I have Major Depressive Disorder and I currently have a friend who has Bipolar Disorder living with me. We in the past have always been very supportive of one another's journey to healing but lately there's been a fair amount of toxicity from that person being tossed in my direction. They've continually been making the assertion that their trauma and mental illness is worse than mine, that their baggage is heavier, even going as far as to claim that I am lucky to be in my situation. As someone who spent the first 24 years of my life in denial of the severity of my disorder and who still struggles to admit that I experienced any trauma in my childhood this is problematic for me, but it also poses what I think is an important question for me to unpack because I still wish to be supportive of a friend who is clearly going through a particularly tough time. 

As someone on the depressive side of things part of me can look at those with Bipolar Disorder and understand why one might assume it is the worse of the two disorders, but from where I stand my life has also been endangered and forever affected due to a destructive, frustrating, and complicated disorder. One that I'll add is often underestimated due to the normalization of people claiming they are depressed when they are simply sad. It makes me wonder if that's a bigger part of this equation than is being acknowledge, that combined with the idea that those with Bipolar Disorder tend to be a squeakier wheel than those with Depression. I might assert that being Bipolar causes a more visible disturbance as depression often causes one to retreat into themselves. I'm not trying to claim that having Depression is worse than having Bipolar Disorder. And I understand that those with Bipolar Disorder do experience depression so perhaps it is that that allows them to feel entitled to make the assertion that it's worse for them but even in experiencing depression it still looks different than it does for me, so I find it difficult to come to peace with the idea that someone who is Bipolar really has a grasp on what it's like to be in my shoes. 

It seems from here that my pain must be diminished in order for someone else's struggle to be legitimized, and that is frustrating. I'm frustrated with my friend, and I am frustrated with the mental health community because this doesn't appear to be a unique incident. I know that mental illness exists on a spectrum and that at the end of the day we should not be trying to rank ourselves against others as proof that one person deserves more help than another but I'd love to open this conversation up for discussion and get the opinions and experiences of others so that I might come to some place of peace over the subject. As well as have an opportunity to  try understand the experience of someone on the other side of this argument to the best of my ability.