When the suffering of others resembles our own

Why do we sometimes have trouble recognizing anxiety and depression that we have already experienced?

There is something paradoxical in the way we talk about anxiety and depression.

We generally know what it means to be anxious or worried. We know what it's like to be unable to stop our thoughts before an important event, to feel a knot in our stomach, to sleep poorly because we think too much, to feel overwhelmed by a situation, or to be afraid of what might happen.

We also know what it means to go through a period where nothing seems to be going right. A period of sadness, fatigue, and discouragement. A period where you feel less like going out, have less energy, and experience less pleasure. A period where even some things you usually enjoy seem to require an effort.

At different times in our lives, many of us have some of these experiences.

So a question deserves to be asked: if we have already experienced, even momentarily, certain forms of anxiety or depressive suffering, why do we sometimes have so much difficulty recognizing the suffering of someone who tells us they are experiencing something similar?

Why might an experience that seemed real when it belonged to us seem exaggerated, avoidable, or difficult to understand when it belongs to someone else?

The question is not who suffers the most, nor who deserves to be helped. It is perhaps simpler, and more disturbing: what do we do with what we think we already know?

"Everyone gets anxious sometimes."

That's true. Everyone can experience worry, nervousness before an important event, sadness, or days without energy.

But if this experience is common, does that mean we understand what a person struggling with an anxiety or depressive disorder is going through? Perhaps not.

Because there is a difference between knowing an experience and living that experience in a way that is persistent, intense, or pervasive enough to begin to profoundly alter daily life.

We can experience anxiety without living with an anxiety disorder. We can experience sadness without experiencing depression. We can experience exhaustion without experiencing persistent psychological suffering.

The boundary, therefore, is not always between "those who know" and "those who don't." Rather, it lies in the frequency, intensity, duration, context, consequences, and the person's ability to return to their usual functioning. These dimensions are among the elements taken into account when trying to distinguish a common emotional reaction from a disorder requiring clinical attention.

And this distinction is important because it forces us to recognize something difficult: an experience can be familiar to us without us really knowing the other person's experience.

When our own experience becomes a measure

Sometimes we use our own experiences to try to understand those of others. It's human nature. Someone talks to us about anxiety, and we remember a time when we ourselves were very anxious. Someone talks to us about discouragement, and we think of a difficult experience we went through.

This comparison can create a sense of closeness, but it can also create a shortcut.

Researchers studying how we represent emotional states we are not currently experiencing have documented a phenomenon they call the empathic gap: when we are no longer ourselves in an intense emotional state, we may have difficulty accurately representing what that state means to someone who is still experiencing it. In other words, it is not only the other person's experience that eludes us; it is also, in part, our own past experience that we struggle to accurately reassess.

Because we have already experienced something similar to what the other person describes, a thought may arise: "I know what that's like. I've been through that."

This statement isn't necessarily malicious. It might even be intended to reassure. But it deserves further consideration, because having experienced similar suffering doesn't necessarily mean understanding the suffering of another.

Our experience gives us a starting point for understanding; it does not necessarily give us the whole story.

"I too have experienced anxiety."

Yes. And this experience could become an opportunity to better understand: to remember the thoughts that never stop, the difficulty in concentrating, the physical tension, and the constant feeling that something could go wrong.

But now imagine that this feeling does not only occur before a specific event, that it returns regularly, most days, for months, and that it begins to influence decisions, relationships, sleep or work — while remaining difficult to calm, even when the person rationally knows that they are not in danger.

Our own experience of worry can help us imagine some of what anxiety is like, without allowing us to conclude that we know the whole reality.

"I too have been depressed before."

Here again, the comparison may seem natural. We may have gone through a period of great sadness, lost our motivation, had trouble getting out of bed, and then finally felt better.

So, when someone tells us they are suffering from depression, a thought may arise: "I've been there too. It passes with time."

But what does "going through it" really mean? Does it mean living through a few very difficult days, or several months? Does it mean feeling unusual fatigue, or being completely unable to function?

There is, in fact, a distinction within this very phrase. It can be uttered by someone who has only experienced a passing bout of the blues and who, unknowingly, equates it with a much more serious disorder. But it can just as easily be uttered by someone who has actually experienced depression—and in this case, the risk is no longer the confusion between two different experiences, but something else entirely: transforming one's own experience, however authentic, into a unit of measurement for evaluating that of another. Having gone through depression does not guarantee understanding of another's, since two depressions can differ in their duration, intensity, triggers, and the resources available for recovery.

Experiences can be similar but not identical, and their paths can differ. What helped us at one time may not be enough for another person. What we were able to do alone may require support from someone else.

This does not mean that one is stronger than the other. It simply means that human beings do not all have the same resources, the same context, the same vulnerabilities or the same obstacles — and that some people face additional constraints (financial, family, professional, systemic) that limit their room for maneuver.

