Do you have comparison anxiety?
The unparalleled access we now have to each other’s lives is creating a new kind of toxic habit. But, asks Anita Bhagwandas, can we ever really be cured of comparison?›
Granted, aged four, as a fairly sheltered child in South Wales I hadn’t seen that much, but the princess party promised to be everything. Inside my friend’s small terraced house was a long rail of outfits that looked like Tinkerbell’s overstuffed closet – sparkly, floaty and magical. Everyone was queuing up with glee to get their princess dress. Even little Rhiannon* – generally expressionless and dour – looked like she might do a happy wee like an excitable golden retriever.
But when it came to my turn, instead of reaching for a princess dress, the woman in charge of the rail looked me up and down. “The dresses won’t fit you – try this,” she said before moving me along without looking me in the eyes. What she handed me was a sad pair of elasticated pink trousers instead of the princess gown and tiara I’d counted on. I looked at the little princesses either side of me and felt disappointment burn through my veins. It wasn’t what she said, it was the subtext – “You’re bigger than everyone else here.” I half-heartedly joined in with the party but wasn’t sad to leave when my mother came to collect me an hour later.
I now know that being fat-shamed at four created a chain reaction of comparison anxiety. Any time a situation arose that could leave me open to comparison, I’d worry for hours – like auditions for school plays or our yearly cross-country run at school. Comparison became a defence mechanism and I turned it inwards, stopping myself from doing anything that might open me up to being pitted against others. In primary school I’d marvel at the kids who could climb up the rope in PE – I’d convinced myself I was too big so didn’t try. I’d look at the predominantly white girls in my class with their neat, straight hair and wish my curly, frizzy hair would just sodding behave. That led to, at 13, having my hair blow-dried straight for the first time. After that I did it at home myself – though any drop of rain or humidity sent it back to its original curly state, which drove me into a wild panic that my hard work would be undone (and it rains a LOT in Wales). I didn’t want anyone to see what made me different from others – and, in my eyes, weaker.
That pattern of behaviour followed me and intensified. Those early incidents left a serious scar and a habit for excessive daily comparison that has continued into my thirties. At my lowest ebb in adult life, I’ve felt those bitter pangs towards my best friends who have the things I want one day – a big house, seemingly happy marriage, cute kids. Now, after a decade of working in the original mecca of comparison, fashion magazines, I feel like I’ve got serious comparison issues. Though I’ve taken some measures to quell the fire myself (like therapy, meditation and a towering pillar of self-help books), I want to be able to fully embrace my life, free of the cloud of negativity comparison has caused me. That’s when a friend mentions Lucy Sheridan,† the UK’s only “comparison coach”. Curiosity initially tails off into scepticism when I hear the two words I dread most: life coach. I’ve seen life coaches before and found them ineffective compared to proper therapy. Still, she comes highly recommended, and at this point I’m willing to try anything.
Obsessed with comparison
I expect Sheridan to open with the classic Theodore Roosevelt quote “Comparison is the thief of joy” as we “meet” over a Skype session. I’m glad she doesn’t – I loathe that quote because so many people have pointedly tagged me in it over the years that it evokes an unrelenting fury. Truthfully, as a human, I just want her to fix me. But as a journalist, I want to know what qualifies her to do this work. She tells me she started comparing herself at a very young age, and it took over everything, until
It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
“I didn’t want anyone to see what made me different”
a school reunion caused her serious comparison anxiety. “[People] were talking about trips to the Maldives and interior designers while I was losing my home – it was really eye-opening to me,” she says. That spurred Sheridan to turn it around. She bought a ton of self-help books, watched the relevant TED talks and decided the comparison agony had to end. She eventually left her career in advertising to train and focus on life coaching full-time (she also applies some cognitive behaviour techniques to the topic of comparison and its effects). Her typical clients are mainly women in corporate and creative industries aged 25 to 35 who notice that comparing themselves to others has held them back. Social media has led to a demand for her services (I’ve found it terrorises me with envy), but she also suggests “people are becoming more aware of the effects of comparison on their day-to-day mental health and, rather than ignoring it, are taking responsibility for it”.
We spend the remainder of the 90-minute session delving into recent comparisons I’ve made in my career, relationships and appearance – and working through what that might mean and how to reshape my thoughts around it. It’s been cathartic – I sign off Skype feeling like I’ve taken half a Valium and she gives me some homework: to work out what I want to achieve in the next six months and to read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, a self-help tome about living creatively without fear. Sheridan also leaves me with some sage advice: “Our impulse is to run away from the comparison habit and push it down because the feelings that come with it are so uncomfortable. Instead, let it run through your system to slow down its build-up and reduce its frequency.” She also has a firm line about “pre-wee scrolling”, ie no social media first thing while you’re
still in bed. This, she says, sets you up for comparison so, instead, I’m to start my mornings by writing a speedy gratitude letter imagining my day has ended and being thankful for everything I’ve accomplished. “It will help keep comparison out, focus your day and make sure your energy is being used where it’s needed, rather than for comparing,” she says.
