Sarah Nyhan

Never in a million years would I have guessed anyone would have been jealous of me. Because they shouldn’t be. Believe that. You wouldn’t want to walk very far down the path I’ve been forced to be on.

It took me a few decades to figure out what was up, what was going on. Because I’d look at what these jealous people had that I wanted. And by comparison I thought they had way more of what I wanted than vice versa.

I mean how is a woman thirty years older than me with a whole ass family, career, home, social circle, health, etc. going to be jealous about the one or two little bitty things that I got going on comparatively? It’s really insane.

But what you don’t see until someone like me inadvertently shines the light on it, is that some people appear to have it all but still hate their life.

They either got a lot of it under false pretenses so they can’t truly enjoy it because they’ll never respect themselves.

Or they made some pretty deep sacrifices, probably out of fear, to be comfortable enough but not really have what they want.

That’s why people hate me a lot of the times. When they see me going against the grain and getting what they want.

One example is don’t I dare laugh and feel happy while being fat. Ewww, and don’t I DARE have someone who loves me while being this size! Double-deadly if it’s someone they wanted to be loved by. Even if I had no choice in the matter.

That’s the sick shit about child sexual abuse. Sometimes adults can be jealous of the bad kind of attention a child is receiving. Even if the child had zero choice in the matter. And totally hates the attention being funneled their way. Especially if it’s being funneled away from the adult who is jealous of them.

Catch my drift? That shit is so sick on so many different levels. Took me a long time to figure that one out. Much too late on an intellectual level. If deep in my gut I actually knew on it for survival unconsciously early on.

Stay small. Get smaller. I thought that was the solution. Tried my whole life. Never worked.

You can have nothing and people will still find something they want from you. Even in the case of abject poverty, they’ll be jealous of what appears to be freedom from obligations they’ve begrudgingly chained themselves to.

You can’t be happy for other people if you think everything is a competition. If you think there is a finite amount of everything. If you don’t believe the world is 100% setup for you. For your healing so that you actually can get what you really want in the end.

You don’t really believe God Loves you just the same if you are jealous of anything I have.

You don’t really believe God is crazy about you if you are resentful of anything about me or what I have.

This is another gift of being fat and being without what is otherwise standard for most folks in many important ways: people will treat you so badly, reject you so badly, that you’re forced to “meet your Maker”. When God is all you have left then you’re forced to get to know your Creator more than most. When there’s nobody around except you and God then you have the opportunity to maybe sooner discover how much you are Loved.

And really no other choice than to make peace with yourself. With who you are. “Faults” and all. When you have no one else to ever depend on. Then you have to learn to accept yourself on some level. In order to not completely devolve into a paralyzed mess. Cause ain’t nobody coming to save you.

You either become your own validation. Your own approval. Your own best friend. Your own family. Your own community. Or you stay stuck thinking everything you want is being given to everyone else but you.

People don’t hate you if they are happy. If they take responsibility for what they want.

People hate you, people are jealous of you when they build their itty bitty self-worth on things that are fleeting. Things that don’t hold water.

For instance people are only jealous of what I have in spite of my fat, or even something so uncontrollable as the color of my eyes, if they have built their entire self-worth on their appearance. Then anything I have in spite of mine, or because of mine, is something they hate.

Because, only in their mind, they – and more importantly their perception of their self-worth – is threatened by anyone else having what they want.

Like if I am fat and dare to be happy then that shines a painful light on all they’ve thrown away in order to sacrifice for building a semblance of life solely upon their appearance.

Same thing financially. If people try to base their self-worth solely on their possessions then they’ll be super pissed if they see me happy without going to all that work.

Same thing socially. If people have lied, stolen, and killed for the people they’ve surrounded themselves with. If their community is a result of manipulation or wielding fear then they are going to despise me for honestly coming by true love, true affection, true respect. If they see genuine love, they are going to hate that shit. If all they’ve settled for is worship of their fragile ego.

Same thing with freedom. Some people sacrifice what they really wanted for what they thought would be security. Their fear got the best of them. Not that I can at all blame them looking in from the other side. But they hate me because my life so goes against that grain. How dare I have moments of happiness that make them question everything the’ve painfully given up along the way! They want me so far away from them so they never have to be reminded of that shit.

And so they’ll do anything they can to hurt me until I go away.

Meanwhile I’m over here minding my business. Totally confused. Not realizing the nicer I try to be the more they hate me and want me to go away.

Until it happened over and over and over and over for years. Decade after decade. Until I finally stumbled on the reason. In a moment of desperation. When I cried out to God because I didn’t understand why a few people wanted to see my suffer so much.

Not my choice, I’ll tell you that.

I finally realized I couldn’t change anyone. I could only live my best life. For me. For myself.

And either keep taking the hits from people who think they have reason to be jealous of me. Instead of having their own conversations with God about what they really want.

Or move on. Stop unintentionally making myself a target for their pain and unhappiness. Put them squarely in God’s hands. And thereby remove myself.

Go find and be around people who have owned the responsibility for their happiness. Who have made peace with themselves. Who seek joy.

I guess it never occured to me to be jealous of anything anyone else had because I never expected anything to be given to me in the first place. I never experienced that luxury. I always had to work for any little scrap of anything I could get. So I never felt entitled to anything anyone else had.

When I looked at what other people had, I didn’t hate them. I just asked myself how they got there. In case there was a way for me to work to get what they had. Be it financial, appearance, or otherwise.

Yeah, I’d be pissed if I, for example, saw someone who I considered less intelligent having more than me. But I wasn’t pissed at them. I was just pissed at myself. For not yet being able to figure it out when clearly they had.

But that’s a good thing. Expose where I could do better – so that I can do better! So that I can get all that is out there for me to get.

Scarcity mindset is a real thing. And incredibly dangerous at times.

But I choose to believe in a good God. It comes down to that alone really. A good God mindset. Where abundance of all that I want is truly possible. Without taking from anyone else. Without hating them for what they have. Without being jealous.

And if you hate a child because someone is paying them attention in the form of molestation, that shit is weird and sick, bro. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. Primed as you may have been in your upbringing to think you don’t deserve anything more. Deep down you know that shit ain’t right.

It’s not about the child at all. It’s about you valuing yourself so little that all you think you can get is a child molester. And you’ll sacrifice children to settle for that.

You don’t attract child molesters at all. But your lack of self-worth didn’t send them on their way at the first signs of something not being up to par. And we’re talking bare minimum. Not some selfish extravagance.

You’re not going to keep attracting child molesters. That’s not the point at all. But your lack of boundaries, because your lack of self-worth, is going to keep them around way past their expiration date.

It is as simple as deciding what real Love looks like. Deciding whether you want it or not. And then giving it to yourself first. So that you are not dependent on stealing it from others. And so you won’t ever again settle for someone who isn’t meeting you on that same level.

It really is possible.

Same even for men I suppose. Your upbringing priming you to settle for less than the respect you deserve. We can argue that. But until when? When will you decide to respect yourself first? When you’re a kid it’s not your fault. But as we get old enough it becomes our responsibility. Fair or not.

Part of identifying what was done to us is wanting so badly for justice to come in from the outside. And in that, these past few generations have been about us waking up.

But we can’t stop there. Waking up is just part of many steps.

Ain’t no government coming to save you. Ain’t no law or lawsuit going to usher in what you really want. Ain’t no cancellation or conciliatory handout going to fully satisfy.

These things we’re talking about are much bigger. Deep soul matters. Of the entire collective. Turning a corner in history.

Together. One individual at a time. Seeing where they were lied to. And deciding to do differently.

Or not.

What will you decide?