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How To Stop Being Jealous Of People Who Get All The Opportunities That My Trauma And Mental Illness Denied Me

If it helps, three separate trauma therapists and one neuropsychologist told me it’s perfectly normal and okay to be jealous of things other people your age get, especially if those people are taking something for granted that you will never get because of your trauma and mental health, as long as you don’t tell them that or take it out on them.

For me, it’s normal to be jealous of watching children playing and having an amazing time and having a well-off family and two parents that are normal and in love, because I was starved of those things. It became normal for me as a child to be jealous of children either my age or younger than me, that had enough money, enough food to eat, and money to get the things they needed. It became normal to be jealous of healthy siblings and friends. They got to spend their days doing what tweens and young teenagers do. They had the privilege of being able to actually live, instead of just existing. But I never told them that. It wasn’t their fault I couldn’t have what they had.

Even as an adult, I still look at children being happy and carefree with loving parents and get hit with pangs of jealousy. It’s normal to be jealous of people who get all of these normal, healthy things you were starved of and can never get again. As long as you realize it’s not their faults that you can’t be as happy as they are, and you don’t take it out on them, it’s okay to be jealous. We didn’t get the same things others did, and that hurts us, so we are jealous. As long as people, especially children, don’t *know* that’s how we feel, it does them no harm.