Is there a name for downplaying your suffering because other people have bigger problems? - eviltoast

I am looking for a term to describe the line of thinking that goes something like “I hate my work, I am sick all the time, I am depressed, I can’t find happiness. But I should be happy. Those problems don’t matter. All my problems are so insignificant, there are little. They’re just some stupid first world problems. I have it good, I have food on the table and a loving family. There are millions of people who have real problems, people living in severe poverty, starving to death, being bombed.”

I think about this often, it came up when I was talking with someone with mental health issues and I remember him telling me that this way of thinking has a name/is a common symptom that occurs in people with a specific personality disorder, although I cannot remember what disorder he claimed it was. Also this was more than ten years ago so it might have either changed or my memory of this event changed.

  • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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    1 year ago

    No. It 100% is. You are taught from an early age to not complain because you have it better or things could be worse. To the point that your elders are being violently attacked in the streets and you are still told to stay quiet because it is a turning point for a different persecuted group.

    And you believe that and try to stay quiet about the brain damage.