Fee's World

How many times have you thought this, or somebody has said it to you?

There might always be somebody worse off, but your problems are your problems, they shouldn’t be measured against anybody else’s.

I’ve been that person who people probably think of as the one who is worse off, if you are unsure if you have been or not have a think about if people share their worries with you. If not, it’s possible you are that person too.

Only really now, nearly three years after my child was born not breathing, are people starting to share their own worries more with me, without a clause of, “I know it’s nothing compared to what you deal with but…” or a pause while having a moan in open realisation that I have shit harder.

But I missed it. At first I couldn’t abide to hear people moan about what felt like trivial concerns in their lives, in fact I think I lost friends through it, I stopped contact with those people, but in fact I should have kept them closer because they were right to share their moans and soon I missed hearing about people’s troubles.

I’ve been on both sides. While trying to conceive Chops, people didn’t moan to me about their kids, at least they had kids. Then I became a Mother and when times were hard going, nights long, there were people I would never moan about it to, those who didn’t have children of their own, remembering the pain of the desire to be a Mum made the reality on hard days more bearable and I felt greatful for it.

Then we had Willow and suddenly became the pity of all around us, times were hard but to me not as hard as from the outside it might have seemed. Yes, it was bloody hard, but on those early days I thought of those women who gave birth to a stillborn child who didn’t make it and the women who lost their children in infancy and I was greatful, I was better off because despite her difficulties we had our little girl in our arms. There really is always someone worse off.

We all do it, we look to those who from the outside seem to have it tough and those who appear to have it easy but each person has the right to own their own hardships too, it’s not a comparison, tough to one person might be a breeze to another and vice versa.

Now, when you’re the one who feels you are the person people are thinking about in, “there’s always someone worse off”, then I’m willing to bet times are pretty crap right now. I hope you can see positives in your life and that it isn’t as hard on the inside as it seems from the out, remember there is always someone worse off 😉