Suffering rarely remains confined to the individual who carries it. When pain becomes chronic and mental health deteriorates, relationships, conversations, and daily interactions begin to absorb its weight. In this fragile space, some people slip into a pattern, often unconsciously, of expecting others to inhabit the same emotional darkness they cannot escape themselves. Understanding this impulse requires a deeper look at how trauma, psychology, and relational ethics shape the ways suffering moves between people.
The Psychology of “If I Suffer, Others Should Too”
Human beings rarely weaponise suffering consciously. Yet across clinical psychology, trauma studies, and social philosophy, a recurring behavioural pattern has been observed: individuals who experience prolonged distress sometimes develop what psychiatrist Judith Herman describes, in Trauma and Recovery (1992), as “a constriction of emotional life that distorts both self-concept and relational capacities.” For some, this distortion manifests in a defensive posture that resembles: I am suffering and drowning; therefore, I cannot bear the sight of others afloat.
This emotional stance is not cruelty in the classical sense. It is a trauma-mediated response rooted in exhausted empathy, chronic dysregulation, and the maladaptive belief, identified in cognitive psychology, that pain must be universalised to become meaningful. Aaron Beck’s cognitive theory of depression notes that individuals in states of low mood often perceive their own suffering as inevitable, global, and permanent. When this worldview expands outward, it colours perceptions of others’ well-being or privileges.
People in such states sometimes internalise the idea that because they cannot escape their burdens, others should also confront harsh realities without relief. Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein wrote about “projective identification,” a process through which people unconsciously export inner turmoil to their environment. When someone’s internal landscape is dominated by helplessness, bitterness, or humiliation, these emotions can be projected outward, resulting in interpersonal dynamics where relief for others feels psychologically threatening.
This is not malice. It is emotional survival under conditions where mental health is compromised, executive functioning is impaired, and empathy has been eroded by exhaustion. Yet it can slowly become corrosive for relationships, workplaces, families, and friendships.
When Solvable Problems Become Immovable
Many individuals in distress intellectually recognise that certain life problems: finances, accommodation, employment, and personal conflicts, could improve with effort, structure, or support. But depression, trauma-related disorders, and anxiety fundamentally alter a person’s capacity to act. Clinical research from the National Institute of Mental Health has documented how chronic psychological distress impairs decision-making, planning, motivation, and emotional regulation.
Thus, problems that are solvable become practically insurmountable. Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, in An Unquiet Mind (1995), describes how mood disorders can “paralyse initiative, dampen resilience, and distort the sense of the possible.” What an outside observer interprets as “not trying” often reflects cognitive fatigue, impaired concentration, and diminished reward processing, well-studied symptoms in major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders.
When individuals cannot solve what they believe they should be able to solve, shame and rage become a central psychological reaction. Psychologist June Tangney’s decades of research on shame demonstrates its withdrawal-inducing effects: shame leads people to hide, lash out, or push others away, rather than seek help.
Shame, in turn, erodes self-worth. And eroded self-worth can lead the mind into darker reasoning: If I am constantly struggling, if I cannot fix my life, if I carry this much pain—why should others have it easier?
This is rarely said out loud. But the implicit emotional logic becomes detectable in patterns of conversation, tone, and attitude. Optimism irritates. Advice feels patronising. Someone else’s progress feels like an indictment of one’s own stagnation.
The psychological truth is simple: when internal suffering is overwhelming, watching others thrive can become psychologically painful. Not because one wants harm, but because flourishing exposes one’s own wounds. But to the people around them, this dynamic becomes increasingly difficult to manage.
The Compassion Fatigue of Loved Ones: Why People Pull Away
Compassion fatigue is not limited to doctors and caregivers. Friends, partners, and colleagues can experience it too. Charles Figley, who developed the concept in the 1990s, noted that emotional proximity to someone who is chronically distressed can lead to exhaustion, irritability, and the need for distance.
People who are usually supportive begin to feel emotionally depleted, guilty for not being able to help, anxious about potential conflict, afraid of saying the “wrong thing,” and increasingly aware that their presence may no longer be a potential requirement for healing.
Most importantly, they begin to realise, often after months or years, that they cannot carry someone else’s unchanging pain when the individual is unwilling or unable to seek help. Boundary-setting then emerges not as abandonment, but as emotional self-preservation.
