“This will definitely get me into college.”

As part of my entrance into high school, I found myself immensely invested in identifying the steps into the next part of my life: college. Before my freshman year even began, I was binging YouTube videos with clickbait titles – anything from “COLLEGE DECISION REACTION!! 37 SCHOOLS?!” and “STATS GOT ME INTO HARVARD!” – engaged in the many facets I would need to understand in order to reach my dream schools.

These videos shaped my understanding of what college admissions officers sought in a candidate. Content creators droned on and on as they complained about how overbooked they were with their boring extracurriculars, their constant studying, their sheer perfection. I watched as these future ivy-league students whined about their 1550 SAT scores; I listened to their essays regarding pretentious obstacles such as sports injuries or failing in a school election. I wondered if this was what high school was like, if this was the norm.

In freshman year, signing up for 30 clubs and planning my four-year schedule to include six AP courses in my senior year was all part of my plan to become “the perfect candidate” for colleges. Running around campus to attend meetings for clubs was a daily part of my first year on campus. Balancing clubs at school with extracurriculars, extra credit to receive more than 100 percent, and personal interests to make myself unique meant virtually no time for myself.

When my friends would discuss their stress in school, I felt as though I needed to compare and complain. The videos and content I had consumed had shaped my views, believing that this sort of behavior was the standard in high school. From grades to stress to the idea of simply being busy, I exceeded myself in order to appeal to the colleges I wanted to attend.

With the end of freshman year shifting into online school, I became absolutely devastated. I questioned how I was meant to become the best candidate for college when I could not participate in extracurriculars.

The rise in time solely for myself without worrying of what club meeting or extracurricular activity was upcoming allowed me to explore myself. Without the stress of overbooking myself, I was able to find out more about my own identity, boundaries, and passions. Quarantine gave me the time to learn that the days I spent complaining to my peers and friends was fueling toxicity between myself and others.

I will not shy away from the fact that I used to be a competitor of the struggle olympics. Stressed out and disheartened, competing used to be the only way I could feel any sort of validation for my work. I have now learned that comparing yourself to others – competing against your peers – will only create competition between yourself and others.

Nowadays, when YouTube videos with clickbait titles show up on my feed, I make sure to skip over them. The amount of work someone puts themself in can be influenced by many factors, but the truth I have learned is that college admissions officers do not care about how much someone overbooks themself, they care about how much passion someone has for the activities they participate in.

Being traumatized is not a secret in my friend group. For most, if not all, of us, we have all had our fair share of traumatic experiences and the way for us to bond is through sharing those experiences with each other. It is the quickest way to get close with one another and it is soothing to know I am not going through something alone.

However, this can often escalate into a competition-like experience, people feel the need to compare traumas and experiences, making it seem like they have “gone through more traumatic things” instead of relating to your experience.

While it is often said in confidence with another, I have shared my experience with abusive relationships and traumatic events that happened over the span of the past few years with other people in my friend group.

Despite saying it in confidence with people I trust, I often see others in that same friend group that I trust try to compare my trauma to theirs.

I know that I have not had it the worst out of them, our experiences are not the same and we all acknowledge them, but it often feels like I am being invalidated as they try to escalate the conversation by adding in how they relate to your experience and how it was much worse for them.

Trauma is not comparable and it is not a competition. Everyone has individualized struggles and it should not be about who has “had it worse.”

This is not to say that everyone struggles with the same things or that many of us do not come from places of privilege, but rather to make sure everyone is validated in their feelings. When others share their traumatic or abusive situations with others, it should be about compassion and understanding, rather than putting oneself above others. Different experiences affect different people in varying ways and thus invalidating a person’s experiences is wrong, no matter how small it may seem.

In a school culture where trying to one-up another person on how much they are struggling to keep up with their surroundings or where being the most miserable to a competition of its own, seeing others constantly talk over others in their experiences has become nearly normalized.

Trying to seem the most miserable and traumatized often comes out of a place of survival.

I understand that one-upping my trauma can be a coping or defense mechanism. To feel safe in your own thoughts you need to protect them, but this should not be at the expense of other people’s well being. This is especially true when they are being vulnerable with you. There should never be active competition or comparison in sensitive and vulnerable spaces, where trust is of utmost importance.