When Others Have It Worse: How Comparison Keeps Victims Silent

Domestic abuse victims are often met with messages that downplay their pain: At least it wasn’t worse. Be grateful you weren’t hit. You should feel lucky you got out—others have it far harder.

But what happens when that message becomes the very thing that keeps us stuck? For many people in emotionally, psychologically, or verbally abusive relationships, the belief that “others had it worse” becomes a powerful silencing force. It convinces us that what we went through wasn’t abuse at all. That we’re overreacting. That we don’t have the right to be in pain.

This article explores how comparison—and the cultural obsession with only naming the most extreme forms of violence—can keep victims from seeing their own abuse clearly. And how healing begins when we stop needing it to look a certain way in order to count.

The Comparison Trap: “It Wasn’t That Bad”

One of the cruelest tricks of trauma is the voice in your head that says, ‘Maybe it wasn’t that bad’.

That voice can be loud. Especially when you’ve spent years trying to explain something that no one else saw. Or when you’ve internalised a version of abuse that only includes bruises and broken bones.

As one survivor shared: “I remember thinking (I still do), ‘Maybe I'm exaggerating.’ It makes you go back to the relationship thinking you were being ‘ridiculous’.”

This kind of self-minimisation is incredibly common. Many victims of non-physical abuse spend years invalidating their own experiences because they were never hit. They compare themselves to others who ended up in shelters or hospitals and feel ashamed for being affected by “just words.”

But verbal and emotional abuse are not soft forms of harm. They are real, insidious, and often harder to name—because the scars are invisible.

How the Media Warps Our Understanding of Abuse

The stories we see on screen shape how we understand the world. When it comes to abuse, media portrayal has done real damage.

TV dramas, news reports, and even awareness campaigns tend to spotlight the most extreme and visible cases: severe physical violence, police involvement, courtrooms. These are real and important stories. But they are not the only stories.

What’s rarely shown are the slow, daily erosions of someone’s self-worth. The gaslighting. The financial control. The charming abuser no one suspects. The isolation dressed up as love.

“It took me years to realize it was abuse,” one survivor shared. “I didn’t have the right picture of what abuse looked like.”

Another survivor explained: “I thought I hadn’t been in a DV situation because he never hit me. Ten years later, in a conversation with a woman just leaving a DV situation, I discovered that verbal, financial abuse, gaslighting—those are abuse too.”

When we only define abuse by its most visible forms, we silence millions of victims whose experiences don’t match the stereotype. This cultural blind spot keeps people trapped in confusion, shame, and silence.

When Empathy Becomes Self-Erasure

Survivors are often deeply empathic people. That’s part of why they stayed. Part of why they tried so hard to fix things, understand the other person, or blame themselves instead.

But empathy can be a double-edged sword. When we care deeply about other people’s suffering, we sometimes convince ourselves that our own doesn’t count.

You might find yourself making excuses:
They had a rough childhood.
I provoked them.
I’m being too sensitive.
It’s not like they hit me.

This is empathy turned inward in the worst way. It can stop us from recognising harm, setting boundaries, or reaching out for help when we truly need it.

The Long-Term Impact of Minimising Your Own Pain

Minimising abuse by comparing your experience to others that had it worse doesn’t protect you.

When victims believe their suffering “wasn’t bad enough,” they often avoid therapy, delay leaving, or feel ashamed for still struggling years later.

“I used to think it was my fault. That I needed to be the bigger person and detach from my ego. That maybe when he told me I was grandiose, he was right,” one survivor shared.

These beliefs—often reinforced by others—can lead to deep confusion about what actually happened. And because emotional abuse often distorts your sense of reality, you may begin to question whether it happened at all.

But the truth is: if you were made to feel small, afraid, confused, silenced, or ashamed—it was real. It harmed you. And it matters.

You Don’t Have to Justify It to Call It Abuse

There is no suffering threshold you have to meet in order for what you went through to “count.” You don’t have to compare it to someone else’s worse experience to know it hurt you.

Abuse isn’t a contest. It’s a pattern of harm, control, and manipulation—whether it shows up as screaming or silence, fists or finances, threats or withdrawal.

You’re allowed to name it without apology. You’re allowed to get support even if it “wasn’t physical.” And you’re allowed to heal, no matter how long it takes you to see it clearly.

Stop Comparing. Start Naming.

If you’ve been telling yourself it doesn’t count, that others had it worse, that it wasn’t really abuse—pause. Listen to the part of you that still hurts. The part that’s trying to speak.

Because what you lived through doesn’t need to meet anyone else’s criteria to be valid.

You don’t have to minimise your pain to honor someone else’s. There’s room in this world for all of our stories.

You were there. You know what happened. And you deserve to name it.

Not because it matches someone else's story.
But because it’s your truth.

Featured image: Comparing to others can keep victims trapped. Source: photosky99 / Adobe Stock.

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