--- title: Why Saying 'You’re So Strong' Can Hurt Someone Who’s Grieving description: Telling someone “you’re so strong” may seem supportive—but experts say it can invalidate grief and discourage vulnerability. Here’s what to say instead. canonical: https://time.com/article/2026/04/15/what-to-say-to-someone-grieving/ author: Angela Haupt article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-04-17T13:35:59.813Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-13T06:52:11.846Z article:section: Health og:title: The 3 Words You Should Never Say to Someone Going Through a Hard Time og:description: The common phrase is meant as comfort—but that's not always how it lands. og:url: https://time.com/article/2026/04/15/what-to-say-to-someone-grieving/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d0e01038a1c7ff4/69e001befd89ad10b37d54cc/3_words_never_to_say.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 3 words never to say.png og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The 3 Words You Should Never Say to Someone Going Through a Hard Time twitter:description: The common phrase is meant as comfort—but that's not always how it lands. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d0e01038a1c7ff4/69e001befd89ad10b37d54cc/3_words_never_to_say.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The 3 Words You Should Never Say to Someone Going Through a Hard Time  by [Angela Haupt](https://time.com/author/angela-haupt/)  ## Angela Haupt Apr 17, 2026 1:35 PM UTC  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Image: AnnaStills/Getty Images)  by [Angela Haupt](https://time.com/author/angela-haupt/)  ## Angela Haupt Apr 17, 2026 1:35 PM UTC When Rebecca Love’s oldest son [took his own life](https://time.com/7342277/suicide-prevention-upstream-crisis/) in 2019, at age 25, she felt like her entire world blew up overnight. In the days and weeks that followed, as she nearly collapsed under the weight of the [worst pain she’d ever experienced](https://time.com/article/2026/03/10/what-to-do-when-grief-attacks/), people said the same three words to her again and again: “You’re so strong.” They thought they were being helpful, but the message stung for some reason. “It took me a long time to sort out how I felt about it, and I realized that ultimately, it completely invalidated my pain,” says Love, a therapist in Fair Oaks, Calif. “What I needed more than anything was for my pain to be witnessed, because the way we integrate [grief](https://time.com/7279573/how-to-grieve-essay/)—there’s no finish line for it. To say ‘You’re so strong’ is really to say, ‘I’m not seeing your struggle. I’m not acknowledging how awful this is for you.’” While others were praising her supposed strength, Love was simply trying to survive another day. It wasn’t her own [resilience](https://time.com/4751200/sheryl-sandberg-option-b-grieving-advice/) carrying her through—it was the people around her. “There was no part of me that felt strong,” she says. “My heart beats; my lungs breathe. I didn’t want to be here after I lost a child, but my body had other plans.” What got her through, she says, was her husband, her mother, her best friend—the people who understood instinctively that no one gets through that kind of loss alone. Rather than telling her she was strong, they just showed up. Love’s experience isn’t unusual. Experts say that while the phrase is often meant as comfort, it can land differently for the person on the receiving end. ## **What “you’re so strong” really implies** Strength is often misinterpreted. Therapist Amy Morin defines it as showing emotion, asking for help, and being frank about the fact that you’re struggling. Yet many people confuse being strong with acting tough. A comment like “you’re so strong” implies, “‘Great job not showing emotion!’ or, ‘I’m impressed you’re holding it together,’” says Morin, author of [_13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do_](https://www.amazon.com/Things-Mentally-Strong-People-Dont/dp/0062358308). It can unintentionally make people feel they need to hide what they’re really going through—that they can’t let their guard down, ask for help, or talk about their struggles, she says. When Morin was 26, she lost her mother and then her husband. She remembers one person, who almost certainly meant well, saying to her: “The fact that you’re not crying speaks to how strong you are.” “As a therapist I knew that a lot of times, we have to put on a brave face in public,” she says. “Obviously you’re trying to not cry in the grocery store; you’re trying to get through the day. But when people interpret the fact that you don’t look upset to be strength, it really sends the wrong message.” Those three words, she says, encourage people to act tough, even when that’s the last way they feel. **Read More:** [_11 Things to Say When Someone Dies Besides 'I'm Sorry'_](https://time.com/7001462/what-to-say-when-someone-dies/) Lauren Jessell, a licensed clinical social worker in New York, points out that people often resent being told how strong they are because it discounts how out of control they actually feel. The phrase, she says, is a kind of misattunement—it reflects back an image of the person that has nothing to do with their inner experience. “When we’re in a tough situation, we aren’t ‘being strong,’” she says. “We’re just managing the cards we were dealt.” There’s an implicit suggestion that the person somehow chose their circumstances and is rising admirably to meet them—when in reality, they’re simply doing what they have to do to get by. The phrase can also reinforce the pressure to keep suffering private, Jessell says, particularly for people who have already internalized the idea that they should appear composed during hard times. Love equates lauding someone’s strength to praising their ability to hide their vulnerability. When people told her she was strong, she didn’t feel seen—she felt silenced. “‘You’re so strong’ is really dismissive,” she says. “It does not invite dialogue. It does not invite an opportunity for that person to talk about not feeling strong.” ## **Why we keep saying it** So why is this phrase so common? Usually, Morin says, it’s because it makes us feel better—not the person we’re trying to comfort. When someone we care about is suffering, our own anxiety spikes. We don’t know what to say and are afraid of making things worse. And if the grieving person appears to be holding it together, there’s a temptation to latch onto that—to reflect it back as a compliment and call it support. “When somebody goes through a tragedy, we often have a fear of, ‘How would I handle that if it happened to me?’” Morin says. “We see the other person and think, ‘Well, clearly they’re doing all right.’ It gives us a strange reassurance.” Love understands the impulse, even if the words still sting. “I do think these comments usually come from a good place,” she says. People are trying to relate and convey that they grasp the enormity of what you’re going through. They just don’t realize that by opting for these three specific words, they’re asking the grieving person to do the emotional labor—to manage not only their own pain, but the discomfort of everyone around them. “We’re not a culture that talks about grief, so we don’t have any foundation for how to sit in discomfort,” she says. It took her a long time to arrive at that understanding—but she now extends grace to the people who hurt her without meaning to. “I’m so glad on some level that they don’t understand,” she says. “I would not wish this pain on anyone.” ## **What to say instead** If you truly want to comfort someone who’s going through a hard time, experts say the most powerful thing you can do is to just be there—and resist the urge to fix anything. “Words consistently fail the bereaved,” Love says. “There are no good words that are truly going to encapsulate a loss.” She’s found that the most meaningful thing anyone said to her was some version of: “I don’t know what to say, but I love you and I’m here for you.” That honesty, she says, was far more comforting than any well-worn platitude. As she puts it: “It didn’t hurt that they didn’t know what to say. Of course they didn’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say.” Silence, Love adds, is also underrated. People tend to rush to fill quiet moments—cracking a joke, changing the subject, or pivoting to a story about themselves. But sitting with someone in their pain, without trying to narrate it or reroute it, is one of the most generous things you can offer. “Your presence is so powerful,” she says. “You don’t have to fix it. You just need to witness it.” **Read More:** [_The Best and Worst Things to Say to Someone Just Diagnosed With Cancer_](https://time.com/7304382/what-to-say-to-someone-with-cancer/) Morin suggests normalizing emotional pain regardless of how someone appears on the outside. “You have no idea how they’re feeling on the inside,” she says. A few phrases she recommends: “I’m sure you’re feeling a lot of emotions right now, and that would be normal.” Or: “I can’t imagine how you might be feeling right now.” Or simply: “Whatever it is you’re feeling, it’s OK.” She also encourages people to give explicit permission to drop the brave face. You might say something like: “I know you have to hold it together at work, but if you ever feel like having a conversation where you don’t need to act tough, I’ll be there for you.” The key, Morin says, is that it has to be a genuine offer—don’t say it unless you mean it. Open-ended questions also help, as long as they’re specific enough to signal that you actually want to hear the answer. Morin recommends adding two small words: “right now.” “When you add ‘right now’ on the end of ‘how are you doing,’ it makes it clear—I’m not just saying hi,” she says. “I really want to know.” Jessell agrees that the goal is to be with the person rather than try to bypass the hardship they’re enduring. Instead of labeling someone’s experience for them, try reflecting back what they’re actually telling you so they feel heard. And ask what kind of support would be most helpful—sometimes people want practical help, and sometimes they just want a friend to listen. “Really just asking can be useful,” she says. If someone does say something that stings—whether it’s “you’re so strong” or something else that lands wrong—Love wants people to know they don’t have to smile through it. She tells her therapy clients to keep a phrase in their back pocket for moments like these: _“That’s not helpful.”_ “That’s the end of your interaction,” she says. “You’re not blowing up at them. But you are sending a clear message: This isn’t working for me. And then let them go figure it out.” It’s a boundary that can also be instructive. When someone learns that their go-to phrase doesn’t land the way they intended, they’re less likely to say it to the next person who’s struggling. “I’ve had people say, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t realize—I’ve been saying this to people all the time and nobody ever told me it wasn’t helpful,’” Love says. “And they say, ‘Thank you. I’m never going to say this again.’” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/15/what-to-say-to-someone-grieving/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/15/what-to-say-to-someone-grieving/"},"headline":"The 3 Words You Should Never Say to Someone Going Through a Hard Time","datePublished":"2026-04-17T13:35:59.813Z","dateModified":"2026-05-13T06:52:11.846Z","description":"The common phrase is meant as comfort—but that's not always how it lands.","url":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/15/what-to-say-to-someone-grieving/","keywords":["Time to Talk","Evergreen"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d0e01038a1c7ff4/69e001befd89ad10b37d54cc/3_words_never_to_say.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Angela Haupt","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/angela-haupt/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8d0e01038a1c7ff4/69e001befd89ad10b37d54cc/3_words_never_to_say.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"3 words never to say.png","caption":"","creditText":"Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Image: AnnaStills/Getty Images)","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-to-talk/","name":"Time to Talk"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/article/2026/04/15/what-to-say-to-someone-grieving/","name":"The 3 Words You Should Never Say to Someone Going Through a Hard Time"}}]}] ```