What is Jealousy? — Web Unspun

Credit: Nick Jonas

Really, Nick Jonas? You’re successful, beautiful, in-demand, and able to sing and dance the world over to the cheers of adoring fans. What do you have to be jealous of? Geez, get some perspective! Use my intersections with jealousy as an example. Like when I was in high school and had my first official girlfriend. Sure, it probably wasn’t the smartest move since I was responding to peer pressure after my sexuality was questioned; still, I found someone who welcomed my smile, made me laugh, and seemed to understand me, or at least parts of me. I wanted to give her everything I could, but I wasn’t able to give her everything. The sexual tension grew even more strained when her male friend began hanging around with his tall, lanky body and cute charm, causing me to lash out at her whenever I saw them together. It was unfair for me to demand so much from her, especially since I wasn’t able to fulfill her needs, but my mind refused to accept this, preferring enraged outbursts to get things back on track. Though it came as quite a shock to 15 year old MATTHEW when she broke up with me, it seems painfully obvious now how my jealousy ate away at the bond we had and blinded me from seeing that I was tormenting her.

Or how about when I was in my late twenties trying to navigate my identity and sexuality in the dark; I was with my boyfriend on the “L” heading back to our place after day-drinking on a boat in Lake Michigan. A text came from a male friend I knew through work, and although I had no interest in this individual sexually (who, ironically, had a tall, lanky body and cute charm), my boyfriend blew up. He got a hold of my apartment keys and rushed off the train heading no where in particular but cursing me under his breath. I followed him down the streets of the city, requesting my keys back when he abruptly turned and connected his fist with my face once, twice, almost three times before I leapt out of the way and threw my own enraged fists back at him. It was an ugly fight, both of us red in the face with rage, welts, and blood. Though we continued dating (eye roll) after this exchange, his jealousy and my disdain for it never got better. Go figure. In fact, I ended up sleeping with two of his friends shortly after the first strike to get back at him, creating a chain of jealousy and deceit that lead to a massive eruption of fists and fury 8 months later, effectively ending the relationship. Thank God.

It may be my right to get jealous, but is it right if it makes me so hellish? Even now, it digs under my skin, burrowing deep and laying its eggs then hatching its doubt to disastrous conclusion. Perhaps it’s my only child syndrome. Recently, my parents adopted a golden retriever puppy, who they named Lexie, and as cute as she is, I must say that jealousy reared its ugly head once again when I saw how cuddly my parents were getting with her. Mind you, it’s an extremely rare occurrence to see my parents hold a baby or play with a young child, so seeing them hold anyone (two- or four-legged) close causes me to reflexively seize up. I’m the baby! No wait…that’s not right. I’m a mature adult, so why do I keep letting jealousy sink its teeth in?

FOMO: Fear of Missing Out. It’s so easy to get bit by jealousy when social media constantly reminds me of all the things I haven’t felt, experienced, or accomplished. It turns into one big chase, like the tortoise and the hare, with MATTHEW desperately sprinting ahead to prove that my feelings, experiences, and accomplishments are just as good, if not better, than others. When I’m not able to do this, I fall back, exhausted, and watch as those more sensible and successful (normal) move ahead of me, infesting me with skin-prickling jealousy. “When the problems of the world weigh heavy upon us—poverty, famine, disease, terror, and hatred—we can do something about it. Address the underlying root cause—our own jealousy” (96). Thanks a lot, Yehuda Berg, for putting that extra weight on my shoulders via The 72 Names of God; not only does jealousy make me feel like a total loser, I’m actually contributing to the issues that I’m working to solve. Great!

What compounds this jealousy is my competitiveness; I need to feel like I’m ahead of the curve in order to find my center. You can see how this creates issues. Whether it be my career, relationships, financial position, or personal growth, I have pushed and shoved to move into the lead but end up chasing every which way because my jealousy, when combined with my competitiveness, knows no bounds. No one and nothing is safe from my wrath if I’m unable to meet and/or exceed my expectations. Ah, but therein lies the challenge: how do I remain motivated and push forward to achieve my dreams when they seem so far-fetched. How do I rein in my expectations so I’m not as susceptible to the jealousy bug? In reading that back, a few things become apparent:

I feel like I’m not living as WHO I know myself to be across all dimensions of my life, because anxiety is clouding my judgment and doubt is minimizing my action.
By not reaching this balance, I’m growing increasingly frustrated with others who are able to express their whole-hearted, harmonious selves, creating separation and discord in my relationships.
The isolation focuses all my negative energy on me, selfishly pulling me away from living my fullest life while simultaneously causing me to lash out at the world in anger.

