Envious people tend to feel hostile, resentful, angry and irritable. Such individuals are also less likely to feel grateful about their positive traits and their circumstances. Envy is also related to depression, anxiety, the development of prejudice, and personal unhappiness.
“Avoiding you and not wanting to spend time together can be a sign of jealousy,” McBain says. Seeing you creates difficult and negative feelings for them, so they're attempting to deal by dashing in the other direction, rather than taking it out on you.
Jealousy is the fear or concern that someone else will take something that you possess or own, or that you believe you possess or own. Envy is the resentment you feel because of the advantages or possessions that someone else has.
If ignoring the envious voices is not an option, then address the issue. Just reach out to these people and let them know what they are doing is not right. However, be prepared in case they don't acknowledge your feelings. Just let them know, then let it go.
Envy is caused by a dissatisfaction with self-image—your perception of your actual stature. This dissatisfaction is also called low self-esteem—a poor self-appraisal of your actual stature. Because you feel inferior to the person you envy, envy is related to shame. Envy encourages you to achieve higher stature.
One of the worst signs someone secretly envies you is that they constantly parasite off your energy and time. No matter how much you help them, they just seem to want to take and take. In some situations, it's not just that they're a needy person. It's that they're jealous of your stability, resources and life.
Envy is often rooted in low self-esteem – sometimes from very early unmet childhood needs where the person feels inherently not good enough. An envious person may frequently 'compare and despair' and find themselves wanting.
Self-Worth and Happiness Erodes
Envy is another term for being unhappy. This is when envy can take over your mind. It becomes a powerful virus that kills our confidence and self-worth. Additionally, envy means you're stuck in a rut and must dig yourself out of it.
According to the DSM-IV, none of the personality disorders, except the narcissistic personality, is formally associated with envy. Nevertheless, this "deadly sin" is so omnipresent in human relationships that it cannot be restricted only to the narcissistic personalities.
Unhealthy jealous behavior happens when we indulge that feeling and act impulsively from a place of suspicion and insecurity. When insecurity in our relationships run rampant, jealousy can rapidly grow into paranoia and obsession and threaten to destroy the very relationship we're most afraid to lose.
Envy is only toxic when a person is unable to feel empathy, love, generosity or even just kindness to the other. Sometimes an envious person can be friendly to others but only direct viciousness towards the one person who triggers extremes of that feeling.
Benign Envy and Malicious Envy
Van de Ven et al. (2009) proposed that there are two distinct experiences of envy, one of which is benign and the other is malicious, and that benign envy and malicious envy lead to different behavioral expressions.
Research has identified many root causes of extreme jealousy, including low self-esteem, high neuroticism, and feeling possessive of others, particularly romantic partners. Fear of abandonment is also a key motivator.
People with high levels of envy are more concerned about self-deficiency and other people's possessions and are more likely to experience negative experiences such as inferiority and dejection as a result [4-8,20]. These feelings may subsequently lead to depression [12].
Envy gives birth to hatred because an envious person does not stop with jealousy toward another, and that jealousy can lead to harming the other or wishing them harm.
Although many people consider “envy” and “jealousy” synonymous, they actually have distinct meanings. Envy is “the painful feeling of wanting what someone else has, like attributes or possessions.” If you're jealous, you feel “threatened, protective, or fearful of losing one's position or situation to someone else.”
Shame and anxiety are experienced all over the body as well, with warm colors in the head and chest, and blue colors in the legs. Surprise doesn't look that different from shame, and envy — like surprise — shows up as red in the head and chest, and dark blue in the legs.
In English-speaking cultures, envy is often associated with the color green, as in "green with envy", and yellow. Yellow is the color of ambivalence and contradiction; a color associated with optimism and amusement; but also with betrayal, duplicity, and jealousy.
Pathological envy and jealousy are generally considered delusional disorders because the person experiencing them is often delusional about the object of their jealousy or envy. People who live with delusional disorders can be a danger to themselves or others and may need to be treated by mental health professionals.
Narcissists are said to be envious of others and yet believe others to be envious of them; they will often project this trait onto others and make their victims feel like the insecure ones. This type of envy, while common among narcissists, isnt just limited to malignant narcissists.
⚡ Quick summary. Jealousy and envy both involve a feeling of desire for what another person has, but jealousy is usually thought to be more negative—it often involves resentment toward the other person. Envy is also a negative feeling—like a mix of admiration and discontent—but the word doesn't usually imply hostility.
Jealousy makes you selfish, and that can be difficult to deal with from a partner's perspective. "If someone allows jealousy to take control and rule their actions, they become too selfish," Jayne Kinsman told INSIDER.
When it comes to envy, the same mechanism is at play. We compare bits of information about others to ourselves, and when we feel that we do not compare well, it makes us unhappy and often angry.