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has argued that compassion requires “a belief in the worthiness of the self to flourish.” When someone’s pain becomes so overwhelming that it dismisses or attacks the flourishing of others, compassion becomes harder to sustain.
Supporters start recognising unhealthy relational patterns: conversations that constantly circle back to suffering, resentment toward others’ well-being, the dismissal of constructive suggestions, and anger or guilt-tripping whenever boundaries are set.
Eventually, they pull away, not always out of sheer indifference, but because the psychological toll, and often assault both physical and mental, becomes unbearable. As therapist and author Terrence Real notes in relational psychology, unbounded empathy becomes a “self-erasing posture.” People step back to protect their equilibrium.
This withdrawal, however, is often misinterpreted by the struggling individual as betrayal or proof that “no one cares,” feeding the cycle of pain and distorted expectations.
The Moral Philosophy of Suffering and the Ethics of Not Spreading Pain
Across philosophical traditions, suffering has been recognised as both a teacher and a danger. But in contemporary life, its relational impact is less examined.
Friedrich Nietzsche, although writing in a radically different context, observed in On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) that resentment transforms suffering into a desire for others to share that suffering. He warns that unprocessed pain can be moralised, becoming a lens through which one interprets the behaviour and fortunes of others. Nietzsche is not advocating cruelty; rather, he identifies a psychological pattern where pain demands validation, even if through the discomfort of others.
Buddhist philosophy, by contrast, emphasises the concept of dukkha—suffering as a universal condition that should deepen empathy rather than dilute it. But Buddhism also teaches upeksha (Sanskrit), or equanimity, which includes the ability to step back from relationships that produce harm or instability. Boundaries, therefore, are not Western inventions; they are present in traditions that emphasise compassion as a disciplined and deliberate practice rather than an endless drain.
Simone Weil, the French philosopher and mystic, argued that attention is the purest form of generosity. But attention cannot be coerced or demanded; it must be freely given. For Weil, suffering becomes ethically complex when it asks others to suffer in turn. The moral challenge lies in preventing pain from becoming a form of power.
What these traditions collectively show is that suffering becomes ethically corrosive when it insists on company, when it interprets the flourishing of others as betrayal, or when it uses guilt as a currency. But they also insist on forgiveness, understanding, and the recognition that such behaviours arise from genuine wounds, not malice.
Toward Healing: Breaking the Cycle Without Romanticising Suffering
Healing begins neither with endurance nor with suppression, but with recognition. Trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score (2014), notes that trauma reconfigures both brain and body. The fight-or-flight system becomes overactive; the ability to regulate emotions becomes compromised. Understanding this physiological reality can soften the moral judgments that sufferers place on themselves.
The first step out of the “If I suffer, others should too” mindset is not self-blame but awareness. Psychotherapy, particularly forms grounded in cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), and trauma-informed modalities, helps individuals identify maladaptive beliefs and emotional triggers. Research consistently shows that these therapies reduce emotional reactivity and improve relational functioning.
Social reconnection is part of healing, but reconnection cannot occur through emotional dependence or bitterness. Psychologists like John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, through attachment theory, have shown that secure relationships rely on mutual regulation, not unilateral emotional dumping or silent resentment.
Equally important is understanding boundaries not as rejection but as structure. Boundaries are acts of care, for the self and for the relationship. They prevent resentment from festering, protect both parties from burnout, and create space for healthier forms of connection.
Healing also requires acknowledging that others’ joy is not an indictment of one’s pain. Positive psychology research, including the work of Martin Seligman, suggests that observing or celebrating others’ well-being can, over time, foster upward emotional spirals—if the initial defensiveness is addressed with therapeutic support.
Finally, individuals must see their pain as something that deserves treatment, not justification. Suffering is not a moral badge or a philosophical insight. It is a signal. And like any signal, it is meant to be addressed: not spread, defended, or validated through the suffering of others.
In the end, suffering does not make people unworthy of love. But neither does it grant the moral permission to turn pain into a contagion. Healing requires courage, boundaries require compassion, and relationships require mutual care and recognising this is the first step toward breaking the quiet, often invisible cycle of shared suffering.
With inputs from Lekshmi Narayan
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