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Recovering from jealousy: Is it possible?


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I have been talking to my partner about this but we are too similar in a few ways. We both have mental illness and difficulty connecting to other people and no offline emotional support and low self-esteem, and we both think the other is too good for us.

 

And between the two of us I have the easier time getting other RP partners, so when we talk about this she gets upset that I push people away because she thinks I don’t appreciate that I have people to push away.

 

For a long time I didn’t realize because she does have a lot of threads, usually! But other players usually only care about her characters when they want someone to “fix” their character. That’s pretty much what her current plot is about, too, but since it’s a multi thread arc that ends in a shipping dynamic she wanted she’s happy, even if the entire plot does revolve around fixing the other character.

She doesn’t think the other player likes her or her character beyond their utility and based on what kinds of OOC comments her new plot partner makes I don’t disagree but since I am so jealous I don’t know if I’m making a fair assessment. And when I did tell my partner I didn’t think this was fair to her, she told me I didn’t understand because I’m popular and people come to me with plots so I can be choosy, but that this is the best she can expect.

 

And I don’t think this is something I can argue with her about while I’m jealous about it because my motives are suspect even to me. And since it does have elements of something she wanted, maybe it’s really fine and doesn’t matter if she’s slightly more important prop. I am 100% sure the other player has no idea this is how she’s treating my partner, and that she thinks the plot involves them both equally. I also am sure that I should not be jealous of someone my partner doesn’t even believe likes her character. But a part of me really wants the other player to love my friend's character beyond utility, even if that does mean they end up better friends than we are. 

 

I don't mean that I think therapy is useless, but it is true that I don't want it. I am only articulate if I can write my feelings! If I have to speak them aloud I lose the ability to vocalize anything beyond "uhhhhh" and it is frankly embarrassing. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this in an office setting. Plus, my friend also needs therapy, but she can't afford it, and I feel guilty for accessing something she can't. This is perhaps nonsense, but it is how I feel anyway. 

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2 minutes ago, Anonymous said:

I am only articulate if I can write my feelings! If I have to speak them aloud I lose the ability to vocalize anything beyond "uhhhhh" and it is frankly embarrassing. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this in an office setting. Plus, my friend also needs therapy, but she can't afford it, and I feel guilty for accessing something she can't. This is perhaps nonsense, but it is how I feel anyway. 

 

Ahahaha oh my goodness, I feel you so hard on the first! You'll need to prepare a little, and this thread is ideal for that. When I went to go see my last psychologist, I sent her a ten-page document before our first appointment so that I could be absolutely sure I had all the things that were important to me articulated in the way that suited me best. I thought she would laugh me away, cause... isn't that a bit ridiculous?

 

You know what she said? 

 

"So many of my patients do this, and it helps a lot!"

 

And it's very sad that your friend can't access therapy in the way that you can, but consider it this way: when you are in a healthier place, you will be in a better position to support her. Not fix---but definitely give her better, clearer, healthier advice. A better you will be better for her as well. 

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I do think that it can be done! And you are taking the perfect first step to doing so--admitting it. Part of I think society on a whole's problem is that we can't come to terms that the problem is not them, it is you (and no you are not a problem but I mean it isn't their fault that YOU feel the way you do)

 

I see this a lot in RP, but I also see it every day also in my real world. Someone is prettier or richer, someone is smarter and has a better life. 

 

And I think a lot of it is too that we don't separate envy from jealousy as we should. I see my girlfriends have way bigger homes than I do, and I don't get jealous but I do go "damn I wish I had that kitchen" or "ugh how nice would a yard like this be!?" But at the end of the day I see them working their asses off and they deserve what they work hard for. That isn't jealousy.

 

I feel like to separate the two is important because it is jealousy that brings out the evil in RP. I can't recall ever feeling this way about another site, but there have for sure been times I've seen an ad-on I loved and worked hard to get myself. But maybe that isn't fair because I've always had an active and large site when I run them, but I can't imagine being jealous over something like that.

 

I think the best advice I can give is to do as I have done? Take whatever feeling you are feeling and use it to fuel your fire. Don't hate on or put down the people around you. Realize that the feelings you are feeling are YOUR issue and YOU need to just get to werk.

 

DyW6q.gif

 

Now get to work! ❤️

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"Everyone has been doing so much soul searching during all of this,

and I'm just over here drawing pics of my character's dicks."

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I think what everyone's said here is really great - there's a lot of support in this thread and that's really nice to see.

 

Personally, when I deal with jealousy in rp, when I feel ignored by my partner(s) or left out of a plot or something, I do some solo writing to get pumped back up about my own stuff. Doing writing prompts, reflections, putting together inspo boards or playlists or timelines or something. It helps me raise my own self esteem back up by proving to myself that what I'm writing is worthwhile and worthy of praise. Whether or not I get that praise isn't important as long as I can look at my own work and feel good and excited about it. Once I'm happy with my solo stuff, I'm usually over my bout of jealousy and come back with a clear head and no hurt feelings. And lots of new ideas I can ask others to help me pursue!