There must be something that can wipe out this damned jealousy. “The Upper World is like a vast cosmic echo chamber. Curse the heavens, and what happens? The echo chamber returns the curse to its point of origin…Though we may find it difficult to accept, our hurtful words, jealous stares, and envious thoughts about others have a cumulative negative effect in the spiritual realm, which in turn generates personal and global suffering. To eradicate the darkness and chaos from human existence, we must extinguish the parallel forces in the Upper Worlds through the power of this Name” (97). I’ve reflected a lot on how jealousy bites and spreads under my skin, how desperately I seek out external approval when my whole-hearted, harmonious self fails to shine through. Concurrently, I started tracking my day-to-day activities in relation to self care, outer care, growth opportunities, and addiction; it’s not an exact science by any means, but it gives me insight about how I function in different environments, with triggers new and old.

After two months, there is one thing that stands out: I am addicted to touch. Yes, one of the items on my tracker is “Create Connection/Touch,” and in the months of May and June, it totaled more than any other item on my list, like writing, reading, meditating, or exploring the outdoors. It’s easy, right? A hug, a pet, a caress. The problem is when I’m not getting any physical connection, jealousy begins to hatch under my skin. This throws off my balance and leads me away from the self care necessary for healing and growth and into a chase for touch. When I consider my 45 day trip, I didn’t have any contact outside of maybe a handshake or two from those who stopped to chat; still, I was able to find my center. It seems like now, back in society, touch has been essential in helping me remain connected to the world that feels like a complete mystery. One in which I will never catch up no matter how fast I chase ahead. Ok…you know what’s next. I need to touch down.

Stuck in the middle

I realize that in Like Clean Sheets, I showered you with information, particularly about my father and our relationship through the plane crash. I know my father is a private person; he isn’t looking for his life story to be broadcast out. However, in Andrew Solomon’s book, Far from the Tree, he states that “Parents’ early responses to and interactions with a child determine how that child comes to view himself…To look deep into your child’s eyes and see in him both yourself and something utterly strange, and then to develop a zealous attachment to every aspect of him, is to achieve parenthood’s self-regarding, yet unselfish, abandon” (6). It’s important for me to reflect on this bond, particularly when I consider what was communicated in my father’s eyes through the plane crash, and how our overall interactions impacted me and my jealousy. Before I venture further, though, I want to say my father is a very attentive and caring individual. He provided me with so much that I will be forever grateful for, and I’m so fortunate that we have the time now to grow our love and piece together what was left broken in the past.

Growing up, there was a point in time that his touch, his words, and his eyes began to scold more than they offered “unselfish abandon.” Of course, he was trying to protect me from a world that can be so cruel, and he made a point of that by being present. He didn’t drink or smoke. He attended practically everything I participated in. And at times, he would teach me a lesson about being present via a tug on the ear, if I was “acting out.” We joke about it now at family parties, issuing warnings to my adult cousins about “Uncle Al grabbing your ear like he did Matt’s at…” but when I frame it around my addiction for touch and remember back to those moments of submission, I wonder how it shaped the understanding of my “self” seeing as how the me that was acting out was my most natural self prior to being corrected. Ok, maybe I wasn’t looking both ways for cars in a busy parking lot, but I was dancing! I was boisterous, but the ear pull combined with my father’s booming voice and probing eyes shifted my focus away from expressing my heart and instead on gaining approval for being “good,” being secured externally through a harsh touch.

Around this transitional point in childhood, I would go to a neighbor’s house after school and watch movies (usually Sister Act or Grease), play games, and swim till my parents got home from work. The neighbor had a teenage son who towered over me at my young age; he made me feel so small. It wasn’t that he hurt me or my feelings; I would goad him into wrestling me to the ground. There was something so exhilarating in being swept up by him in a rush then having him tackle me down and tickle me. Of course, I screamed and cried for him to stop, but I never wanted it to, that giddy surge. It felt so right. So perfect. I chased after that feeling whenever I was over there if he was home; when he didn’t give me the attention I craved, I grew frustrated and resentful. I wanted to be the focus of his universe—to feel that giddy surge consistently—so I could connect to my soul.

Have the parallel forces been extinguished now? How do I tell? When I think about how touch and general contact (via eyes, voice) play a part in my jealous itch based on these experiences, what strikes me the most is how much I’ve allowed it to dictate my life. Just in free-writing about it, I experience so much anxiety, frustration, and doubt. What if no one makes contact with me for the rest of my life??? I crave it, and if I can’t have it, no one else should. What’s worse: the type of touch and it’s aligning reaction are all jumbled, making me seek out hurtful contact to gain approval/security or belligerently plunging into the depths of a giddy surge with no end in sight. There is no balance, and as stated in #3, it causes me to become incredibly selfish, angry, and negative if I don’t get what I want (though, these things aren’t what I actually want). So tell us what you want, what you really, really want!

