What does extreme jealousy feel like?

[Cherchezlaspice]

You read posts all the time about people managing uncontrollable jealousy or dealing with extremely jealous partners. Not being able to stop themselves from snooping and so on.

I’ve never felt anything like that and I can’t really imagine it. What’s that like? And do you think some people are just more naturally inclined towards jealousy? Or is it situational?

In response to you being so very pleasant.

I’m sorry you had to go through that.

Someone who fancied me at work was like this. He would watch everyone I was talking to and death stare them and say they have stolen me from him. He would monitor my teams status to see when I was on a call or away. Would overhear me speaking to members of the public and say his heart sank cause he thought they were interested in me. Loads of other things happened to but how jealous he was over innocuous things really shocked me to the point I stopped speaking to him

I wouldn't wish it hadn't happened. Being at the mercy of your emotions is an exhilarating experience as much as it is unpleasant.

I don't think I've got the energy in me for another relationship like that in my lifetime, so glad to have been through it even if it was tough.

Thanks. Now a wise middle aged woman and jealousy is not part of my life. I made myself feel gratitude (not least after the births of my beloved dcs) and it worked! My mother's sudden death was also painful liberation from toxic emotions. And my cats. God I love them!

Like many things, much of it will be down to personality. Some to nurture/ experience and some insecurity from that.

I agree it's not logical. But much of human behaviour is extremely far from logical and driven by impulse/ emotion/ belief. I long for a world full of rational people but it's not shock to me that many people are very far away from that.

I’m hugely passionate about a lot of things. Not, meh, at all. However, the inability to control myself or stop doing something? No, not since I was a teenager.

But that's you. Some people are more impulsive or emotional than others. Or more needy. I think @MrsTerryPratchett's point is valid in that it's not hard to understand that people are different or latch on to different coping/ control mechanisms than you do. That's not to say it's healthy - far from it! - but it's not difficult to understand why this happens.

Like, what does that even MEAN?! If you want to stop doing something, you stop doing it!

Wow. So why are there people who are addicts then, who desperately want to stop?

Different people's brains work differently, some with feedback loops for certain behaviours that they cannot control.

Tbh the most baffling thing about this thread is why so many posters claim to find it baffling that some people struggle with such things when there is such copious evidence that they do, and about why they do, if you cared to read it so that you weren't "baffled" anymore. So deliberate bafflement, I suppose.

I thought it would be an interesting discussion about how those emotions felt and why they gripped certain people: what triggered them.

But to have posters including the OP pretending that it's incomprehensible that some other humans may feel differently to them or have brains wired another way is just 🙄🙄🙄

Yes, that is me. As she asked about me and I responded. I never said it was applicable to anyone else.

And, yes, some people are different. That’s rather the point of the thread.

Right. That’s what’s happening.

This thread asks about people’s personal experiences of extreme jealousy. Which gave rise to conversation about other uncontrollable urges. And, yes, while one is aware that some people have them, some of us do not and will never ‘get’ that on any sort of visceral or emotional level (which is what we’re talking about).

If ‘I try to be sympathetic, but I really don’t get that, either’ (which is the part of that comment that you didn’t quote) fills you with such horror, then you clearly are also unable to ‘get’ the perspectives of people who aren’t wired like you are. Which is rather ironic.

I've been on both ends of intense jealousy. On the receiving end, to the point of his paranoia that ruined my life. In my experience it's a combination of an intense personality and an all-consuming love affair mixed with insecurity.

Interesting thread. I have been prone to jealousy in relationships when I was young. I think I felt insecure in myself. It feels like a wave of anger and irritability comes over you and it puts you in a foul mood. For example, I remember in my 20s I was seeing a man and in hindsight I never knew where I stood or comfortable. Once one of my friends told me she had bumped into him and he had said hello and had a brief chat. I felt furious and upset. I am trying to dig deep and remember why I felt like that. Tbh, maybe it is down to poor mental health at the time, I take citalopram now and my emotions and moods are so much more stable. Maybe it's a chemical thing.

Sorry if that didn't make sense and was a bit rambling, I am half asleep!

Inadequacy inferiority insecurity

Jealousy is an involuntary emotion
Its triggered when you feel like you are lacking something and someone else has it, so you want it for yourself

When you feel secure and confident, when you love yourself, you will rarely feel jealous because you are content with what you have .

Jealousy can also invoke a healthy motivation for you to set goals
If your sister gets married,

you can be over the moon happy for her but also be jealous at the same time
Because maybe you want to be married and its not happening for you
That jealousy can motivate you

And there is also Envy, which is jealousys evil cousin
Envy is not the same as jealousy

Envy stems from being hateful,
when you are envious you feel entitled
You see something that someone else has and you get angry because you believe they dont deserve it and it should be yours

And because Envy is hateful, people can rarely contain it and it spills out in the form of bullying, violence , stealing etc
Whereas jealousy is usually more innocent

When people say they are jealous of their husband or wife interacting with the opposite sex , it can come from either insecurity because the relationship is not strong
Or it can also come from wanting to control the other person

If you are able to give your partner the benefit of the doubt when they
Interact with others, you might not get jealous because you seem them as innocent

But if youve been cheated on alot you might be more on guard and be more jealous than normal

I'm being very jealous atm..i know it's not logical. I have a 1st in a science subject which is intensely logical but my jealousy is not. It's destroying me tbh.

