What a nasty spiteful cow...! Yes, me, that's who.

If you are suffering from depression then you are experiencing feelings that you cannot control & you cannot blame yourself.It is not you but the illness speaking.
Send a card & don't beat yourself up about it. It is not YOU. If it is worrying you see your doctor - it may well be you need a slight change to your medication to help you.

A long time ago I remember experiencing professional envy of someone who seemed to have everything. Then it hit me p

that no-one has everything, and there are problems, worries and deficiencies in everyone's life.

I'm glad you posted a second time, Rowantree, because now you have got to the heart of the matter and I understand where you are coming from much better. I believe talking to someone would be a great help to you in putting things into perspective and helping with your depressions. Your GP will be able to refer you and please do consider this.
Remember academic intelligence means nothing without heart, soul, love and laughter in your life. If you have those things go to the very top of the class with a big smile.

I can understand your feelings*Rowantree*, I had a school friend who was always regarded as the least smart amongst her sisters, she was the youngest & whilst away at College had a breakdown.

I do think we all have flashes of envy, sometimes irrational, but it usually passes or we cover it well.

I was on the receiving end of this whilst as a Mature Student, single parent with 7 year old daughter. I was doing well & proud of my achievements when a couple of my colleagues remarked that they felt I was "boasting" about my grades, I was very hurt as they were both married with families & had people at home to share their achievements with, my daughter was very proud of me but it's not the same

Send the card & wish him well, don't dwell on it or

I sympathise completely and I can relate to your illness being a fellow sufferer. I have just binged in chocolate and ice cream because I'm feeling sh** today. ?

Rowantree You have a good handle on the issue... you were brought up to this and that's hard baggage to tote around. These are feelings, not a character trait. I have no doubt you are a lovely person and in all other ways are happy in yourself.

But it's not YOU. It's a set of feelings that rear up when you are faced with your past history concerning the impact of high-achievers on you. Empathy is hard to cultivate when you have unrealistic traits put on to you for a good part of your life.

My mother was an over-bearing critical bitter woman who projected this onto me by trying to belittle any of my 'normal' achievements. If I got a good mark, why didn't I get better at school?

I was not free of it till I put 3000 miles between us. After several years, I got over it. But in the end, she got PD and I was there for most of the remainder of her life. Nothing was so humbling as to see her brought down by it. She could not cope because of her personality. I was so glad I had been away and re-discovered true empathy. In the end... she knew she'd wasted her life.

Don't give anyone that power... be the person you know you truly are!

Venting our feelings is good! So your post on GN was a great idea. You could also try writing down all these feelings you are finding hard to deal with at the moment, then burning the pieces of paper and saying goodbye to the baggage. I had a lot of counselling when I was going through the menopause and it was like putting down a huge sack of problems and emotions that I had been struggling with. So I would really advise some counselling,as other posters have said. Please do not just go down the route of medication. Yes it can help, but it is not really the solution. it is hard to deal with the legacy of our parents, but as we know ourselves parenting is the hardest thing in the world. Our parents were not perfect and not so much was known in those days about the psychological effects of our upbringings. It has taken me many years to forgive my mum and understand where she was coming from. But I am getting there!

If you love your nephew, just get in touch and say how wonderful, he deserves it, that is the right thing to do. Your depression must be making you feel like this, just recognise this but don't spoil things for the family. I would consider going to the doctors, you need to understand what is causing these feelings you experience. Good luck.

I found this post really helpful as I had a horrible night of jealousy yesterday when our son sent his father a photo of grand-daughter enjoying the Christmas present I had searched for, bought and got to them beautifully wrapped but didn't bother to send me a copy with the same flick of the switch. We are together as parents but have separate computers and 'phones. Blamed myself for my horribleness all night but today wrote a note asking him to send me a copy as his father can't work out how to do it and I'm feeling Left Out!
Find gransnet puts so much in perspective - thankyou all wise women

I think as a nation we are often ready to commiserate with others when things go badly, but we find it hard to congratulate others' on their high achievements.

You sound very upset with yourself about this, Rowantree, which is understandable given your own childhood. Just be kind to yourself, accept it for what it is and try to move on.

You are not a cow, you're just human! I have felt jealous about the daftest things many times, and like you hated the fact that I felt like that. We can't control how we feel but we can control what we say. So give them your biggest smiles, and loveliest messages of congratulation you can. In a while the lad will be at uni and immersed in his studies and it won't be at the forefront of your mind any more.

Someone famous (Gore Vidal?) said, 'Every time a friend succeeds, something inside me dies.'

I would think the feelings you describe are not that uncommon.
I can imagine that quite a few people would feel some degree of private jealousy/resentment if a friend or relative's child appears to be doing better, or is cleverer, or happier, or more successful, than your own.

Or if someone else's success makes you yearn for what might perhaps have been, but now never will be, since it's either too late, or you know it's just never going to happen.

Only since it's not done to admit it, hardly anyone ever does.

As long as you keep such feelings well hidden when necessary, glue a smile on and offer the usual congratulations, I don't think you should feel awful about it. Hard, though, when we are all so conditioned to believe that 'nice' people only ever think nice, kind, charitable thoughts.

