You Can't Feel Like Others Do Unless You're In Their Shoes

“Don’t you dare say that you know how I feel! You can never feel the same as I feel because you have never been through what I've put up with and persevered with. You can just try to understand what I’m telling you”.

An Equatorial Guinean immigrant woman said this in an interview with a famous Spanish presenter. The woman had lived in Spain for 14 years. She obtained a residence permit, yet with some obstacles; being a woman, an African, black, immigrant and poor.
Not having a job or a stable income, she couldn’t rent even a room to live in even if she could pay for it. She went to live in a small shelter made of some woods, plastics and metals without running water or electricity. At irregular intervals, she finds some housework to do and gets paid.

In the interview, she spoke fluently, bravely and angrily better than any political leader or party member. She said what she wanted to say without fear.

The platitude that the presenter was about to say during a moment of silence would have been a mistake. The worst mistakes are when others try to belittle how you feel. When they try to tell you how you should express your feelings. Or when they compare their experiences to yours, showing that your struggle is nothing compared with theirs. From their different situations, they bang on about their tragic stories and express how they felt more broken than you!

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