We’ve all witnessed it—or worse, experienced it.

A woman opens up about a toxic relationship or a painful experience, laying bare the emotional, physical, and mental toll it took on her. She explains how she reacted, how she coped, or why it took her as long as it did to step away.

Then, right on cue, someone chimes in with: "Well, I went through the exact same thing, but I would never have done that," or "I was in that situation too, but I walked away immediately."

It’s meant to sound like relatable advice or shared experience, but let’s be honest about what it really is: a lack of compassion wrapped in self-righteousness.

The Problem with Comparison as "Relatability"

When someone shares a vulnerable story, they aren't asking for a comparison of blueprints. Responding to someone else’s trauma by highlighting how much better, faster, or smarter you handled yours does three distinct things:

1. It Centers Your Ego Over Their Healing: Instead of holding space for the person speaking, it immediately shifts the spotlight back onto you and your performance.

2. It Imposes a Moral Hierarchy: It subtly turns survival into a competition implying that your response was superior and theirs was a failure.

3. It Ignores Human Complexity: You cannot project your nervous system, past trauma, financial resources, physical safety, or emotional bandwidth onto someone else.

Survival Is Not One-Size-Fits-All

No two people enter a crisis with the exact same foundation. What allowed one person to leave, fight back, or stay grounded might be completely unavailable to someone else in that moment. Mental capacity, physical safety, upbringing, and internal capacity dictate how a person responds under pressure.

Judging someone else’s survival mechanism based on your own capacity isn't discernment; it’s ignorance.

Practice True Compassion (or Know When to Be Silent)

True empathy doesn't require you to compare notes or measure someone else’s story against your own. It simply requires you to acknowledge their pain without inserting your ego.

If you can’t listen to someone’s journey without telling them how you did it better, the most compassionate thing you can do is sit back, listen, or simply say nothing at all.

Support isn't about proving how strong you are it's about respecting how the other person survived.