Why Comparing Your Illness to Others Does Not Help

Why this matters

Comparison is one of the most common and least discussed sources of additional suffering in chronic illness. It tends to happen automatically, feels like a reasonable way to assess severity, but consistently makes things harder rather than clearer.

Why comparison happens

The urge to compare often comes from needing external validation that the experience is real and significant. When symptoms are invisible and fluctuating, and others sometimes express doubt, comparison feels like a way to establish legitimacy. Western culture also reinforces comparison as a natural way to measure worth, and that conditioning doesn’t disappear when someone becomes ill.

Why it causes harm

Comparing to someone who appears to manage better with the same condition creates shame. "They work full-time with the same diagnosis, why cannot I?" ignores that severity varies enormously, support systems differ, what’s visible publicly is rarely the full picture, and another person's coping may not be sustainable. Comparing to someone with a more severe condition creates guilt. "I shouldn’t complain, at least I don’t have X" doesn’t make the current experience less real. Someone else's greater suffering doesn’t cancel out what’s genuinely hard.

Both patterns prevent appropriate self-care. Comparison-based guilt can stop someone from resting, asking for help, or acknowledging what they need, because it feels unjustified relative to others. And within chronic illness communities specifically, comparison creates invisible hierarchies that divide people who would otherwise find solidarity with each other.

What you could do

• Noticing comparison thoughts is the first step. Awareness interrupts the automatic pattern. Challenging the thought actively helps: "I don’t know their full situation. Severity varies. My body has different needs."
• Curating what’s consumed on social media reduces exposure to comparison triggers.
• When a comparison thought arises, ask whether it’s actually telling anything useful or just creating additional suffering
• Validate the experience on its own terms rather than relative to anyone else's. Struggling is a sufficient reason to need support, regardless of how others are managing
• Shift to an internal standard, comparing only to one's own baseline over time, tracks genuine progress without the distortion of external comparison.

This article is for general information purposes only and doesn’t constitute legal, financial or benefits advice. For advice specific to your situation, please speak to a qualified professional or contact an organisation such as Citizens Advice, who may be able to assist you further.

References:

‘A theory of social comparison processes’ (1954) https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202

‘Illness perceptions and levels of disability in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis’ (2003) https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-3999(03)00013-8