Jealousy, my saviour
9th March 2022
Jealousy has been a constant in my life. I remember my first fit of intense jealousy when I had my first boyfriend at thirteen. It was so intense, visceral, a huge force that chewed me whole and then spat me out. And it has continued being a constant in my life, something of a sixth sense that would tell me that I needed to stand on guard and protect what was mine.
Only it was a maladaptive emotion, something I had learned from my codependent parents and that only led me to negative emotions and outcomes instead of making me feel safe and comforted, which is all I wanted.
The sensation was one of wanting to keep someone really close, so you could keep an eye on them, always. I was terrified of losing him. In my mind, without them, I was nothing. Poor me. It’s a sad emotion. It’s an emotion of loneliness, of low self-esteem and of fear.
Not only that, but it’s also absolutely exhausting. The person feeling it needs to be hyper vigilant because he/she feels that without their constant vigilance, something bad is going to happen. They’ll be robbed of their beloved. They’ll be abandoned. They’ll be utterly alone in this big, scary world.
Watch, watch closely, it whispers. Someone else may want to take him away. And as with everything you start to see, what you want to see, and everyone can be a threat. Any interaction surely means it’s about to happen. It’s about to be taken away from you. Fear strikes and I act irrationally in anger. I feel like a caged animal.
But it’s the wrong approach. It’s the wrong way to look at things, and it leads you down the exact path that you’re trying to avoid. It pushes the person away. Not only because it’s an utterly unattractive behaviour, but because real love can’t be put in a cage. Love is not something you can keep gripped tightly an expect it not to die.
I feel grateful for my jealousy now; I understand that in my immature years it served me well, it was just trying to keep me safe. It was trying to keep me anchored to someone, it was trying to protect me from loneliness and trying to make sure I survived, and for that I will be eternally grateful.