"It Could Always Be Worse"—The Phrase That Haunts Me

This phrase lurks in the shadows, waiting to pounce the moment you start feeling even slightly sorry for yourself. It could always be worse. And sure, technically, that’s true. Things could always be worse. But does that mean what I’m going through right now doesn’t suck? That my struggle isn’t real? That I should be grateful my situation isn’t at peak disaster level?

At the height of my mysterious, undiagnosed medical nightmare, walking around with lips quadrupled in size, my body betraying me in ways I couldn’t understand, I heard this phrase all the time. “Well, at least it’s not fill-in-the-blank.” “It could be worse, you could have insert something horrifying here.” And I knew, I knew, it came from good intentions. It was nerves, discomfort, the classic I don’t know what to say, so let me just shove some perspective at you and hope it helps response. But good god was it not helpful.

And I’ve heard it before, loud and clear, when my daughter was born with TEF/EA. We nearly lost her so many times. The ambulance rides, the panic, the doctors shaking their heads, the sheer helplessness of watching my tiny newborn fight for her life. The surgeries, the endless courses of antibiotics that destroyed her little body in new ways just as they were trying to save her from others. The months, years of fighting to get her to eat, breathe, grow…Things that should have been simple, automatic, easy.

“It could always be worse,” people would say. And I wanted to scream. Worse? WORSE?! My child is literally hanging on by a thread and you think reminding me of other tragedies is going to help? I knew their hearts were in the right place, but damn if their words didn’t sting. What they didn’t see was the exhaustion, the trauma, the deep, gut-wrenching fear that took up permanent residence in my chest. The constant checking, is she breathing? Is she okay? The moments in the hospital where I thought, This is it. This is where we lose her.

And look, I get it. Sometimes people just panic-talk. They don’t know what to say, so out comes, “Well, at least it’s not worse,” as if that’s somehow supposed to make me feel better. Like, Oh, phew, I was really struggling, but now that I know this isn’t the absolute worst-case scenario, I feel amazing! Thanks for that!

I love the people in my life, I really do. And they meant well. Family, friends, doctors, specialists, bosses….. Everyone said this. If I had a dollar for every time I heard “It could always be worse,” I could have at least covered the gas money for all those hospital trips.

But, here’s the part I hate to admit, I’ve been guilty of saying it, too. More times than I’d like to count. I’ve said it to friends going through rough patches, to people struggling with things I didn’t quite understand, to my own kids when they were upset over something that, in my mind, didn’t seem like a big deal. It just flies out before I can stop it. And I know I mean well, just like the people who said it to me did. But knowing how much I’ve hated hearing it, I’m trying to do better.

What people don’t realize is that this phrase doesn’t just fail to comfort, it discounts. It minimizes. It tells someone that their pain, their fear, their struggle isn’t quite bad enough to deserve the space they’re giving it. And that’s dangerous. Because people already have a hard enough time asking for support. We already second-guess whether we’re making too big of a deal out of something, whether we should just push through, whether our suffering is worthy of acknowledgment. And when you hear, “It could be worse,” you start to believe, maybe I don’t get to feel this way. Maybe I’m being dramatic. Maybe I should just suck it up.

But here’s the thing: pain is pain. Fear is fear. Struggle is struggle. And just because someone else might have it worse doesn’t mean what you’re going through isn’t hard. Comparing suffering doesn’t make anyone’s burden lighter. It just makes people feel like they have to suffer in silence.

So let’s be mindful. Let’s think before we say it. Because sometimes, the best thing we can do for someone in pain isn’t to remind them that others have it worse, it’s to acknowledge that this is hard and that they don’t have to go through it alone. And if all else fails, just bring them a coffee, and say, “Well, this really sucks.” Trust me, it’ll go over a lot better.