Venting Hearing my friends do well makes me feel awful

[knickknack81]

Hey everybody.

So just yesterday I had one of my close friends come to town and we went to a concert together. It was real fun but he told me that he and his wife just bought a new house and making big changes in his life. And whenever I hear something like this, it just makes me feel really awful and depressed. Nothing against him, I am happy for him. I just feel like every time I hear someone is doing well or starting something new and exciting in their life, I just get so down on myself because I am the exact opposite. After just getting out a long term relationship, I feel very isolated. More so than I ever have in my life. And on top of that, work is not going so well. And a lot of the things that used to make me happy just really aren't doing it for me anymore. If they do, it's for a short time and then I end up feeling sad and depressed. Which leads me to a day like today, where I just feel very down on myself and scared of the future. The anxiety I have right now has been lingering for a few months and it's impossible to shape. I just feel like I am at a weird stand still in my life. Definitely been having thoughts of CTB. I am not in the mindframe of acting on it at the moment but I definitely have that feeling of is things don't change, this might just be the end for me. I dunno, Im just posting my thoughts to see if others feel the same way. And if so, how do you go about dealing with it.

Thanks a bunch. Glad to have this space to share these thoughts with you.

 

[eupdplishlp]

I can also feel the same. In my experience and I may be completly wrong here to correct me if so, it would stem from an insecurity I had about myself in which I have endless. I'd feel like I wasn't sucessful enough and that I'm not achieving what others are my age but I was being hard on myself as my insecurities where all mentalhealth related. It's not ur fault, not their fault. evenwhen it hurts me I will be happy for my friends achieving somthing because I know howhard it is to achieve anything in this world.

 

[eggsausagerice]

sometimes the jealousy i have towards my mentally healthy, financial stable friends is so strong i want to explode. i just want what they want but i said that to them it would be pretty obvious that i'm jealous of what they have and they would get uncomfortable by me not being happy for their success. i'm just not really the kind of person that gets happy that someone's life is going well if my life is actively going downhill. when my friend moved away i felt awful and i couldn't stop crying because i wanted them to stay here, even though i knew they've wanted to move away for a while.

it's hard for me to not resent them for moving away because i really want what they have. i feel the same way you do. it's hard to not be acutely aware of everything going wrong in your life when you have friends that act like examples of someone happier than you. i know i'm not a very good person for not being happy for someone else's success. it's isolating to have these feelings because you have to keep them to yourself, since they're kind of toxic to admit to other people. you sound self-absorbed and like a bummer for making your friend's happiness about yourself. it makes me feel like such a bad person.

 

[kopebaldy]

Lol my friend is now owning multiple businesses, having family and probably the most successful self made millionaire I personally know.

I truly am happy for him even though we don't really talk much anymore, but looking at him and looking back at me, we started at pretty similar places, but look at us now lol.

Maybe life just isn't for everyone.

 

[User111885]

Hey everybody.

So just yesterday I had one of my close friends come to town and we went to a concert together. It was real fun but he told me that he and his wife just bought a new house and making big changes in his life. And whenever I hear something like this, it just makes me feel really awful and depressed. Nothing against him, I am happy for him. I just feel like every time I hear someone is doing well or starting something new and exciting in their life, I just get so down on myself because I am the exact opposite. After just getting out a long term relationship, I feel very isolated. More so than I ever have in my life. And on top of that, work is not going so well. And a lot of the things that used to make me happy just really aren't doing it for me anymore. If they do, it's for a short time and then I end up feeling sad and depressed. Which leads me to a day like today, where I just feel very down on myself and scared of the future. The anxiety I have right now has been lingering for a few months and it's impossible to shape. I just feel like I am at a weird stand still in my life. Definitely been having thoughts of CTB. I am not in the mindframe of acting on it at the moment but I definitely have that feeling of is things don't change, this might just be the end for me. I dunno, Im just posting my thoughts to see if others feel the same way. And if so, how do you go about dealing with it.

Thanks a bunch. Glad to have this space to share these thoughts with you.

You seem mostly a normal person who is just depressed. Have you tried medication and therapy? I think your emotions seem normal. Suicide is a dark and painful path, better for those who have tried and failed to get better and/or do not have other options. You seem like someone who could get better just experiencing normal depression.

 

[knickknack81]

You seem mostly a normal person who is just depressed. Have you tried medication and therapy? I think your emotions seem normal. Suicide is a dark and painful path, better for those who have tried and failed to get better and/or do not have other options. You seem like someone who could get better just experiencing normal depression.

I am in therapy. It has helped a little but to talk things over but I still have that awful feeling that things are just going to keep getting worse. I am still here and trying to get through each day. Just gets really tough sometimes, like nothing will ever improve. But, I haven't given up hope yet.

 

[DontTouchMeImFamous]

Sameee

 

[User111885]

Jealous

I am in therapy. It has helped a little but to talk things over but I still have that awful feeling that things are just going to keep getting worse. I am still here and trying to get through each day. Just gets really tough sometimes, like nothing will ever improve. But, I haven't given up hope yet.

Jealousy is such a normal condition. Keep fighting the good fight.

People who take medication and do talk therapy and exercise and eat an antiinflammatory diet sometimes feel better. Don't become one of us and start looking up methods. Keep fighting harder. You're someone who seems capable of getting out of depression.

I stopped fighting at a certain point. I had medical problems and just didn't want to keep going.

