Is there a name for downplaying your suffering because other people have bigger problems?
Is there a name for downplaying your suffering because other people have bigger problems?
I am looking for a term to describe the line of thinking that goes something like "I hate my work, I am sick all the time, I am depressed, I can't find happiness. But I should be happy. Those problems don't matter. All my problems are so insignificant, there are little. They're just some stupid first world problems. I have it good, I have food on the table and a loving family. There are millions of people who have real problems, people living in severe poverty, starving to death, being bombed."
I think about this often, it came up when I was talking with someone with mental health issues and I remember him telling me that this way of thinking has a name/is a common symptom that occurs in people with a specific personality disorder, although I cannot remember what disorder he claimed it was. Also this was more than ten years ago so it might have either changed or my memory of this event changed.
I might call it gaslighting yourself, but I think the psych term is minimisation
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimisation_(psychology)
It has related terms and it seems to match up with what OP was looking for
"self invalidation" also comes to mind, but I'm not sure if the term is actually used professionally
I used to get this a lot, until someone reversed it on me, and I've thought about it this way ever since: If you can't let yourself suffer because others might have it worse, then you also can't let yourself be happy, because others have it better.
It's all about personal experience and perspective.
Comparative Suffering is close possibly.
https://withtherapy.com/mental-health-resources/what-is-comparative-suffering/
I think these thoughts are a bi-product of empathy. When you are attuned to the pain of others, it can be easy to invalidate your own. I once heard an exchange on public transit where 2 strangers were discussing their hardships and a sort of one upping of trauma was occuring. Eventually one of the participants said "we all feel pain in our own way" and that stuck with me as a tool for understanding my own tendancy to under value the trauma I have experienced throughout life.
Hope that helps provide some insight or a thread to tug at for understanding.
Invalidating
It sounds an awful lot like what I've heard people with clinical depression say, a type of self-invalidation of your own emotional state.
OP, you could be the poorest person in the world and you could still find someone who's got it worse. Everyone has problems, but that doesn't mean your problems shouldn't matter to you.
I don't know your situation, but if you hate your job, you should try looking for a new one - even if it's the same thing you're doing now but in a better workplace.
Those are very kind words, thank you. But the quote I gave was purely imaginative, I might have said something along these lines back then (in 2012ish I think), which resulted in the conversation mentioned above, where a close person said something like "this is actually something people with x often say, it is called y" (he was seeing a therapist back then and was constantly trying to diagnose me as a female narcissist I think).
As for now, I am doing very well, it just often comes to mind. That person left some impressions I often think about. There was also a story about a monster in a suitcase that I vaguely remember and it crosses my mind so often, I will probably also ask about that eventually.
On the other side, you can have plenty of money, friends, family, and other nominally positive indicators of success and happiness and still be abso-fucking-lutely soul-crushingly depressed. Then you start down the shitty spiral of hating yourself for not being happy which makes you even more depressed and angry at yourself.
If you have to coin a phrase for it, I'd say something like comparative minimization rationalization.
Coping?
Martyr complex
That would be the exact opposite from what OP describes, where a person goes "Oh woe me, all the weight of the world is on my shoulders and I get zero acknowledgment!"
I guess somewhere between the extremes is a healthy range of "My life sucks, and so does everybody else's."
You're incorrect. A martyr complex doesn't require that the sufferer bemoans others for a lack of acknowledgement, or that they think their problems are worse in comparison; just that they feel that they are constantly suffering for some cause that they may or may not justify to themselves.
Abusive relationships are an example of where this kind of martyrdom occurs.
Martyrism. There's also an odd variant of narcissism that revels in pity.
The suffering one automatically has the stronger argument. Because you aren't allowed to argue suffering, you have to just accept the truth of it. If you question it you are guilty of minimizing the suffering of a suffering person, which is a sin.
Therefore establishing yourself as "the suffering one" has automatic power in a debate. So that's something nice to have.
Also, is that the martyr? If the point is to draw attention and such, that's narcissistic, sure.
(being a martyr is a big power. Half the Catholic Church's saints are martyrs. They build churches to those guys)
And if you present yourself as the representative of the suffering ones then it's martyr by proxy? Narcissism by proxy?
Also, re the downvotes you're experiencing. The kids really hate having their game analyzed, even to this minimal degree.
I swear somebody's gonna get a research paper out of this stuff.
Perspective
Invalidation
Sounds like a part of Imposter syndrome. “My problems aren’t that bad”, but if someone else had the same problems? You would recognize it as it is. Only when they are your problems do you decide you shouldn’t feel as bad about them.
Being an AAPI?
Google says this means Asian American and Pacific Islander but I am not sure if this is what you mean
No. It 100% is. You are taught from an early age to not complain because you have it better or things could be worse. To the point that your elders are being violently attacked in the streets and you are still told to stay quiet because it is a turning point for a different persecuted group.
And you believe that and try to stay quiet about the brain damage.
We have certain groups of people that you are required to acknowledge the suffering of (racial, sexual, genderal, identityal, mental etc groups).
If you fail to acknowledge their suffering then that's pretty much the same thing as failing to downplay your own suffering. A failure to self-martyrize. Which is a sin.
Otoh if you DO successfully self-martyrize this way then you become a member of the secret martyrs club. Which is very popular.