Oh baby, Baby

Jealousy never looked clearer than when I fell hopelessly in love with one of my straight friends growing up. I remember clinging to his every word, watching his eyes light up as he would talk about something that excited him, laughing along when he started laughing himself. I really wanted to prove I was a worthy companion to him, offering anything I could just to be close and wait for his touch to fall casually on my body. Sometimes it was a joking shove or playful punch, other times it was a little more meaningful, like an arm around my shoulder for a photo. He is also one of the few friends who openly shared his sexual appetites, often describing at length the things he would like to do to Britney Spears as he fawned over her CD cover shot. I was so jealous of her and the attention she got from him; so much so that I decided I would try my best to become like Britney Spears. I learned how to play a few of her songs on the piano, and I practiced the dance moves in our den. I wanted nothing more than to show him my efforts, to impress him into falling in love with me; unfortunately, that day didn’t come because I didn’t trust myself or the bond we shared. I continued hiding, instead, hoping that maybe one day he would realize that I was there the entire time.

Even though my friend didn’t see the dance I had been practicing, someone did: my father. Yep, he caught me a couple of times mid-move, but he always remained silent. Never did he say “stop” or “no,” nor did he shower me with approval. Well, based on the previous section, you can imagine where that plummeted me: insecurity. Now, I’m not saying the right move was for my father to acknowledge my dancing; rather, I’m demonstrating that these “parallel forces” span across time. Every time I wondered if my father truly loved me—all of me—were moments that I lost trust in myself and grew angrier with the world that created me wrong. I was so jealous of my straight male peers, with their normalcy and ability to create stronger trust with their fathers over the shared experiences of their lives. I wanted that too, and it seemed like the best option was to conform; with no other clear identity to model this after, I chose my father.

Again, I love my father dearly, but this choice is nearly what destroyed me. How to measure up to someone you could never possibly be? How to achieve anything that compares to the magnitude of what he’s done, especially knowing what I know about his life. He’s so strong and brave, and his silence was my guiding light, keeping me hidden from the monsters that remained in the dark as I chased ahead, just out of reach. They almost ran me right off of a cliff. I would hurt my body to reach an apex of giddiness, allowing the shame to wash over me in waves and plunge me into an abyss of nothingness. When he said “No” to my coming out at 20, I broke in two. I had already been falling away as I punished myself for not being more like him. His “No” sealed the deal: I would be silent. Looking back, I understand why he said no; I forgive him for it. Because, even through his probing eyes and booming voice, I know that he was trying to secure me, to piece me back together the only way he knew how. His silence protected him like it was meant to do for me; I just had to be stronger, to trust him in showing me how.

Steal my sunshine

Unfortunately, it didn’t work quite the same way for me. I continued burying myself in darkness, punishing my being for not being what is was supposed to be. I was jealous of everyone around me because their lives seemed so wholesome, so perfect. Meanwhile, I was angrily awaiting my moment to shine; however, I was too afraid to take action whenever it arrived, causing me to fall inward even more. Like I said, it wasn’t pretty. While poverty, famine, disease, terror, and hatred touched lives every day and caused humanity so much pain and suffering, I was stranded on my thoughts about how I’m not being touched in the right way, the way that will make me feel whole. Eventually I broke my silence, and though there was no “No” almost 10 years later, there was only more silence. Soon after, it hit me that I couldn’t live with these parallel forces in place anymore; I needed to get out, get aligned, and get rid of all this jealousy.

And I did, to a degree, by resolving some of my issues with touch while detaching from it completely. I saw beyond my need for external validation and instead focused my energy within, bringing the light from my heart out into the open, allowing the words to flow and not get caught up in doubt or fear. Having this experience created an expectation in my level of integrity upon returning; I imagined it would be so easy to bring back WHO I discovered. I would never have to worry about jealousy again because I finally extinguished those parallel forces! Ah, but the plot thickens. When I returned home, jealousy began to slowly latch onto me again as I witnessed the contact points of integrity between others. I finally recognized the wholeness I was searching for in a tangible way, but it continued to stay out of reach as I tried to figure out how I fit in now with this new sense of integrity. It wasn’t long before I was punishing myself again because I wasn’t measuring up to be the Whole-hearted, Harmonious Organism I committed to being. Then, the selfishness and anger reared up, and before you know it, I’m yelling at strangers, jealous that they are able to connect, touch, and be themselves more than I can manage.

I think it’s fitting that Andrew Solomon called the first chapter of his book “Son” as he provides crucial insight about his intersections with his parents as a gay son, setting a course for the book to follow in which he looks at different “horizontal identities” or “an inherent or acquired trait that is foreign to his or her parents and must therefore acquire identity from a peer group” (2). Aside from the literal reference, though, I read the light pouring out of Solomon and his words, and I recognize how he is serving me as a sun on my path toward extinguishing the parallel forces and ridding my body of this jealousy. It is exhausting me. It is killing me. And it’s all because I can’t focus on anything but myself when I’m bit. Much in the same way as Solomon, it’s time to let the sun shine. No more silence. No more hiding. I hope this makes you smile :)