The phrase at least can shrink a pain its speaker has never carried.

At least is usually offered as comfort and lands as dismissal. It compares the person’s pain to something worse, which does nothing to reduce what they are carrying and quietly tells them their reaction is out of proportion. It is most often said by people who have not been through the thing.

When someone is hurting, drop the comparison entirely. That sounds hard, or I am sorry, or simply staying and asking more, are all better. If you feel the urge to find a silver lining, that urge is usually about your own discomfort with their distress.