Stop Body Shaming

As we wrap up this decade,i thought maybe we can meditate upon what am about to share and maybe be extra careful when dealing with people.

Have you noticed how when you try to tell people what you are going through they will act like they are listening and they will assure you that they understand everything that has to be understood? The next word out of their mouth will be but, if you have never heard it trust me it’s a very big “BUT” Bree no one has it together. There is someone going through worse, you have a place to sleep, food to eat, clothes to wear a family that cares about you bla bla bla. Or they will try and find someone who in their thinking is going through the same problem as you, and they will be like look at oomph, she is in the situation n like you but she is handling it so well. I honestly find it emotionally dismissive for people to put my problems and another person’s problems on a scale. It’s like a battle of sexes which from my perspective no sex is better than the other.

 The biggest problem I have with most people is the fact that you want to either say you are not the only one in the situation or other people have it worse or everybody has problems. When it comes to success everyone has their timeline but problems can be compared and outweighed that others are worse than other people’s. This is where depression sprouts from if you ask me because you bring in justification that what this person is facing is nothing. Instead of listening to understand, most people listen to reply and in the end solutions are not provided. It becomes an issue of validating other people’s problems and invalidating those of others. To make it worse you compare. So this person can’t feel because someone has it worse, or because someone is in a similar situation. You Make this person feel guilty for feeling, make this person feel like they are ungrateful when in real sense they are really struggling? How does that help that person telling you what they are going through or the person in a worse situation?

 Often times I have heard people say that “do not measure your success using someone else’s ruler”. This is very true because as people we lead different lives. We have grown up in different backgrounds, we have been exposed to different situations and people, and we have faced different hardships. So to compare where we are with someone else would not only be totally unfair to ourselves but also self-damaging.

With the coming of social-media this comparison or mission to measure our success let me say “life” using the ruler of others, has increasingly grown for the worst. If you go on social-media today, say Instagram you will see that people are doing pretty well from themselves. What we constantly forget is that people will only post about the best side of their life. Most of the things that we are stressing over are illusions that our friends have created in what is known as “make believe”. They are adapting to life, showing you what they want their life to be like to the extent that you feel like you are not making any progress or you feel left out. The truth is everyone has their own timeline, we start at different times, rates therefore do not feel the need to progress at the rate someone else is.

Maybe all of this is pretty much obvious to us. I will tell you what isn’t. There are people that will come and make you feel guilty for the tough situations that you are facing by comparing your situation to someone else’s. They will make you feel that you are being ungrateful and your battle is not as tough as the other persons. They will make you feel as though you are exaggerating, that there are people facing tougher situations than you are. They will justify that you do not even have problems. Some will even go to the extent of saying, if I took you to Queens (one of the biggest referral hospitals in Malawi) today you would stop worrying about these things. A just lost her husband, B lost their daughter, C was sucked at work for something they did not do and you are worried about this? They will question your faith and have you feeling bad about whatever you are going through. They will make you feel your problems are petty.

Does using someone else’s ruler only have to be about success? Doesn’t comparing the hardships someone else is facing with those I am facing also using someone else’s ruler? Like I said as people, our path will always be different so will; our perspectives. Therefore I find it unfair to think that other people problems or situations carry more weight than the other. We go out there making others feel bad for feeling whatever they are feeling by comparing. I could be in the same situation with someone but the way I deal with that situation and the want the other person deals with the same situation will be different. Why? For the simple fact that we are different people.

I will give an example of sin from a story I heard. Two people asked a priest if one sin is bigger than the other, the priest told the two people to go and pick up stokes that represent their sins. So the two people went out and did as they were told. One who thought his sins were small went out picking tiny little stones while the other person picked up one huge stones he could barely walk. They both presented their stones to the priest. Immediately he told them to go and replace the stones were he took them. The guy that had one stone just went and placed it right back where he had found it while the other guy could not remember where he took all the stones from. You see a sin is a sin regardless of how small you think it is. Maybe I am reasoning the wrong way but the way I see it a problem is a problem regardless of how big or small it looks. It is insulting and heart-wrenching to see people compare problems of two different people that have gone through a different path. In comparing it only causes hurt to the person whom you think has a lesser problem. Furthermore it does not end the problem of the person who you think has got bigger problems.

 For example, someone who has no food in their home clearly wants food. Instead of trying to help them find food you tell them that man your friends out there do not have a place to stay. Do you see what you have done, you have definitely measured their life using the other person’s ruler. You are telling them that their problem is not even a problem. But you have not helped them in comparing nor have you changed the situation of the other person who is homeless. Maybe sometimes it easy for us to be quick to look at other people’s problems like they are nothing. In my personal opinion is very unfair because unless you have been where that person is you do not have a right to look down on them. Don’t you think it’s unkind and inconsiderate to make people feel guilty for what they are going through/even worse for what other people are going through?

In what they think is actually encouraging you, people being people will say but D is also going through the same thing as you but they are not looking at it the way you are. Aren’t you overlooking the fact that even though this person is in a situation like mine will never understand because we are different people that have gone through different things in life? So for me do not tell me how to walk in my shoes if you have never walked in them. Do not even think of comparing me to someone who you think might be wearing the same shoes as mine. Clearly we might have different sizes which might affect our comfortability as individuals, might have purchased it from different retailers, the other could be wearing a counterfeit product. There are so many factors that are overlooked, yet people make their silly assumptions about people that look like are in a similar situation. And the result of all these biased comparisons, judgments and assumptions is that when people have problems they decide to sit down and think about them on their own. Share them with no one for the fear of being emotionally dismissed. One day at a time the pain that is supposed to be felt is bottled up. It devours the soul of that person inside out to the point of suicide. We as society act shocked yet we fuel cases of mental health with comparison (the thief of life).We literally drive these people to suicide and yet like the hypocrites we are act shocked at the alarming rising suicide rates. Regardless of this obvious fact we continue to raise awareness about mental health. Prevention is better than cure they say.
So I will say whatever you do, *especially* when people open up to you about their problems is never compare because this thing called Life is DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE!!!