Day 22 Jealousy and injustice

I started today week 4 of the SEP and was initially planning to journal about procrastination but then somehow arrived at the topic of jealousy. A topic i do not often read about in the context of TMS.

As many of us, i experienced a lot of suffering through my life. And I realized a feeling of jealousy against people who never experienced similiar things and just can live their happy life. This feeling is somehow combined with a feeling of injustice as I do not think i deserve this suffering but a happy life as well. It also leads to a tendency of avoiding "too happy" people and feeling more comfortable around "sufferers".

I know that these feelings & behaviour are counterproductive but as i have not read a lot about it here, i was wondering whether you experienced something similiar and how you "countered" it.

I am really greatful for your great support and I hope I am not stretching it by posting too much.

 

Hi Berlinale, you'll find several topics under the umbrella of "victimization". I know it sounds offensive to say all the suffering is on us and life isn't that hard, but victimization is about the identity we develop telling we'll suffer more than normal just because that's what has been happening so far.

It is hard not too feel frustated or else when you see people living "happy" lives while we're here in the trenches. It's a very solitary condition, and to make things worse we get angry at ourselves for feeling it. Just remember we're living in an era of appearances. People nowadays are quite scared to show their true feelings and hardships. It's also an era of solitude with everyone with their faces glued to mobiles, afraid to engage in real conversations.

Apart from that, TMS became epidemic, but the vast majority who suffers from it is trapped to the medical system.

I'd recommend you journal about it not once but several times. It looks like there's important stuff hidden there.

 

Hi Fedducini. Thanks a lot for pointing me to the topic of "victimization". I will look into it more deeply. it might a language problem (i am not a native speaker), but don't you think that (self) victimization and jealousy are different things (although similiar)? I think i do not victimize myself to take away responsibility from me. Actually i take full responsibility for getting better. But I am still jealous of people who do not need to go through all this. And yes, I will definitely need to journal about it a more.

 

I think it comes down to the idea of the world being unfair and not recognizing all the effort we are doing, as it does to other people. You said you have a feeling of injustice. You are not shying away from the responsibility, but you are still paying attention to the unfairness, which is normal, we all do. But it does create a victim identity that usually is a roadblock to recovery. And I do think free journaling about it will help a lot. Let your inner child express itself.

 

I recently encountered this feeling of jealousy and i found myself fighting to not feel it, because i always thought it's bad to feel jealous at anyone. And for me i find that i feel hatred for myself if i feel that, and when i search deeper i found it's related to the feeling of unfairness in life and that rage that i had when i first start to feel my Tms symptoms and when it started to be debilitating, while everyone i knew built their lives but i felt i will always be in the same place.
But now I'm trying to accept that the feeling is there and it's normal to have it due to the impact of the chronic pain that i have all these years+childhood traumatic experiences,and as this program teaching us to be aware of our emotions is the first step to change.

 

I fully agree. Is there any thing i can do to facilitate this on top of journaling about it?

 

You kind of answered that when you said you deserve a better life. What is this life you want for yourself? How can you start to insert it in your daily routine in a way you engage with it and creates a new space in your mind?
I for example bought a musical keyboard and started learning it. It's very good for keeping my mind out of symptoms.

You see, you'll be using this feeling of unfairness to build a new you. An identity that accepts those emotions, but use them to shape you into the person you want to be.