Jealousy and The Demonisation of Our Emotions

Jealousy is a feeling so universal and yet at the same time so utterly demonised.

Of course it is not a nice emotion to feel, it often ends up becoming detrimental to you, and if

you let it fester, to the person or thing you are jealous of, but that does not make it abnormal

Fairly recently on Tik Tok, there was discourse surrounding envy, and feeling envy towards a

close friend in particular. The original poster, after detailing her experience with this, and

how she had to distance herself from her friend because of it, suffered immense levels of

Backlash.

Many of the comments tried to villanise the poster, telling her that it was not normal to feel

the way she had, that it made her a horrible person.

But I am here to say that experiencing that kind of jealousy does not make you a bad person.

In a society that is so hellbent on pitting everyone against each other, especially in a

capitalist society which focuses mainly on constant success and obtaining what others have,

it’s not out of the question for us to feel bitter sometimes.

And social media does not help either. The moment you log on to any social media, be it

TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, or the worst offender, Instagram, you are instantly notified of

what is happening in others lives. It doesn’t matter that what you see on social media is often

nothing more than a highlight reel, only a distorted view that shows the good happening to

those around you, it still tends to be harmful.

I can recall many times where I’ve felt a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) when swiping

through people’s stories, and seeing them do the things that I wish I could be doing.

Most of us have felt like that, and those who say they haven’t, are often lying in the name of

preserving their dignity. That is not to be accusatory, more to bring light to the fact that it is a

collective, human feeling.

And the more extreme level of jealousy, the kind TikTok has been up in arms about, feeling

envious of those around you, isn’t unfounded either.

It is something I have been through before. Something I wish I did not have to feel , but

something that impacted me regardless.

The thing about jealousy is, as aforementioned, it is an emotion. You cannot control whether

you feel it or not, rather how you choose to deal with it. That is what determines whether you

are a so-called ‘bad’ or ‘good’ person, not the feeling.

Jealousy stems from, and plays on your greatest insecurities. When I felt envious of a close

friend of mine, it wasn’t because I hated the friend, or because I was praying for their downfall. It was because I felt insecure within myself. I saw things that seemed to come

naturally to them, things that I loved about them, like their charisma, their extroversion, their

outspokenness and even their beauty, and was mad at myself for not possessing those

qualities. I did not mean that I wanted to tear them down because of it, when you’re that

close to someone, you wouldn’t dream of it. If anything I put the person on a pedestal whilst

lowering my own self esteem.

That was what was detrimental about my jealousy. The internal harm that it caused to me,

and the effects of holding someone up that highly.

Of course, jealousy can fuel the resentment that causes you to harm someone intentionally,

which becomes something that should rightfully be criticised, but that is often not the case.

Jealousy tends to affect the person feeling it worse than the person it is directed towards.

I will not lie and say that the jealousy had no impact on my friendship with the person, it

amplified grievances that were already there, deepened cracks that were already showing.

However, I talked about it, something I cannot recommend enough.

It is unbelievably hard to be vulnerable, but it is just as rewarding.

Being open about such a terrorising feeling, can help diminish it.

It’s like if you were to come down with an illness, ignoring it and pretending things are fine

won’t fix it, if anything it will only make your illness worse. However, having people tell you

you are disgusting for being ill, and that it is entirely your fault for contracting that sickness,

will also make things worse, but you are less likely to seek medical attention. But the only

way to get better, is to recognise that you are sick, and that there are measures you can take

to heal, even if it is gradual.

And you can apply that to jealousy, by recognising that you feel envy, and that it is actively

impacting you, and ignoring the judgement (or on the flip side not judging others), will allow

you can confront the emotion in a healthy way, and in turn heal.

As hard as it may be, don’t let others convince you that you are a bad person simply for

feeling. Jealousy is not and will never be as taboo as society has made it out to be. You are

human, you will experience human emotion, jealousy is part of that spectrum, and there is

nothing wrong with that.

Written by, La’Keesha Stewart