Venting I kind of wish that I suffered more. That the trauma I faced wasn't enough to "justify" me being suicidal. I wish I was beaten regularly and raped.

[ConfusedHurting2632]

On an external level there's really no good reason for me to be as depressed, suicidal, and mentally ill as I am today.

So what if from kindergarten to 12th grade, age 6 to 18, all 13 of those years the other kids made fun of me regularly and I never fit in, never having had a single friend, and during middle school specifically they sort of pushed and shoved me, punched me several times on the chest and shoulder just simply leaving purple bruises but not "properly" beating me up or anything as I walked away just fine? So what if even when trying to fit in with people on the internet they also made fun of me? So what if I had massive anxiety every single day at school bordering on panic attacks?

These experiences while seemingly small have turned me depressed and suicidal, and also brought out my bipolar, anxiety, adhd, borderline personality disorder, etc.

But when I bring this up to people they're just sort of like "you haven't suffered at all you're just an overly sensitive piece of shit. There are people who have had their arms and legs broken from bullies beating them up, ya know? Others whose bullies blinded them with pencils in their eyes? What's your excuse?"

And I just wish that I was beaten regularly and raped so that I had an "excuse" for being so suicidal and my feelings were "justified."

Even my dad regularly tells me: "Oh poor baby you suffered SO much. The other kids broke your arms and legs and then the teachers raped you. Get over yourself!"

 

[U. A.]

There's no quota for suffering to be valid.
Also, people will find ways to invalidate any amount of suffering.
Also, you'd still feel like whatever kind/amount of mistreatment wasn't "enough" so long as you were belittled.

 

[shiny_quill]

Depression doesn't need a reason; you could have had the best childhood of all times and still be depressed, external factors do not play as big a role as people like to believe, especially if you already have other conditions. That aside, not fitting in and repeatedly being the outcast takes a toll on the psyche and is a genuine pain and if people tell you otherwise, just know that no amount of pain you could go through would change their mind: you could have been raped daily and physically abused that they would still argue that some have it worse and that, at least you have food on your plate and a roof over your head or whatever bullshit they could come up with

With these people, it's never about how much you suffer, it's about how much you don't and, while I know from experience that this is hard, the best thing to do is to ignore them and remind yourself that human connections is a need and that any of your needs not being met is going to cause pain, no matter how high on Maslow's pyramid of needs

 

[NutOrat]

The angry reaction I left is not directed at you, but at those quotes from other people, because that shit pisses me off! It's them who make you want to have suffered more, isn't that just cruel? Even if they don't mean it that way, that's fucked up to say to anyone suffering any amount. I hate hate hate that.

You don't have to justify your suffering to anyone, and definitely shouldn't wish more pain upon yourself for that purpose. "What's your excuse?" - why the fuck do I need one?

 

[Unknown21]

Imposter syndrome?

 

[Dejected 55]

You will always doubt yourself and try to blame yourself and think of how your suffering isn't "enough" somehow... and there will always be other people who will tell you that you should "suck it up" because your pain isn't the worst possible pain and others suffer worse than you... and how dare you complain about being hit when others get broken limbs or your broken limbs are nothing because some people get theirs cut off or you were only raped once by a pretty person but someone else was raped a dozen times by a degenerate hobo...

Never listen to anyone who tries to tell you what you feel doesn't matter or isn't real. Never let someone else tell you your pain doesn't matter or isn't "enough" because they compare to other pains. Don't listen to yourself when the doubts creep in and tell you that you deserve the pain or deserve the lack of understanding from others or deserve the abuse or that you need/want more abuse to feel like you matter finally.

Words are easy... many of us have these self-doubts and it doesn't help that there are always people waiting to kick you when you are down and then say they didn't kick you or you should be able to take it or whatever to demean and dismiss you.

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but what your dad does is emotional abuse. You were abused, and whether it was physical or not does not matter. Trauma relies on how your brain perceives it—if verbal bullying, stress, neglect, etc, made you truly fear for your life/not be able to cope, that can absolutely cause you to develop any sort of trauma-based disorder.

 

[Felixim]

I don't like it when it comes specifically to personal traumatic experiences, it gets turned into the Olympics for "who experienced the worst possible day ever imaginable." Because at the very end of the day, it's the victim that is suffering and continues to suffer for long time especially if they haven't received support. If someone's suffering has been downplayed and dismissed, this in itself additionally leads to more harmful consequences (examples like the victim not seeking out help, distrusting other easily, gets recluse and/or enables harming coping mechanisms, eventually destructing themselves.)

I am sorry for the negative experiences you had with people. Instead of being dismissed, they should've been listening to you. Everyone can be bullied, socially ostracised, yelled at, et cetera; the question is whether the victim can heal from such experience in supportive environment. If not, the matter will internalise further and further, it becomes an aching wound that is being constantly picked up, scratched and difficult to heal.

 

[starboy2k]

sometimes those people will heavily downplay your experiences because they probably did the same things to other people either as a kid, teen or adult, and they don't want to think about the fact that their past actions could possibly lead someone they used to know to suicide. they're self reporting through belittling you.

 

[webb&flow]

• Pain is subjective, not objective. What actually matters is not the cause, only the effect.
  • It does not matter whether pain is valid or not. If it is too much to bear, you deserve to be comforted.
    • Most people trying to invalidate your pain are in reality making up excuses to avoid helping you.
  • People are quick to dismiss psychological pain and validate physical pain. This is fallacious. Both physical and mental pain are felt in the brain. Hurt in arm → Arm sends pain signals to brain → Brain receives pain signal → Pain is felt. So it's in the brain either way. Just because you can't see the cause, doesn't mean the effect isn't real.
    • Imagine if this logic appeared to cancer tumors or pancreatic infections. "My stomach literally feels like it is being cut to shreds." "I don't see anything, therefore, you look fine to me, therefore, you must be fine: I must be right (despite my limited sight and knowledge of your body and conscious experience), and you must be wrong, about your own firsthand experience." If you analyze it logically; it fails to follow. Non sequitur.

    • The authoritative term psychotic depression makes Kate Gompert feel especially lonely. Specifically the psychotic part. Think of it this way. Two people are screaming in pain. One of them is being tortured with electric current. The other is not. The screamer who's being tortured with electric current is not psychotic: her screams are circumstantially appropriate. The screaming person who's not being tortured, however, is psychotic, since the outside parties making the diagnoses can see no electrodes or measurable amperage. One of the least pleasant things about being psychotically depressed on a ward full of psychotically depressed patients is coming to see that none of them is really psychotic, that their screams are entirely appropriate to certain circumstances part of whose special charm is that they are undetectable by any outside party.
      
      —David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

• Ask yourself: "If someone else told me about their pain (and gave an account identical to yours, in terms of pains suffered), how would I react to them? How would I perceive their pain? How do I feel I would be most likely to feel and react, and what would I consider my ideal way to react & feel about that."

These questions and suggestions may help you get more insight into how you view pain. How we understand and view others: to become aware of this and how we do it, opens doors into clarity inside our own minds.

I could write more. (And probably should.) But I hope this at least is of some help to you.

And lastly, I leave you with this, most candidly:

That's all it's about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could.

Don't accept it if someone tells you, "That's not enough to be suicidal about." There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain.

When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources.