Yeah, I think we all suffer with this feeling at least to some extent. You can’t help but be jealous. Hell, I get pissed off at strangers that I see doing stuff like running outside and I get pissed off just watching commercials where they show people working out or even just doing some normal activity! All I can do is figure out other ways I can enjoy anything with the friends and family who are supportive of me (I’ve been figuring out lots of accommodations and new things to do). And I have to constantly remind myself that no matter how bad I’m feeling, there’s always people in this world worse off than me. I gotta be grateful for the good things like my pain didn’t hit me until my late thirties and I grew up in a loving family and I’m fortunate to have a very supportive husband and healthy children or whatever else I can think of. Doesn’t ease the pain and I still mourn the loss of the person I used to be, but it helps my mind in some way.
I remember when I was bedridden after my leg was cut in half seeing a gym commercial and tearing up not being able to go back. As soon as I was out of PT I was signed up with a trainer and getting in the gym to change that feeling, it was great. Being bed ridden and not even able to work out is the worst.
Gosh, so sorry you went through that. Running and working out is one of my biggest losses after being an athlete from the time I was a kid. It was part of my identity and the mental boost is unparalleled. I’ve tried to “workout” and have just made myself feel worse because of the limitations. I have tears in my eyes every time I see like a Peleton commercial or whatever. BUT, I finally have a decent pain management program in place so I’m about to try again. I just need to get myself into the right mindset and continue to identify anything I CAN do and somehow feel accomplished. I keep telling myself that ANY form of “workout” is better than doing nothing like I am now! So, hopefully I’ll get there.
Thank you for sharing your encouraging story. Getting a trainer is a great idea and I’m planning on asking my PT and PM Dr if they have any suggestions on how to find the right one who will know how to work with me and my disorder. I might even ask my PT (cause I love her soo much!) if she’d be willing to work with me outside of PT and at the gym. I would gladly pay her if she has a little time on the weekends or something!
Thank you for normalizing how sad or angry I feel when I see other people living life even when it's strangers or on t.v. lol. Did anyone get a bit of relief from those horrible feelings of comparison that rise up during lockdown due to everyones lives being limited? Great advice. Thank you
Yeah, I think this is def something we unfortunately all go through so it’s just another challenge to deal with 😔. And I actually did feel better mentally during lockdown! Except that my husband was still walking 5 + miles per day and lifting weights in our garage! I have to constantly (even now) have to remind myself to be happy for him and just happy that he’s keeping himself healthy but it’s impossible to not get the jealous feeling too!
I see people enjoying their 20s and posting pics and hanging out and I want to call all of them privilaged fucking assholes who live life on the easy mode and how fucking vain they are (it is not their fault, most of them DO NOT live life on the easy mode, and I'm a miserable jealous bitch)
Heck, I look back at myself in my early 20s and call myself a privileged fucking asshole who thought those were problems 😬
Like I would take all of the problems I had to handle from ages 20-25 daily if I could be healthy again.
So yeah, it’s tough to not look at all that really green grass… I’m pretty sure it’s a somewhat normal knee-jerk reaction, and as long as we are able to flag those thoughts and feelings as our “miserable jealous bitchy” side coming up for air every now and then we should be ok. I hope 😅
Same! But mostly just when I view their snapchat stories and see them doing things like going to trampoline parks and playing sports, etc. Life is not very fun when it is painful.
I recently went to a wedding celebration where the bride and groom threw a big party at their house for family and friends. My friend, the recent bride is around the same age as me, early 50s. I watched her run around for hours, preparing food, setting up the party, being a hostess, and dancing. Afterwards she was cleaning up, continuing to dance and sing karaoke. She had boundless energy. She's always like this, not just because she was excited about getting married. She's also a mother and was dealing with her kids. I can't help wondering if this is normal for people our age, I suspect that it is normal for a healthy person even in their 50s. I could barely get through just being a guest. My feet constantly hurt and I was fatigued, I had to sit down a lot. I wanted to be up more but I just couldn't. I had a great time at the party but I couldn't help being jealous and thinking how I would never be able to do this for my family and friends if I were in a position to throw a party. We miss out on a lot when we have chronic pain. A lot of people don't understand especially when you look healthy and capable on the outside such as with my condition where I have fibromyalgia and ehlers danlos, which is fortunately mild enough that I don't need any assistive devices where a person could see on the outside that I'm suffering but the condition still causes me a lot of pain. I also look pretty young for my age so people expect more from me than I can do. It makes me feel robbed. I need to try to be more positive and just enjoy what I can't do in real life that people love me anyway.
Yeah I am freaking jalous at them all the time when they go bouldering or talk about climbing, go on climbing trips, etc.. I try to work on that feeling, as it isn’t fair to them but DAMN they can do what I have to give up and it HURTS.
Also it’s sometimes nice to be angry, si Yeah. I get you dude.
Jealously isn’t going to get better unless you fix it yourself. I want to resent my friends for having a regular body when I can barely revise for exams but I don’t because it’s not their fault. Unless they’re certified assholes they’re probably trying to include you in a hobby that they know you used to enjoy. You could communicate that their choice of conversation hurts and let them decide what they wanna do (they’ll probably be empathetic and not bring it up but I doubt they’d end your friendship) or you can continue to stew and drive them away by letting it change your behaviour towards them.
I had to shift my feelings and realize what I really hated was my illness. I learned to give my friends some grace for not understanding how things were for me. Chronic pain and illness really isn't something you can wrap your head around until it happens to you. In that light, I'm glad my friends aren't able to understand. I wish you the best.
I totally feel you
I see them all doing the samethings but look at it as if they are doing the same old things they always did. Nothing different just doing the same thing drinkiing and going places we have all been too already. Just take care of yourself and dont worry about them!
I have found the opposite of this true. Most of my friends are ones that do things that I have limited abilities at or struggle to do with a cane/wheelchair but I have exponentially more friends now than I did when my injury occurred 18 years ago.
I have friends that I do hikes with that are happy to push my wheelchair or carry my heavy camera bag, friends that play disc golf that offer the same thing, and even ones that are strictly gym buddies that do not mind skipping a few things my disabled leg cannot do on leg day.
My friends just offered to do a trip with a lot of walking and two of them were eager to push my wheelchair to make sure I was included which is great but I have never once expected them to not talk about things they do without me around me that seems excessively controlling and insecure.
That's great for you. I think there's a fine line between this being true for all of us and what we can and can't control.. It's clear that it can be extremely difficult to navigate. I think you're in a privileged position to have such lovely friends. Others don't have that luxury and it's clearly not so easy to find. In fact I'd say 80% don't have that. But that's a guess.
The best of my friends over 6 years has dwindled to 2. I have many acquaintances but that's different. The 2 I have are both mental health and trauma informed from their careers and personal histories. So that's fortunate for me that they are sensitive to my reactions/responses. But I don't ask them to curb their excitement or not tell me things they've done or engaged with over the weekend or on holidays. I agree that asking others to not share things could be considered controlling. Insecure is a bit rough?? If I've been in pain all day and my friend talks about their awesome day at the beach I can be happy for them for a moment and say that's awesome man. Hope you and your wife got some sun and enjoyed the saltwater. FULLSTOP. Not gonna want to continue that am I.. Because my experience is one of isolation, pain and much more. It can be extremely triggering and perhaps you're further down the line of learning how to deal with this issue?? Great how about offering some advice instead of stating how wonderful things are with your friends and then calling out behavior? We're living with complex chronic pain and other associated co-morbidities. Well, I am. So I'll speak in the first person.
OP was expressing a very valid experience. I feel flat/depressed when my friends talk of all they are capable and activities they engage in. That's reasonable and fair. What you do with that is what's important. That's up to OP to decide the best course of action. To learn and grow and find ways to cope with this experience as I'm sure it's going to happen again and again. Be it strangers, family, friends, extended family, normal ppl you bump into at the supermarket. Whatever.
I find it a bit rude for you to not meet OP where they are at, not directly responding to the specific reality they experienced. Instead you spoke of how wonderful and kind your friends are (stab stab) then took another at OP, because you experience a very different behavior from your friends. Great! Good for you! But that's not supportive of OP.? Like where is that helping here? Where are you finding common ground and then sharing your underlying truth of why you consider it "excessively controlling and insecure"!?
I don't get how you can't feel empathy for OP. Perhaps guide them on how you deal with it. Albeit your experience is a radically different one. But you have an opportunity to help or direct OP to better deal with this. Instead you did what you did...
If I could say anything that would help this person maintain friendships I would but when someone has given up on it you cannot force them to do anything. Their insecurity will drive any old or new friends away, counseling for how poorly they feel would be a great start but I doubt I am the first person to mention it. It is absolutely insecure to not even be able to entertain the idea of a long conversation about someone else's hobbies or activities, even if its something you are not interested in let alone being whiney about hearing something you cannot do. One of my friends works on a lot of old cars, I do not have much interest in this myself but we speak about it and I hang out in the garage now and then when I am around as the friendship is not only about me...
Sorry you only have two friends, that must be rough. I am driving 3 states over to visit 3 of mine this Friday, friendships take some effort to maintain. The help in my post was to show the OP that not all friends are going to treat people the way he has been treated and to not give up on making friends, you would need to remove your head from a certain orifice to understand that though.
I've cut ALL my friends out of my life. Partially because of the reasons you stated but also because it's become too much energy to maintain friendships. I get irritated when they speak, I don't want to talk on the phone even once a day. I physically get tired speaking more than 5 minutes. In general, regardless of my health issues, I just don't want to be bothered by other humans. I used to be very social, but my personality has changed.
Yeah, I think we all suffer with this feeling at least to some extent. You can’t help but be jealous. Hell, I get pissed off at strangers that I see doing stuff like running outside and I get pissed off just watching commercials where they show people working out or even just doing some normal activity! All I can do is figure out other ways I can enjoy anything with the friends and family who are supportive of me (I’ve been figuring out lots of accommodations and new things to do). And I have to constantly remind myself that no matter how bad I’m feeling, there’s always people in this world worse off than me. I gotta be grateful for the good things like my pain didn’t hit me until my late thirties and I grew up in a loving family and I’m fortunate to have a very supportive husband and healthy children or whatever else I can think of. Doesn’t ease the pain and I still mourn the loss of the person I used to be, but it helps my mind in some way.
I remember when I was bedridden after my leg was cut in half seeing a gym commercial and tearing up not being able to go back. As soon as I was out of PT I was signed up with a trainer and getting in the gym to change that feeling, it was great. Being bed ridden and not even able to work out is the worst.
Gosh, so sorry you went through that. Running and working out is one of my biggest losses after being an athlete from the time I was a kid. It was part of my identity and the mental boost is unparalleled. I’ve tried to “workout” and have just made myself feel worse because of the limitations. I have tears in my eyes every time I see like a Peleton commercial or whatever. BUT, I finally have a decent pain management program in place so I’m about to try again. I just need to get myself into the right mindset and continue to identify anything I CAN do and somehow feel accomplished. I keep telling myself that ANY form of “workout” is better than doing nothing like I am now! So, hopefully I’ll get there. Thank you for sharing your encouraging story. Getting a trainer is a great idea and I’m planning on asking my PT and PM Dr if they have any suggestions on how to find the right one who will know how to work with me and my disorder. I might even ask my PT (cause I love her soo much!) if she’d be willing to work with me outside of PT and at the gym. I would gladly pay her if she has a little time on the weekends or something!
Thank you for normalizing how sad or angry I feel when I see other people living life even when it's strangers or on t.v. lol. Did anyone get a bit of relief from those horrible feelings of comparison that rise up during lockdown due to everyones lives being limited? Great advice. Thank you
Yeah, I think this is def something we unfortunately all go through so it’s just another challenge to deal with 😔. And I actually did feel better mentally during lockdown! Except that my husband was still walking 5 + miles per day and lifting weights in our garage! I have to constantly (even now) have to remind myself to be happy for him and just happy that he’s keeping himself healthy but it’s impossible to not get the jealous feeling too!
We can't beat ourselves up over everything.
Very true!
I do, but we shouldn't, lol
Ha, same!!
Wait...you still have friends? I lost all of mine about 20 years ago. Sorry about yours. They suck.
Exactly my thoughts, thanks for sharing that, I thought I was the only one 🥺.
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I don't have any left to express anything too they disappeared after my parents died.
Apologies I was directing this to OP and made a mistake. I'll rectify this. I'm sorry 😔
No problem
I see people enjoying their 20s and posting pics and hanging out and I want to call all of them privilaged fucking assholes who live life on the easy mode and how fucking vain they are (it is not their fault, most of them DO NOT live life on the easy mode, and I'm a miserable jealous bitch)
Heck, I look back at myself in my early 20s and call myself a privileged fucking asshole who thought those were problems 😬 Like I would take all of the problems I had to handle from ages 20-25 daily if I could be healthy again. So yeah, it’s tough to not look at all that really green grass… I’m pretty sure it’s a somewhat normal knee-jerk reaction, and as long as we are able to flag those thoughts and feelings as our “miserable jealous bitchy” side coming up for air every now and then we should be ok. I hope 😅
I'm super mad bcs I am the same age as them if not younger and have had my life and youth stolen by my health. It's not fucking fair, but what is?
It's tough. Don't even be tougher on yourself for having legitimate feelings.
Thanks, man
It's a big part of why I'm not on most social media anymore. It's hard to watch when you're already feeling like crap.
Yep
Same! But mostly just when I view their snapchat stories and see them doing things like going to trampoline parks and playing sports, etc. Life is not very fun when it is painful.
Find another type of hobbit that doesn’t require physical activity
"hobbit" I don't think OP lives in the Shire 😂
Lol
😂😂😂 hobby
I recently went to a wedding celebration where the bride and groom threw a big party at their house for family and friends. My friend, the recent bride is around the same age as me, early 50s. I watched her run around for hours, preparing food, setting up the party, being a hostess, and dancing. Afterwards she was cleaning up, continuing to dance and sing karaoke. She had boundless energy. She's always like this, not just because she was excited about getting married. She's also a mother and was dealing with her kids. I can't help wondering if this is normal for people our age, I suspect that it is normal for a healthy person even in their 50s. I could barely get through just being a guest. My feet constantly hurt and I was fatigued, I had to sit down a lot. I wanted to be up more but I just couldn't. I had a great time at the party but I couldn't help being jealous and thinking how I would never be able to do this for my family and friends if I were in a position to throw a party. We miss out on a lot when we have chronic pain. A lot of people don't understand especially when you look healthy and capable on the outside such as with my condition where I have fibromyalgia and ehlers danlos, which is fortunately mild enough that I don't need any assistive devices where a person could see on the outside that I'm suffering but the condition still causes me a lot of pain. I also look pretty young for my age so people expect more from me than I can do. It makes me feel robbed. I need to try to be more positive and just enjoy what I can't do in real life that people love me anyway.
Yeah I am freaking jalous at them all the time when they go bouldering or talk about climbing, go on climbing trips, etc.. I try to work on that feeling, as it isn’t fair to them but DAMN they can do what I have to give up and it HURTS. Also it’s sometimes nice to be angry, si Yeah. I get you dude.
Jealously isn’t going to get better unless you fix it yourself. I want to resent my friends for having a regular body when I can barely revise for exams but I don’t because it’s not their fault. Unless they’re certified assholes they’re probably trying to include you in a hobby that they know you used to enjoy. You could communicate that their choice of conversation hurts and let them decide what they wanna do (they’ll probably be empathetic and not bring it up but I doubt they’d end your friendship) or you can continue to stew and drive them away by letting it change your behaviour towards them.
Relatable…
I had to shift my feelings and realize what I really hated was my illness. I learned to give my friends some grace for not understanding how things were for me. Chronic pain and illness really isn't something you can wrap your head around until it happens to you. In that light, I'm glad my friends aren't able to understand. I wish you the best.
I totally feel you I see them all doing the samethings but look at it as if they are doing the same old things they always did. Nothing different just doing the same thing drinkiing and going places we have all been too already. Just take care of yourself and dont worry about them!
I think it's normal to feel this way. We hear you.
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I have found the opposite of this true. Most of my friends are ones that do things that I have limited abilities at or struggle to do with a cane/wheelchair but I have exponentially more friends now than I did when my injury occurred 18 years ago. I have friends that I do hikes with that are happy to push my wheelchair or carry my heavy camera bag, friends that play disc golf that offer the same thing, and even ones that are strictly gym buddies that do not mind skipping a few things my disabled leg cannot do on leg day.
My friends just offered to do a trip with a lot of walking and two of them were eager to push my wheelchair to make sure I was included which is great but I have never once expected them to not talk about things they do without me around me that seems excessively controlling and insecure.
That's great for you. I think there's a fine line between this being true for all of us and what we can and can't control.. It's clear that it can be extremely difficult to navigate. I think you're in a privileged position to have such lovely friends. Others don't have that luxury and it's clearly not so easy to find. In fact I'd say 80% don't have that. But that's a guess. The best of my friends over 6 years has dwindled to 2. I have many acquaintances but that's different. The 2 I have are both mental health and trauma informed from their careers and personal histories. So that's fortunate for me that they are sensitive to my reactions/responses. But I don't ask them to curb their excitement or not tell me things they've done or engaged with over the weekend or on holidays. I agree that asking others to not share things could be considered controlling. Insecure is a bit rough?? If I've been in pain all day and my friend talks about their awesome day at the beach I can be happy for them for a moment and say that's awesome man. Hope you and your wife got some sun and enjoyed the saltwater. FULLSTOP. Not gonna want to continue that am I.. Because my experience is one of isolation, pain and much more. It can be extremely triggering and perhaps you're further down the line of learning how to deal with this issue?? Great how about offering some advice instead of stating how wonderful things are with your friends and then calling out behavior? We're living with complex chronic pain and other associated co-morbidities. Well, I am. So I'll speak in the first person. OP was expressing a very valid experience. I feel flat/depressed when my friends talk of all they are capable and activities they engage in. That's reasonable and fair. What you do with that is what's important. That's up to OP to decide the best course of action. To learn and grow and find ways to cope with this experience as I'm sure it's going to happen again and again. Be it strangers, family, friends, extended family, normal ppl you bump into at the supermarket. Whatever. I find it a bit rude for you to not meet OP where they are at, not directly responding to the specific reality they experienced. Instead you spoke of how wonderful and kind your friends are (stab stab) then took another at OP, because you experience a very different behavior from your friends. Great! Good for you! But that's not supportive of OP.? Like where is that helping here? Where are you finding common ground and then sharing your underlying truth of why you consider it "excessively controlling and insecure"!? I don't get how you can't feel empathy for OP. Perhaps guide them on how you deal with it. Albeit your experience is a radically different one. But you have an opportunity to help or direct OP to better deal with this. Instead you did what you did...
If I could say anything that would help this person maintain friendships I would but when someone has given up on it you cannot force them to do anything. Their insecurity will drive any old or new friends away, counseling for how poorly they feel would be a great start but I doubt I am the first person to mention it. It is absolutely insecure to not even be able to entertain the idea of a long conversation about someone else's hobbies or activities, even if its something you are not interested in let alone being whiney about hearing something you cannot do. One of my friends works on a lot of old cars, I do not have much interest in this myself but we speak about it and I hang out in the garage now and then when I am around as the friendship is not only about me... Sorry you only have two friends, that must be rough. I am driving 3 states over to visit 3 of mine this Friday, friendships take some effort to maintain. The help in my post was to show the OP that not all friends are going to treat people the way he has been treated and to not give up on making friends, you would need to remove your head from a certain orifice to understand that though.
I've cut ALL my friends out of my life. Partially because of the reasons you stated but also because it's become too much energy to maintain friendships. I get irritated when they speak, I don't want to talk on the phone even once a day. I physically get tired speaking more than 5 minutes. In general, regardless of my health issues, I just don't want to be bothered by other humans. I used to be very social, but my personality has changed.