When "I understand" sometimes becomes "it's not that bad"

This is where the paradox becomes particularly interesting: our personal experience can bring us closer to others, but it can also distance us from them.

A social psychology research team observed something counterintuitive: people who had already experienced a difficult ordeal (such as unemployment or bullying) sometimes judged someone else struggling with the same ordeal more harshly than people who had never experienced it. The explanation isn't a lack of compassion; it's that, in hindsight, once the ordeal is over, it seems less difficult than it actually was. Having gone through it ourselves, we sometimes involuntarily conclude that others should too.

Without any ill intent, our experience then becomes a kind of benchmark: "I succeeded."

But what allows us to conclude that the other person has the same possibilities as us at the same time?

Can willpower explain everything?

We value willpower, and rightly so. It helps us take action, ask for help, and persevere. But can it explain everything?

If someone truly wants to get better, does that mean they are immediately capable of doing so? Is understanding that a thought is irrational enough to prevent us from acting under its influence?

Neuroscience research suggests that anhedonia in a depressive context does not only affect the capacity to experience pleasure, but also the motivational processes necessary to exert effort toward a reward. Wanting and being able to exert this effort, therefore, do not appear to be exactly the same thing.

Yet we know, in many other areas, that wanting and being able are not synonymous: we can want to sleep and not be able to, want to concentrate and not be able to. Why should psychological suffering be any different?

What if "getting back on track" wasn't so simple?

The expression "Pull yourself together" can be a clumsy way of saying "I believe in you" or "I don't want to see you suffer." But the person receiving it might hear something else: "If you're not getting better, it's because you're not trying hard enough."

Research in social psychology showed as early as the 1980s that the more a difficulty seems to be under a person's control, the less compassion we feel for them, and the more we attribute it to a lack of willpower rather than a lack of resources. The difficulty lies particularly in the fact that psychological suffering—having neither a cast nor an X-ray—is more easily perceived as being within the person's control.

Between the speaker's intention and the effect produced, there is sometimes a gap. Instead of asking, "Why don't you change?", perhaps we can ask, "What's making things difficult right now?"

Psychological suffering is not always visible

A person can smile, work, answer messages, take care of their family, and yet be experiencing something very heavy inside. What we see is not always the whole story of what the person is going through.

Repeated experiences where a person's emotions or suffering are invalidated can also influence how they perceive and express their own experiences. Over time, this can lead them to talk less about what they feel and sometimes even to doubt the legitimacy of their own experience.

We don't ask someone to demonstrate their physical pain before acknowledging that they are in pain. Why would we ask for more proof when the pain is psychological?

But not everything necessarily requires a diagnosis.

Reflecting on anxiety and depression doesn't mean that all worry is a disorder, nor that all sadness is a pathology. Difficult emotions are part of the human experience, and it would be equally reductive to affix a clinical label to every moment of distress.

Suffering doesn't need to be diagnosed to be real. Distinguishing between a passing emotion and a disorder doesn't help determine which suffering deserves attention; it simply helps identify when professional support becomes necessary.

Between trivializing pain and systematically seeking a diagnosis, there is an essential space. A space where one can simply listen, observe, welcome, take seriously, and, when the situation requires it, refer to appropriate support.

What if our experience could become a gateway rather than a point of comparison?

The question is not whether we have ever been anxious or sad, but what we do with that experience.

Can we allow our own experiences to bring us closer to others without using them to measure their suffering?

This is where a more humble form of empathy lies: not "I know what you're going through," but "I've experienced something similar to what you're describing. This helps me imagine some of what you might be feeling, but I know that your experience is yours alone."

A question that concerns us all

When someone tells us about their suffering, what do we do spontaneously? Do we try to understand, compare, reassure, or find an immediate solution? Or are we able to remain for a few moments in the uncertainty of not understanding everything?

Some human experiences cannot be fully understood from the outside. Sometimes, we can only listen long enough for the other person to show us what we couldn't see.

We don't need to be going through the exact same thing to recognize the suffering of another. We can simply acknowledge: "You tell me you're suffering. I may not have the same frame of reference as you to understand this suffering, but I can choose not to minimize it."

One last question

Perhaps the essential question is: "What happens inside me when someone tells me they are suffering from something I think I already know?"

Does my experience help me to listen, or does it lead me to compare? Does it broaden my understanding, or does it give me the impression that I already know the answer?

Recognizing suffering begins precisely there: in the ability not to confuse what we have experienced with what the other person is experiencing.

JIRIS will assist you

At JIRIS, we believe that understanding a human reality sometimes requires slowing down before trying to explain it. Anxiety and depression are experiences many people encounter, but this familiarity should never become a measure of how much another person should be suffering, functioning, or recovering.

Our training programs support speakers and organizations who wish to listen without comparing, recognize that two experiences bearing the same name are not necessarily lived in the same way, and take into account the history, resources and limitations specific to each person.

Sometimes, understanding others simply begins with accepting that their experience will never be exactly our own.