Recovering from the green-eyed monster of jealousy isn't as difficult as it seems. I remember a young lady from several years ago who came to me for help about her jealousy. She said she didn't understand it and couldn't believe how upset and angry she would get at her then boyfriend "for no good reason". As presented in my last blog on this topic, I had to make certain that her boyfriend was "not" gaslighting her by saying one thing ("Oh honey, it's all in your imagination...") and doing another ("Don't worry, my girlfriend will never find out..."). As an aside, I have often seen my clients' significant others in therapy when dealing with an issue such as this one. It's one thing for a client to tell me about his or her partner; quite another for me to actually meet and have the opportunity to interact with that partner on my own.
In this case, my client's boyfriend was not the problem. It was my client who was (to put it bluntly) a bottomless pit of emotional need that translated itself into extreme jealousy in her important personal relationships. It wasn't "just" her boyfriend she became jealous about; she was jealous of "anyone" who mattered to her and then focused their attention on someone or something else for more time than she deemed reasonable and customary. She told me about a sports coach who worked with one of my client's team mates for "longer" than my client believed was appropriate. Instead of understanding and accepting what went on there...my client suddenly felt extremely angry (aka jealous) about it. Needless to say, she had her work cut out for her as part of her own recovery process.
To start, my client needed to identify/discover for herself all the things she believed to be true about herself that were POSITIVE. This isn't as easy as it sounds. Anybody can say things like, "I'm a good friend." What does that mean exactly? A good friend because..??? This is like saying, "I'm a nice person." Yeah, so was Ted Bundy on his good days. When you can ascertain what you believe are your authentic strengths as a person, this is very helpful to me in understanding how you see yourself. In the case with this young woman I have been speaking about, she had a very difficult time identifying/discovering "who" she was in the positive sense. She actually had a lot of false guilt she was carrying around believing she was a "bad" person for a number of reasons I won't get into here. Lots of people who struggle with pathological jealousy have this same issue. They don't think they are very good people deep down within themselves. As a matter of fact, they often view themselves as "putting on a show" for the world (being "good", being "nice", being "understanding") when what they REALLY feel most of the time is guilt, anger, loneliness, and shame. Breaking through this barrier of self-hatred is a big step in overcoming the lies you've been taught about yourself and who you really are deep down inside...
Next, figure out what it is that you can do (or already do!) in order to take GOOD care of yourself as a person when you are alone. This is a big one. Being alone is very different from feeling lonely which is very different from feeling neglected which is very different from feeling rejected which is very different from feeling abandoned. This is why I suggest to clients doing what is "good" for you when you are alone so you do NOT fall into the trap of linking being alone with (ultimately!) feeling abandoned. Being alone is NOT being abandoned. Yet many people basically freak out way too quickly once left "alone" for more than XX minutes or hours. I have a friend who works nights; when she is finally "alone" at her work with nobody else around---that's when the thought monsters come into her brain to start messing with her mind. "Look..you're all alone and nobody else cares enough to be with you now...", "Hey...how does it feel to be here by yourself AS USUAL because you don't matter to anybody at all.." blah blah blah. This train needs to stop. Taking good care of yourself when alone is one way to stop it in a very practical sense.
How you take care of yourself is often discovered with the help of someone like myself (psychotherapist) who will point you in the direction of healthy options versus what may come naturally to you. For example, getting sloshed on asian pear martinis all night is NOT a way to take good care of yourself when alone, o.k.? Yet taking time to listen to that new CD you just mixed and burned for yourself is. Cleaning up a room in your home is "healthy"; smoking some crack is NOT. Hope you are getting the drift here...
There are of course other ways in which you can recover from the green-eyed monster of jealousy...but I can't give away all my secrets now can I? Those mentioned here represent a great start. Remember always that you DO matter and there's nobody else on earth like you. You are a unique gift to everyone who crosses your path in this life...so don't screw it up by wasting your time on jealous feelings that aren't based on the reality of your circumstances!
MD
