To minimize someone else’s suffering is a wrong. Plain and simple.
The Job of one who is being “mavaler choleh” or providing a listeneing ear is to be “noiseh B’ol” to feel the other persons pain as if it was their own.
However what the person who is suffering on their own should think is another matter.
Some time ago I came down with a extremly rare sickness, I was rushed into one of the top Manhattan Hospitals. The Doctors (some of which were specialists called in by a Chareidi Askan specifically to deal with my case) were to put it in thier own words, extremly pessimistic about my prospects for a complete recovery.
The morning after I was admitted a Doctor was doing a minor procedure on my neck. He was able to see what was pretty obvious at the time.
I was really, really scared.
So the Dr. seeking to reassure me said “Don’t worry, you have the right to be scared anybody in youre situation would be scared”.
I might’ve been scared but B”H I still had my wits about me and I replied “I may have the right to be scared but it sure won’t help me”.
For the rest of the procedure the Dr. did not say a word.
My point is that yes, one may feel they have the “right” to be scared or to be negativley affected by something that goes badly for them or is done badly to them.
But know this.
You do not gain by allowing things to affect you badly.
You do gain from viewing each and everything that happens to you as a nisoyon, a test, a challenge to conquer.
If you do that, then each and every challenge that comes your way will only cause you to grow.
Because to meet a challenge you must grow. The harder the challenge the more growth that is required of you.
I spent several weeks in the Hospital and then as part of my treatment a phsycologist met with me to ensure that I was dealing with things properly.
He was a non-jew and he remarked how I must wish that I was never in the Hospital.
I replied that he was dead wrong. I hope and pray that no one is ever in the situation that I was in or has the side affects that I have.
However I would not trade my experiences for the world. My illness forced me to grow, to learn, to view, and experience things in ways I never could have before I was admitted to the hospitol with what was literally my life on the line.
I was sick, but in my recuperation I expierienced open nissim on a magnitude that caused a conservative Doctor to state theat it was clear to all that my recovery was an open miracle.
I grew in emunah, I grew in emunas chachomim (Gedolei Yisroel told my family in the begining not to listen to the DR’s I would recover), I learnt the meaning of Chesed, I saw firsthand how to really care for another. And I met amazing people.
One can chose to suffer but it’s never worth it, Instead you can use youre suffering to grow and to live. To really live.
I am only sharing this because when I began to turn the corner and was able to visit others my Rov ( My Rov and Rabbeim called almost every day to see how I was doing)told me that now I have to be michazek others.