Sheridan invites me to an online coaching session with around 50 other women that night. During the video chat, she shows us a picture of a generic thin white woman in a bikini on a sunlounger, with a baby. It’s the kind of thing I’d see on Instagram and eye-roll at… while also feeling that I was totally lacking. She asks us what our assumptions are about the picture. Mine are “rich, privileged and basic”, but Sheridan tells us the real story. The girl is a friend of a friend, she snuck into the hotel as she couldn’t afford it and the child is her niece. Something Sheridan says massively shifts my mindset on this: “You have to take everything in that person’s life, the sadness, the joy, the annoying stuff – all of it. Remember, the irony is that people will be comparing themselves to you too.” That’s something my pals say to me all the time – but no matter what, I just can’t seem to believe it.
Separating fantasy from reality
It was psychologist Leon Festinger who first introduced the idea of social comparison theory, back in 1954. He determined that we make comparisons as a way of evaluating ourselves, which can be traced back to a primal need to protect oneself and assess any incoming threats. “We naturally compare ourselves to others to find out our place in the pecking order in terms of our attractiveness or intelligence level,” says psychologist Jivan Dempsey.‡
While that may be true, the situation we’re in now is much more extreme. “Social media means we potentially have the whole world to look at and compare ourselves to – 10 years ago it was just the people we had around us.” Now technology is making us compare ourselves in ways we didn’t previously care about – like whether we’ve been to Mexico’s Isla Holbox “before it’s ruined” and wanting to be great at cooking, when Ibiza suits us just fine and Deliveroo is our most-used app.
A study from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine** found that the more time we spend on social media, the more likely we are to be depressed, which I’ve honestly felt myself. So I decide to take action on Sheridan’s advice, muting anyone who triggers comparisons, even if they’re a good friend. “We can self-project if we’re having confidence issues and looking at social media,” Dempsey continues. “If you’re worried about your weight, you’ll naturally focus on images of slim people – it’s a negative-thinking bias that can
exacerbate symptoms of depression. But following people with authentic messages about anything you’re struggling with – from anxiety to depression – may actually help you feel less alone,” she says.
Still, being able to separate fact from fiction is difficult when social media is presented as the truth, rather than edited and contrived “highlights”. And when we look at it for a split second, we don’t always fully absorb that. “I see people in my clinic with low self-confidence, and social-media comparison has exacerbated that so they’re constantly looking for ways to change themselves. It does tend to affect younger people
more too,” Dempsey explains. The stats also support that – a 2015 study by researchers at the Universities of Essex and Cambridge showed that the tendency to compare ourselves declines as we age. It also suggested that as we age, we’re more likely to evaluate ourselves against our own past rather than others in the present – which is a different, albeit still poisoned chalice, especially in my case when Facebook reminds you that 10 years ago you were three stone lighter and able to drink a case of Sailor Jerry sans hangover.
I make a pledge to think about my social-media usage more carefully, in particular reducing it and following Sheridan’s instructions to use Pinterest over Instagram for home and style inspiration. She’s right – I feel inspired and creative but I don’t feel any envy or comparison. I then undergo a massive unfollowing session – and a deep think. I relook at the old picture of myself at that princess party, in the trousers. Maybe that woman was having a bad day, maybe she didn’t have enough outfits, maybe she was a bit racist (and that’s something to consider – it was the ’80s, after all). Challenging my all-or-nothing thinking a little seems to help shift things.
Cracking comparison anxiety
Armed with some new tools, I’m determined to work to try and nix this comparison thing for good. Over dinner with a beautiful, successful, stylish pal, the usual feelings flare up. Sheridan advised me to have the phrase “good for you, same for me” in my comparison arsenal. I say it to myself when my brain says “I wish I was that put-together and pretty.” The result? The feeling passes fast and I don’t feel like shit. I’ve had therapy before, so I know the things that have caused my tendency to over-compare (namely that I’ve always felt very “othered” in the society I grew up in, being both plus-size and a woman of colour), but the tools Sheridan has given me do seem to be working in real life.
Sheridan says there’s one thing to remember in these situations: “It’s all a mirror – what you notice in others is a reflection and recognition of what is inside you. Comparison is trying to reveal a hidden jewel of insight to you, so notice what you notice. For example, if a comparison is triggered when you see someone off on holiday again, what does this tell you about your need to travel?” And, yes, while I do find the constant posting of engagement, home and baby pictures tiresome, at least it reaffirms what I’m looking for – and there’s now a flipside: another voice in my head aside from the one that says, “You’re not as good.” Lots of my friends couldn’t just take a month off as
I did recently to travel around California. They might see me doing that and feel envious or think it’s excessive (it was, rather).
It’s only been a month since I met Sheridan, and yet
I can feel a lifetime of comparison starting to shift already, and that’s not just magazine rhetoric to give this feature the desired happy ending. She’s managed to crack it by being honest about her own pangs of comparison, accepting of anyone else who feels the same and by giving you the tools to diffuse that envy bomb before it detonates. Now, after four sessions, I know I’ll always be somebody who leans towards comparison – but I know it’s not my fault and that I can slowly override this conditioning. But I’m also learning that the only path that should matter to me is my own – whether I have a pink princess outfit or not. ◆
“The irony is people are comparing themselves to you too”