If you can still fight, keep fighting it.

 

[SchizoPolyGymnast]

I think this feeling is way more common than we realize and we need to destigmatize it. Personally, I don't feel resentment when I feel included in sone way, but when they're basically talking *at* you about how great their life is, it's like you're not even in the room. We live in a toxic positive bootlicking culture where we are supposed to fawn over people who have success. And I say they can suck it.

 

[TheVanishingPoint]

You know, I don't really think there's a finish line. Or some "starting point" to get back to. The stuff you see in other people the new house, the fresh relationship, the job that seems to be working out it's just how they fill their time so they don't have to think too much about how fragile and temporary all of this is. It's not that you're "behind." It's that there's no race. No pre-drawn path. And if there ever was… it's on a map made up by someone who's not even around anymore. That emptiness you feel… it's not some personal flaw. It's just what's left when you stop telling yourself little stories to keep moving forward. The anxiety, the stillness, the fear of "what's next" they're all normal, if normal means seeing things for what they are. I don't think there's a real salvation out there. At best, maybe you get a bit of relief when you stop measuring yourself against standards you never chose. The rest success, failure, plans it's all just flimsy scenery, and sooner or later, time tears it down.

 

[Nightfoot]

Comparing our situations to others is easy and very common. Unfortunately it can make us feel worse, even though how someone else's life is going is unrelated to ours. I hope your situation improves,

 

[SoulWantsHome]

sometimes the jealousy i have towards my mentally healthy, financial stable friends is so strong i want to explode. i just want what they want but i said that to them it would be pretty obvious that i'm jealous of what they have and they would get uncomfortable by me not being happy for their success. i'm just not really the kind of person that gets happy that someone's life is going well if my life is actively going downhill. when my friend moved away i felt awful and i couldn't stop crying because i wanted them to stay here, even though i knew they've wanted to move away for a while.

it's hard for me to not resent them for moving away because i really want what they have. i feel the same way you do. it's hard to not be acutely aware of everything going wrong in your life when you have friends that act like examples of someone happier than you. i know i'm not a very good person for not being happy for someone else's success. it's isolating to have these feelings because you have to keep them to yourself, since they're kind of toxic to admit to other people. you sound self-absorbed and like a bummer for making your friend's happiness about yourself. it makes me feel like such a bad person.

This kind of jealousy of other people's success, when your own life sucks, is completely normal to feel. (What would actually be abnormal, is if you didn't feel that way, under those types of circumstances.)

So, you're obviously NOT a "bad person" for feeling this way. You're simply a completely normal, selfish human - and you're simply being more honest with both yourself and other people, than most people probably are, about this selfish, jealous aspect of yourself/themselves (which they all would secretly experience, under such circumstances).



Quick explanation:

Humans (along with all other animals) are fundamentally selfish creatures by nature --> and they instinctively want to survive --> and they thereby instinctively want to win/succeed in life.

So, when human "A" observes that human "B" is winning/succeeding over and over again in life, while human "A" itself is losing/failing over and over again in life; the ego of human "A" will naturally feel threatened and hurt by this, and will thereby naturally be jealous at human "B" (even if human "B" is a friend or family of human "A").

However, depending on how much compassion/empathy that human "A" is born with - as well as depending on how much human "A" is losing/failing in his/her own life (and thereby the degree of compassion/empathy that human "A" can emotionally afford to feel under such challenging circumstances); human "A" can still feel happy for human "B" to some degree - despite at the same time also being jealous at human "B" to some degree. And these conflicting emotions are simply due to humans being both selfish and altruistic creatures.

So, in short:
The jealousy you're feeling here, is simple animal-nature. You're simply experiencing the biological selfishness and competitiveness of your animal-brain. Your brain is simply functioning correctly - which means that there's no real reason to feel bad about yourself, for feeling jealous at other people's wins/successes in life.

Now, if you somehow were to begin winning/succeeding a lot more in your own life; then this jealousy of yours would naturally become significantly reduced, or would even naturally become completely eliminated, according to both the type and degree of wins/successes you have.

Hey everybody.

So just yesterday I had one of my close friends come to town and we went to a concert together. It was real fun but he told me that he and his wife just bought a new house and making big changes in his life. And whenever I hear something like this, it just makes me feel really awful and depressed. Nothing against him, I am happy for him. I just feel like every time I hear someone is doing well or starting something new and exciting in their life, I just get so down on myself because I am the exact opposite. After just getting out a long term relationship, I feel very isolated. More so than I ever have in my life. And on top of that, work is not going so well. And a lot of the things that used to make me happy just really aren't doing it for me anymore. If they do, it's for a short time and then I end up feeling sad and depressed. Which leads me to a day like today, where I just feel very down on myself and scared of the future. The anxiety I have right now has been lingering for a few months and it's impossible to shape. I just feel like I am at a weird stand still in my life. Definitely been having thoughts of CTB. I am not in the mindframe of acting on it at the moment but I definitely have that feeling of is things don't change, this might just be the end for me. I dunno, Im just posting my thoughts to see if others feel the same way. And if so, how do you go about dealing with it.

Thanks a bunch. Glad to have this space to share these thoughts with you.

My reply to monetpompo above, also applies to you, of course :)

Feeling jealous, is simply normal under such circumstances. (And it's even normal under much milder circumstances, which one can call "casual jealousy".)