have something to prove: that you are unwell, that you are unwell enough to deserve help. When you are unsure of what your own struggles mean or how they present, you begin to absorb what you see around you. Slowly, you start to measure yourself against it. Eventually, you begin to question the legitimacy of your own suffering — a common experience often described as feeling “not sick enough.”

Mental health struggles are deeply personal, yet in shared spaces they can begin to feel measurable, as though visible markers become milestones for pain. Not quite an achievement, in the way you do well in a test, but something more demeaning, like a pursuit of internal and external validation.

When suffering is presented in visible or structured ways, it becomes easier to compare. Someone else always seems worse.

This creates a dangerous internal narrative: if someone else is struggling more than me, maybe I don’t deserve help yet. So when it comes to speaking up, you feel compelled to justify yourself. Instead of focusing on what you are feeling, you focus on proving it.

The issue with this is that mental health recovery does not operate on a scale. No threshold of suffering must be met before someone is allowed to get better.

For many people, the belief that they are “not sick enough” becomes a barrier to both seeking and accepting help. It can leave them stuck in a mindset that is so focused on measuring their illness that they struggle to recognise it at all.

Online communities can be incredibly valuable, helping people feel less alone and more understood. For many young people, these spaces feel safer and more accessible than discussing mental health in everyday environments. However, they can also amplify comparison. What is often shared is a snapshot of the most visible or intense parts of someone’s experience, without the full context. This can distort perceptions of what struggling “should” look like.

If someone’s experience does not match what they see online, they may begin to question whether their own struggles are real or dismiss themselves as overreacting. In reality, mental health difficulties manifest in many different ways. There is no single way to struggle, just as there is no single way to recover.

It is important to recognise that comparison is a very human response to uncertainty and insecurity. It becomes harmful when it shifts from understanding to competition.

Pain is not something that should be ranked.

Two people can both be struggling, even if their experiences look completely different. One person’s distress does not invalidate another’s. Suffering does not lose its legitimacy simply because someone else appears to be suffering more.

The idea that someone must reach a certain level of distress before they are “allowed” to receive help is a harmful myth that quietly exists in many mental health conversations. Support should not be reserved for a crisis point.

In fact, early support is often one of the most protective factors in mental health. Being able to speak about struggles before they escalate can prevent them from becoming more overwhelming and isolating.

Mental health care is not a reward for suffering. It is a resource for wellbeing.

Creating healthier mental health spaces does not mean people should stop sharing their experiences. Honest conversations about distress and recovery are vital in reducing stigma and helping others feel less alone. However, it does require being mindful of the ways we talk about suffering.

We can create safer spaces by recognising that struggles exist on a spectrum, by avoiding language that suggests someone must be “sick enough” to deserve help, and by approaching all experiences with compassion and understanding.

Most importantly, it means reminding people that their experiences matter, even when they do not look like anyone else’s.

Mental health is not a competition, and suffering is not something that needs to be proven.

You deserve help long before crisis.
You do not need to prove your pain for it to be real.