I'm sure that we all have experienced this. You've expressed to a friend or maybe even a parent abut how stressed out you are over something and instead of offering up support they throw the old "oh you think you're stressed? Well I have 100 page paper due tomorrow, a test tomorrow, oh and I have to go save some puppies on the moon."
Why do people respond with this? Why does everything have to be a competition?
Everything from how crappy our lives are to how amazing we make them look on social media is all just one big completion.
The thing is though, that even if you are more stressed than your friend, what do you win? You have more stress, congratulations?
I think that as humans we all can be a little selfish sometimes and that this response is a reflection of that. Sometimes we have to think about ourselves first, which is totally valid, but we all need to work on not making things like stress a competition.
A better response could be "oh that sucks, but at least you seem prepared and I am here for you if you need! I totally understand what you're going through though; I have a lot of work to do too. Maybe we can do it together?"
This response is so much more supportive but it also allows us to get our stress out as well.
We should be banding together when we are stressed or even depressed, not playing the game of whose life sucks more.
Plus this good friendship will most likely be returned to you. The next time they see you struggling with something, they may reach out to you and try and help you out.
It also is important to not belittle someone's anxiety or stress.
If someone tells you that they are anxious about something that may not seem like a big deal to you, then you still need to be supportive because anxiety is different for everyone.
Making them feel that their anxiety is 'dumb' or 'invalid' is sure just to make them feel even more anxious and it will probably hurt them.
Instead a better alternative is to offer up encouragement and try and help them reduce their anxiety over whatever the issue is.
Overall, it is important that when it come to mental health that we all support one another and treat others how you would want to be treated in their scenario.