 

Instead of fixating on the jealousy, distract yourself with other things you can get excited about. It's ok to feel bad about being ignored and your partner doing other things with other people, but you can't let yourself focus on what's bringing you down and keeping you from writing. If it's praise from other people that aren't your friend that's making you upset, it sounds like maybe some solo writing might not be a bad idea. Keep your creative juices flowing. Otherwise, things are bound to build up and fester. In lieu of therapy, write it out.

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Thanks, Sage! 

I was doing a lot of solo stuff. I did an unbelievable amount of development related writing and making inspo posts for my own characters, actually, when I first realized how jealous I was. The only result is I have a lot of material that I can't look at, because I cried so much while creating it and honestly had too much the other plot on my mind. It was superimposed over everything I did. All the songs I normally love reminded me of the other plot, actually bringing my characters to mind in the songs I'd mentally assigned them was too much trouble so I stopped listening to music for weeks. 

 

I don't know if I can properly explain how intense this period has been! Everything that used to give me joy instead caused me pain and tears! And now it still hurts, making playlists and writing stories and looking at writing prompts and scrolling through the tumblr and pinterest pages I use for character inspo still hurts but it isn't as intense as it was. It's gone from having  a limb ripped off to an ache. But progress is progress so I'll take it. I think in part it's been easier recently because my friend and I started up some personal projects that are just the two of us and I am super pumped about them. 

 

The compliments issue is tricky! Because it isn't that I don't believe people when they say they like me. I do think they shouldn't like me, but I thought that before and was fine accepting compliments anyway! I was interpreting compliments in a very warped way, but not the warped way people usually discuss. Instead I was interpreting compliments as actually an indirect statement that my friend would be better off without me, because of course you talk about her OTHER plot, and you talk about my plot with YOU, but nobody mentions us together! So everyone is leaving those plots out of their comments on purpose, which means they secretly don't think we should be friends. And now that they've insulted my friendship I don't want to write with them anymore, or maybe I wanted to hold all my other plots hostage until everyone acknowledged that my friend and I have amazing plots, too. I'm not entirely sure which of those is closer to what was happening, or if it was a mixture of both. Neither of these are rational reactions, and I am and was aware of that. I am, unfortunately, always completely aware when my emotions don't match up to reason. This does not help, it just makes me more upset since  I can't even reason with myself. 

 

Unfortunately, I ended up cutting off basically everyone else because I couldn't figure out how to ask people not to talk to me about the plot in question. It feels like such a terrible thing to tell people, "Hey, I know you love this plot but it makes me want to stab things and cry, don't tell me anything about it or that you like it or ever mention any of the characters involved" so I quit the site under the pretense of being super busy and have avoided logging into discord so people won't bother me about it. I hope everyone can forgive me when I'm able to handle being on again....

 

I have therapy lined up! It's still a few weeks away, but it is on the calendar so I hope that can help me heal at a faster rate than I have been. 

 

Anyway, what I'd actually love, and what I had originally hoped for from this thread before I blurted my life story all over the internet, is for people to tell me some lovely inspiring personal stories of a time they were jealous and managed to come out the other side with their friendships intact. You would give me so much hope if you have any such stories to tell. 
 

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(This is in regard to a niche thing and not specifically to RPing.)  I have a friend whose skills I greatly admire.  Admittedly because I'm a perfectionist, I really want to be like this person.  Not identical because I recognize that we have different skills in different things, but I want to be respected for being top tier like this person is.  Sometimes I get grumpy when I see that said person gets ranked above me, and I become disgustingly competitive, though not rude.  A bit fixated and too driven to be the best.

 

I realized how stupid this was because we're friends and I shouldn't see friends as an obstacle.  Nor should I try to be better than a friend.  I need to be myself, and my drive to be excellent should be about bettering myself rather than trying to surpass someone else.  So I try to focus on honing my skills and improving my skills rather than trying to compare my skills to my friend's skills.  In fact, I actively work to being independent from this person by taking little steps that boost my confidence.  The confidence does not come from the end result as much as it is that I'm patting myself on the back for not trying to one-up anyone.  My friend and I encourage each other and talk with each other and compare our projects and the like - but at the end of the day, I don't need to be better than anybody.

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Totally admit to being a jealous person, especially if I liked the person. I learned the hard way to not be jealous and grew out of it when people expressed their dislike of my clingy/jealous nature. I feel like you can grow out of it and recovering was easy for me. I don't get attached to anybody anymore, and if I do I just remind myself that it's just some rando on the Internet.

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  • 1 month later...

To be honest, I'm so relieved to see a thread like this. So mature and open!

 

I just wanted to say I think it's normal to some degree when you're so intensely connected to a story to then feel some jealousy when it feels... threatened almost. It's fantastic that you already know how you feel and why. 

 

I think it's a very normal thing until it starts causing problems with the friendship.

 

The main thing I wanted to say was that you're not alone, I've had the same problem. I just chose to seek out role plays until I had enough to ignite my fire and therefore be more occupied on my own role plays as opposed to just the one I had with a special writer. 🙂 I'm glad you seem to have moved on and found a way to handle it!

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