MY TRAUMA IS BIGGER THAN YOURS.

It starts quietly. You gather the words in your mouth like stones. Heavy. Hard to hold. You've been carrying them for weeks, months, years and finally, finally, you find someone you think might understand.You open your mouth.And before the first word lands, they're already reaching for their own collection. Oh, you think that's bad? Let me tell you about what happened to me.You're still young. You'll get over it. When I was your age, I went through things that would break you.Everyone has problems. You're not special. The conversation becomes a competition. A silent Olympics of suffering. Gold medal to whoever hurt the most. Silver to whoever survived the longest. Bronze to whoever can list their wounds fastest, loudest, most impressively.And you?You stand there with your mouth still open. Stones still inside. Unheard.There's a particular loneliness in this.Not the loneliness of being alone with your pain. That, at least, is clean. Honest. You and your grief, sitting in the same room, no one else is invited. No, this is worse. This is being in a room full of people, finally brave enough to speak, and realizing no one is listening. They're just waiting. Waiting for you to finish so they can begin. Waiting for their turn to prove that their ocean is deeper than yours.You think you're hurting? I've been through hell and back.You're young. You don't know pain yet. We do this to each other constantly.Not because we're cruel. But because we're afraid. Because sitting with someone else's pain means facing our own. I've been on both sides.I've been the one dismissed. The one whose grief was too small, too young, too soon. The one who learned to swallow stones because no one had room for them.And I've been the dismisser. The one who couldn't sit still in someone else's pain. The one who reached for my own wounds like armor. Look at me. Look what I survived. My trauma is bigger than yours.Both times, I failed.Both times, someone walked away unheard. Trauma is not a competition. your deepest wound is not deeper than mine. Mine is not wider than yours. They are just different. Different shapes. Different weights. Different rooms we each carry alone. When you tell me your pain, you are not asking me to compare. You are asking me to witness. To stand in the room with you. To say I see you. I hear you. This is real. The stones in your mouth are yours.You don't need to earn the right to put them down. You don't need to prove they're heavy enough. You don't need to win some invisible competition just to be heard. Your pain is real because you feel <a class="tc-blue external-link" href="https://it.If" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">it.If </a> you've ever been the one dismissed—I'm sorry, If you've ever been the dismisser—I've been there too. Maybe we can both learn to just listen. That's all anyone ever really needs.Someone to hold the stones with them.Not to prove they've held heavier ones.

Other insights from Nonso Obi

Referral Earning

Points-to-Coupons