I'm very prone to jealousy. Probably fur to experience in my first Marriage in which was cheated on, and my own deep insecurity which has been in my personality since I was small.
I never feel good enough at anything or with anyone. I'm very in love with my DP, and in most ways happier than I've ever been, but I get very jealous and paranoid about other women. He has a job that is very social and he's not above a little flirt within that-and in some ways I like that about him and I know in my head it's harmless, but sometimes when he's out and I'm not I can tie myself in knots about it.
I don't tell him this and he doesn't know. And I don't snoop because that way madness lies and I know the problem is with me, not him.
It's a very tiring and unpleasant way to be.

If ‘I try to be sympathetic, but I really don’t get that, either’ (which is the part of that comment that you didn’t quote) fills you with such horror, then you clearly are also unable to ‘get’ the perspectives of people who aren’t wired like you are. Which is rather ironic.

Oh dear, I think you've misunderstood. I don't have jealously like that. Never have.

I was writing about the fact that it's not didficult to understand why some people do, if you read up on some basics of psychology.

I even said in one of my posts how it's irrational and I find it hard to be around people like that and wish for a world full of logical people. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of comprehending why other people may experience some things differently though, or behave differently. That's not about sympathy, it's empathy.

My first serious relationship at 19/20. I did feel it - it’s not pleasant. Pretty uncontrollable - thank god the internet didn’t exist then 😁I think probably a lot to do with having gone to a girls’ school so very inexperienced at having men as friends & inexperienced in relationships. Also lack of confidence in myself.

I learned loads through that break up though. And have never felt remotely the way I did then ever again. It was weird, I went from being really jealous to ‘actually fuck this’ in one say. It was like a sudden revelation that I was making the choice to feel like that. It’s so distant now I can’t even remember how it felt or why. Especially when I look at the person I was in the relationship with 😂I think I read too many romantic novels & didn’t face enough life experience.

I have felt it when I was young maybe 18-21 with a boyfriend, but never again to that extent.

It feels very hormonal to me like the PMT rage you can't control, I do wonder if it is driven by hormones as that's how it felt.

I’m hugely passionate about a lot of things. Not, meh, at all. However, the inability to control myself or stop doing something? No, not since I was a teenager

You've seriously never done something (like lost your temper or eaten a bar of chocolate or had one drink too many or spoken in a certain tone of voice or spent time worrying about something) and thought 'Jeez, I promised myself I wouldn't do that!' Never, since you were a teenager?

Emotions aren't logical. Cravings aren't logical. They're driven by evolutionary traits that aren't always relevant in todays world. That's why we eat in such an uncontrolled way; because in an evolutionary sense, there might be a famine at any minute, or we just might not be able to catch any prey for a few days, so, better feed up!

Any human who claims to be in full control of all their feelings all the time is very unusual. A robot, really. Being able to control your actions is different, but there's a big overlap, which is different for everyone.

I'm prone to jealousy, anxiety, obsession and compulsion as well as self-loathing. I have no idea why I'm like that. Childhood trauma probably contributes, as well as natural temperament. I'd MUCH rather not feel such strong negative emotions.

Feeling an attack of jealousy is all consuming to me. I feel hot, faint and pulse racing, and I speak and act in irrational ways. When I've calmed down I can often see things more logically. Thanks to counselling, I have some strategies to handle the anxiety like identifying the irrational thoughts and working through them but it takes actual hard work to do so.

It's the same with compulsions and addictions. I am doing very hard work with a counsellor to figure out how to handle compulsions like 'eat the entire packet of biscuits' because despite trying to manage the intense desires on my own for 30 odd years, I've failed.

It's utterly unfathomable to me that a person could just decide to do something and then do it. I can't imagine having that sort of a brain.

I think I am extremely empathetic though, and often people come to me with their problems because they know I'm unlikely to judge. Maybe that's the positive of being like that? Or maybe not.

Jealousy is the mechanism by which our genes try to ensure they will make copies of themselves.

You need a mate to make a copy (procreate). so if the potential mate goes away or is coveted by another person you will be driven to get that person back. Doesn't always work but you will at least put up a fight, metaphorically or literally.

Fascinating question @Cherchezlaspice !

Humans can feel envious of others without feeling that those others should be deprived of their benefits or qualities. Jealousy covets and wants to take away the benefits or qualities the other person possesses.

There has to be some evolutionary benefit to jealousy for it to have survived because - as others have said - jealousy is irrational.

Why would something as irrational as jealousy have survived? Perhaps because of what @theRealmOfThePossible says.

As a one off, sure. As a recurrent or ongoing pattern of behaviour that I was unable to control or stop? No. I generally eat the amount I want to eat and drink the amount I want to drink, I do not regularly lose my temper in a manner I think is unjustified and so on and so forth. If I think ‘I should stop doing xxx’, then I stop doing xxx.

And I don’t think I (or anyone else) have said anything about full control of feelings. I’ve said that I don’t feel jealousy and I don’t have an inability to control myself or stop doing things.