Why Summer Is the Season of Envy When You Have MS

I can often celebrate friends enjoying their lives. Here’s how I cope when I can’t.

It’s summer, and that means my social media feed is filled with friends’ posts about the fabulous vacations they’re taking. This can trigger one of the biggest challenges that life with multiple sclerosis (MS) presents for me: envy.

Because I’ve had practice with it, I’ve learned that envy is not the same as jealousy. Jealousy is when you want something that someone else has, but you don’t want them to have it. Envy is when you want something that someone else has, but you also want them to keep enjoying it.

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Feeling stuck

Recently, a friend was traveling to Croatia with her two best friends. She complained on Facebook that their flight was delayed and they were stuck for a few unexpected hours in the Frankfurt airport. Stuck, while sipping cocktails.

At this point in my disease, even packing my own suitcase has become nearly impossible. And it’s a select few friends who have the patience and trust to take on traveling with me.

My empathy dial went to the low setting, and my envy dial turned to high. I imagined what it would be like to be sitting with great friends during an adventure on a dream vacation. I literally wept just thinking about how much I wanted to enjoy such ease while traveling.

Most of the time, I can celebrate friends enjoying their lives, but I’m human and sometimes miss the mark.

I’m not particularly proud of myself in these moments. However, as a psychotherapist, I understand that to work through emotions we must be able to name them, feel them, and then do our best to nonjudgmentally integrate them into our lives.

A life-changing moment

Envy isn’t new to me.

Since being diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS) in 1998, my mobility has declined with every passing year.

So in 2016, I decided to seize my remaining opportunity to scuba dive with my then 17-year-old son and booked a vacation in Cozumel.

On the second day of our trip, my son rolled me in my wheelchair down to the hotel restaurant. We were seated next to a table of three women, close enough that we could easily hear their conversation. They were complaining about how difficult it was to keep up their running routines on the sandy beach.

For years before my diagnosis and for a few years after, I had spent nearly every morning running on the beach in California with my dog Buck. I loved it. When MS took my ability to run, it was devastating.

The loud protests about running from the table next to us were suddenly punctuated with laughter when one of the women talked about the time she tripped and fell while on a run. They droned on, complaining about the next morning’s workout.

My son knew exactly what was happening for me as I tried to compose myself while tears streamed down my face. A face attached to a body that would give nearly anything to run on the beach sand.

And then it struck me.

Yes, I would happily sacrifice a lot to run again. But here I was, openly laughing and crying with my 17-year-old son. It’s rare enough that a teenage boy would want to vacation with his mom, let alone spend that time pushing her around in a wheelchair or helping her get to the bathroom.

Yet here was my son, engulfing me in his long arms and hugging away my tears. I recognized how lucky, how enviable I was.

I realized then that almost every life has something to envy.

Reminders of what I no longer have

It’s not just vacations and social media posts that can trigger envy for those of us who live with the debilitating symptoms of MS, though. Summer brings so many opportunities to witness people doing things we also desperately want to do: swimming, hiking, and going to outdoor concerts without collapsing from the heat.

Summer with MS might be easier if it were only others’ good times that made us envious. But living with a disability can emphasize loss in unusual ways.

For example, I long for the days of spontaneous chores. Like those mornings when I’d wake up and decide that today was the day to slip on some old cut-off shorts and tennis shoes and clean my garage. Some people dread that task, but I spend time fantasizing about such summer projects.

I imagine not having to plan my every move, not worrying about whether I’ll soil my pants, and instead just focusing on getting things done and ending up sweaty and dirty with a broom in one hand and a cold beer in the other.

It is not only the sheer pain of loss that is so tough but also seeing the ease with which others do things we used to do — an ease that they often seem to take for granted.

But I’ve learned that this is an assumption — one that can easily transform my envy into anger. So in my better moments, I remember to check myself for assumptions.

Releasing envy

Along the way, I’ve learned other strategies for coping with envy. One such approach, a Buddhist practice called mudita, empowers you to experience the vicarious joy that comes from delighting in others’ well-being.

It might seem like a stretch to go from envy to joy, but with the right mindset, it works.

Yes, it is essential to acknowledge, name, and feel the pain, suffering, anger, and sadness that comes from living with MS. It’s all part of finding our way through healthy grieving. But we don’t have to stay there.

Practicing mudita can be one way to release the misery of those feelings and move forward.

The practice of mudita begins with self-compassion, with acknowledging that you are in pain and want to live a life with less pain and suffering.

To practice this, I say something like, “It’s OK that I want to live with less suffering.”

Once I have acknowledged my pain and my desire to be free from it, I begin to imagine the person whose ability I envy doing precisely the thing that I so much want to do. And if I’m able to, I allow myself to imagine being in the experience with them as well.

This is why, when my friends ask if they should tell me about what they are doing in their lives — going skiing, signing up for a marathon, learning to play tennis, taking cooking lessons — my answer is always yes.

Saying no does not make it more likely I will be able to do the thing. It just creates distance between me and those I cherish.

Sometimes it helps me to remember that my desire has nothing to do with the person I envy. They represent something I want. They’re a physical representation of my feelings of lack. It is not personal.

No doubt, practicing mudita is hard. Like other disciplines, such as exercising or changing eating habits, practicing vicarious joy comes with diligence, patience, and a strong desire to do something different because the old way becomes too painful or too laden with self-destructive consequences.

Practicing mudita can be one way to release the pain, anger, sadness, and envy that comes from living with MS.

The comfort found in celebrating others’ lives

It helps that I can remember the excitement of a vacation, the joy of a run, and the satisfaction of a clean garage.

Oftentimes, my friends will send me photos or videos of their vacation or activity, along with descriptions of the experience.

One friend might send me a picture from a hike and tell me I was right there with them, listening to the leaves crunch under their feet and smelling the pine trees.

Another might tell me that they didn’t feel like training for a marathon, but they knew how much I would give to be able to do that. And then they send me a picture of the finish line and sweat on their face.

I find it incredibly comforting when my friends do this, with an intentional effort to include me.

Their gesture not only acknowledges my loss and desire, but also the sadness they feel that I cannot be with them, and the gratitude they have about being able to do what they can do.

Choosing joy

I have no control over many aspects of MS. Yet I do have control over how I navigate envy.

My choice, at this point, is either to be engulfed by it and become bitter or learn how to work with my current reality and find joy — even if it occurs vicariously through others.

Despite everything, I heard myself proclaim out loud last month, “MS, you might take my body, but you will not take all my joy.” And that declaration felt almost as good as a summer vacation.