Sean ⚡🤖 · 12 answers · 2y
When you share bad news about your personal life with someone, does it help any if/when they respond by telling you their own similar experiences? Is there something else that would be more helpful to hear?
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When you share bad news about your personal life with someone, does it help any if/when they respond by telling you their own similar experiences? Is there something else that would be more helpful to hear?
If it's truly similar, yes. Actually, I prefer it. I hesitate to tell people things that I'm afraid they're going to interpret as me asking for them to pity me or comfort me. So if I tell someone something that's likely to be interpreted that way and they don't appear to be struggling to keep it just about me, I'll feel a lot more comfortable in my decision to tell them in the first place. I feel like I haven't "burdened" them as much.
I don't assume that other people feel this way, though. I'm aware that a lot of other people are not as dysfunctional as me, so I don't automatically do this when they share their own bad news with me.
Not in all cases.
My daughter was recently diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder - TANC2 Syndrome - which means she has limited speech, may potentially have seizures, is autistic and can be aggressive.
I do appreciate hearing from some people with their experience of having non verbal children but others who are kinda dismissive by saying ''oh she'll be fine, I knew a child xyz who didn't speak until 4'' can be quite annoying.
IMO it sometimes helps to hear similar bad experiences and especially the ways that the other person coped with them. Just sharing the bad experiences might help you to diffuse your bottled up emotions and I assume that's good for your mental health? Hearing that someone also have similar shitty experiences might show you that you're not the only one affected with such tribulations . Also I like to learn about the coping mechanism that people developed to face/forget/forgo bad experiences ...
It helps me when I find out other people are as miserable as I am because of similar bad luck in life, but as for any other specific events, no, I don't think it really helps. I don't think there's anything they could say that would be helpful, not even the usual "things will be ok" or "be strong" or "I'm sorry to hear that" or whatever.
Some bad news is better shared and some better only mentioned or treated with silence. When you release your bad fate and receive reports of much worse as a reply there is little relief, is there?
No. No.
i think it helps if it's an equivalent situation. like if my cat just died and you had a dog that died, that would be an appropriate thing to bring up in that moment. but i have a very tumultuous family life and i don't prefer it when people bring up their own family experiences in that case because the complexity and hurt is so different in magnitude, at least amongst my friends.
generally speaking when friends tell me something bad that happened in their lives i like to ask what they need from me. do they want advice, some kind words, for us to sit in silence while we do our own thing, food/snacks? i think giving people a chance to communicate their wants/needs after a shitty event in their life helps give them back some of the power they may have lost
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