She recently admitted that the Oxford 'method' was not really for her and she might well have had a breakdown.

I know someone who did go there, and did have a breakdown. It has sadly messed up her life.

I think the OP needs to analyse her feelings and break them down. Is the feeling of sickness and inadequacy because you didn't make it to university? If so, enrol in in U3A or Open University course and realise your own dream of higher education - it's never too late. etc etc. Try to turn the negative feelings into something positive for yourself. These feelings make us feel horrible and it's brave to put them on this forum.

Rowantree, I could have written your posts word for word about myself, except that my moment of shame came when I couldn't rejoice whole-heartedly when my sister got into Cambridge, when I myself. hadn't even got an interview, despite it having been assumed right from my earliest childhood that I would go to Newnham just like many of my parents' friends. I did get into Oxford (this was in the days of student grants) and was happy there ... but I could never shake off this feeling of inadequacy and failure, since my mother never let us forget that intelligence was the quality she regarded as paramount, and she rated people's value according to their academic ability. I could go on, but you get the picture. More recently, I have discovered that my two sisters each felt, as I did, that somewhere along the line we had been A Disappointment, and that we'd let her and ourselves down somehow. As an adult, I understand that my mother was probably projecting various disappointments of her own on to us, but despite that understanding, I have never been able simply to 'move on' emotionally. The emotions simply arise as does the pain from a corn if you put on an ill-fitting shoe. These neural pathways laid down in early childhood never go away, any more than the beneficial habits which ensure that I can't bear to go to bed without brushing my teeth. I have found it helpful to accept that these feelings will persist of their own accord, but they aren't really me, they are separate creatures. That makes it easier to treat them objectively and with kindness, but I still feel them, nevertheless. And it's such a relief to learn of someone else who feels the same way - thank you!

Rowantree, you are extremely brave because not only do you acknowledge your unworthy feelings, you also recognise that you must overcome them. If this is any help, I like to give free rein to my own unworthy feelings. I imagine tying up people in bin bags, for example, or gluing them to the ceiling. Once I have thought the worst, and know that it is total fantasy, I can allow my better nature to take over. As long as you keep your thoughts to yourself, it's your actions that matter in the end.

I have the opposite problem. I was told today my very clever nephew has decided not To go to University. He just wants a job as a train conductor and one day hopes to be a train driver. A train conductor or driver is a very important job, but I feel his choices are due to his parents. His father has worked for a bus company since he was Sixteen has never had another job, does not go anywhere, sits and watches telly most of the time. Has no friends, nothing. Is basically very lazy and I feel unfortunately that his son is just following in his footsteps without any ambition in life at all. He doesn't seem to go anywhere, doesn't do the things boys normally do. Apart from playing computer games he is just lost in his own wee world. I think it is such a shame, I have not been an ambitious person in my working life, but have seen a lot of the world and done a lot of things. It is so sad to see a young man who has no experience or will not experience the wide world and the opportunities that are out there. I would love him to know there are fantastic things to do and places to see.

Rowantree, please get counseling ASAP. You're problem isn't your jealousy of your nephew - it's your negative feelings about yourself. (((Hugs!)))

Rownatree ?for your honesty! I've been there too. My own fault for deciding teacher training college was preferable to university as it was only a 2 year course. So many years since when I could have done a degree and didn't. No one to blame but myself!

Rowantree
I wonder if your SIL is the boastful type? If so then this would also be a big factor in explaining your irritation at your nephews Oxbridge acceptance. There is no reason to feel pleased for people who are competitive show offs (although of course you have to put on a false smile).
If she is then she's going to be insufferable over the next few years - contact best kept low level as possible!

The thing is, the op isn't just jealous of her nephew. She's been dealing with feelings of "inadequacy" all her life. This is much bigger than just resenting her nephew's achievement. She needs professional help.

Rowantree Initially I was going to respond with I feel your pain, then I read about all you and your own children have achieved! Is it about wanting to be the one who achieves more than the others? Whatever the reason it isn't a nice feeling I know. How often are we told not to compare our own children. It's all difficult, and whatever the reason(s), and however you get past it, it's horrible and hurts no-one as much as it hurts us ourselves. When you or anyone knows how to stop this they would make millions bottling it! For now GN is the ideal place for us all to openly talk it through and for that I am grateful that you started this so once again myself and others can see that we are not alobe.

Alobe! Alone!

No Rowsntree you are not nasty or a 'cow. You have been through a lot. Actually I would doubt anyone who said that they had never had a single feeling of jealousy .

Slightly different but I have sometime felt the same about my self. My MIL is a perfectly decent person. Never interfered or been nasty. We always include her in the family and have her here regularly or visit. However although I don't dislike her I just don't feel anything for her and if I'm honest it wouldn't bother me if I didn't see her. Sometimes I feel quite down when I know she is about to arrive. Makes me feel very bad about myself and I don't understand why I feel this way.

Don't mean to take over your thread but just to illustrate that all of us have feelings that we can't always control but we try to deal with them and hope the people concerned are never aware of our feelings