Even when you are legitimately suffering, it is your responsibility not to be cruel to people who haven’t harmed you. When you are miserable and feel like lashing out, it’s your responsibility to control that impulse and to apologize when you fail to control that impulse.
Sometimes people think their suffering gives them the right to be as vicious as they like, and that viciousness often lands on the very people trying to offer them support and care. Someone who cares about you and who is trying to support you isn’t there to be your verbal (or physical) punching bag.
There’s a difference between consensual support – sharing your feelings with someone who has agreed to listen – and taking out those feelings on someone by saying cruel things to them, hurting them physically, or making them feel bad intentionally to excise your own feelings.
If you are the person offering care to someone who is suffering, you are not required to accept cruelty in order to offer support. You are entitled to set boundaries that keep you from being hurt – even when the other person is also legitimately hurting.
Sometimes people who are suffering get overwhelmed and lash out, because it can be hard to think of others sometimes when your own pain is great. But if and when this happens, it needs to be acknowledged and apologized for, and the person who did it needs to figure out how to stop themselves from behaving like this in the future. The person who was lashed out at is also entitled to their own feelings about what happened; no one’s required to excuse or ignore their pain just because it was inflicted on impulse or by someone else who was in pain.
No one gets a pass on harming whoever’s nearest just because they themselves have been harmed.  If someone is consistently treating you with respect, it’s not acceptable to force them to bear the brunt of pain you received somewhere else. Find other ways to handle overwhelming feelings.
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