Anxiety and depression: why you shouldn’t compare yourself to others

“I don’t know why I react like this. No one else does. There must be something wrong with me!”

It’s hard to acknowledge we have a problem with anxiety or depression (or both). Often, it’s even harder to admit we have a reason to carry these injuries, let alone have the right to feel hurt.

This was a massive obstacle for me when I started working deliberately on my childhood injuries some years ago. I hadn’t been physically or sexually abused as a child. In many ways, I was privileged to grow up in Norway in the last half of the 20^th century. We had no wars and a relatively high standard of living.

I had no right to be hurt, did I? Many people had experienced far worse things, and they were okay, right? The problem had to be me, so stop the whimpering and get over it!

(Featured picture: Comparing yourself to others – AI-generated illustration.)

Spot the errors here!

Well, there are several things worth investigating in the somewhat delusional picture I’ve painted above, for instance:

• Can different people’s reactions to the same situation be compared?
• Did I actually know how the people I compared myself to felt?
• If I hadn’t had any experiences that ‘entitled’ me to be emotionally injured, which experiences would?
• And, anyway, I felt what I felt. Why should I need to compare myself to others at all?

Comparing apples to…sponges?

The biggest problem with comparing ourselves to others is that other people aren’t you or me. We are comparing apples to…something else. Think about it:

• Unless you have an identical twin, no one else has the same set of genes as you. Our genes influence our susceptibility to mental challenges a lot. You might have gene combinations that make you more vulnerable than your siblings and others in your family and neighbourhood.
• Furthermore, no one else has precisely the same set of experiences as you. Incidents happening at vulnerable times of our lives can shape our minds forever. What happened might not seem like much. You may not even consciously remember what happened. But still, something could have made a deep imprint on you – and no one else.
• Each family, village, region, and country have different cultures. Living in one family, village, region, and country can be pretty incomparable to living in another. Don’t even think of comparing yourself to someone else without knowing the differences in cultural environment. One might be loving and supporting, the other toxic.

Some people are lucky. They have the right genes, experiences, and supportive environment to become ‘watertight’. Negative things run off them, like water off a duck’s back. Others suck negative experiences up like a sponge and carry them inside all through their lives.

It’s not your fault if you are one of these sponges. There are genetic, personal, and cultural reasons for it. And remember:

You’re not a mindreader

And that’s pretty important to realise if you aspire to compare yourself to others. If you’re thinking, “No one else reacts like me,” how do you know?

I was bloody good at hiding my anxiety and depression through several decades, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you are the same. So, how can we expect other people’s emotions to be easily unveiled and interpreted? How about Peter at work, seemingly in a good mood every day, but do you really know whether he’s happy? And your cousin Jill, always smiling and looking after people, might be crying herself to sleep every night for all you know.

And it’s more complicated than ever, now, to be a compare-myself-to-others person. When I grew up, you were supposed to “keep calm and carry on”, however you felt. These days, you’re also expected to have an Instagram-friendly, picture-perfect life in wonderful (sometimes AI-augmented) colours, continuously exposed to the whole world.

It’s pretty irrational to compare yourself to how Peter and Jill look on the outside under these conditions, don’t you think?

Now, rewind to my situation some years ago. Even if I hadn’t compared myself to others, I still would have felt unentitled to be hurt because I hadn’t experienced the ‘right’ type of trauma. We need to ask:

When do we have the ‘right’ to be hurt?

Well, there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer, of course. Remember what we’ve said about genes, personal experiences, and cultural environment. If you’re hurt by something that doesn’t affect others much, there are most likely good reasons for it.

However, this isn’t what really matters. Imagine two people, John and Emma, who are out driving. A drunk driver hits their car. Emma comes away with a few bruises, while John fractures three ribs. Should we tell John he has no right to be hurt because Emma wasn’t?

Of course not. What matters is that John was injured, regardless of the reasons, and his injuries must be taken seriously and managed appropriately. The same applies if your life experiences have resulted in mental injuries, such as anxiety or depression. You have the ‘right’ to feel hurt if you are injured.

One thing that really helped my self-acceptance in this area was understanding this:

The difference and similarity between ’T’ and ’t’

I’m talking about what they call ‘Big T Trauma’ and ‘little t trauma’.

‘Big T Trauma’ is what we usually come up with when we’re thinking about traumatic experiences, such as severe car accidents, terrorist attacks, and sexual assaults. It’s something terrifying, most likely life-threatening. We understand well that people suffer injuries like anxiety, depression and even Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after experiencing things like this.

‘Little t trauma’ might not be life-threatening. Still, it’s something that goes on and on and adds up over time—for instance, growing up in a toxic environment, living with bullying, criticism and sarcasm, and people making you feel worthless non-stop.

Does this sound familiar to you? If so, I can tell you right now you have the ‘right’ to be hurt. The truth is, years of ongoing ‘little t trauma’ can damage you much more than a single ‘Bit T’ one, depending on who you are.

So why compare at all?

What is worse, a broken arm or a broken leg? What is worse, anxiety or depression? What is worse, being mugged at the point of a gun or being bullied all through your childhood?

It doesn’t matter!

We are real, unique people with real, unique injuries, probably for a million different reasons. The suffering is what it is; it’s real and needs real acceptance and attention—from yourself, first of all.

Don’t waste time and energy comparing yourself to others! It’s not helpful and can only make things worse. If you feel you have a problem, you have a problem. If you acknowledge your problem and decide to do something about it, you have already started your journey.

Be strong! Your future self is waiting for you.