Defining the Topic

When I say feeling left behind, I mean it on a life-level scale. For some, it might mean looking at those around them and seeing that, one by one, they’re all getting married and starting families while they themselves remain single. For others, it can cover a whole variety of topics like career, assets you own or personal achievements. In my opinion, it’s an overlooked feeling – often bundled with jealousy or being too critical of yourself and others, which doesn’t quite sit right with me. It’s a feeling in its own right, something that deserved a post to focus on it. 

My Recent Experience With Feeling Left Behind

I came to want to write this post after a lot of self-reflection. It was a winter evening and I was scrolling Instagram. Before we go any further, I know that social media isn’t the best for anyone’s mental health but most of us still use it to connect with others or to share updates on our lives – it’s hard to avoid in the modern world. While scrolling, I saw post after post of friends showing off extremely expensive home improvements. For context, I moved into my home back in 2018 and since then, my partner and I have completed several home improvement projects – some by ourselves, some with the help of family and some undertaken by professional tradespeople. Common themes that run between all of the projects is that they’re time-consuming, messy and, of course, expensive. Some things we’ve done have been vital to the running of the house (such as a replacement boiler and a new front door), others have been for aesthetics and comfort (like new carpets where the old ones were ruined and changing the colours of rooms for something nicer). There is still a huge list of things we probably won’t be able to afford for a very long time and other things that, even though we did them ourselves, our home doesn’t look like a ‘show home’.

While browsing the posts, I was faced with people ripping out entire sections of their house to completely replace for high-end brand new. There were others who were placing the final touches in rooms that closely resemble those found in magazines – complete with £25-100 per piece bits of decor (I’m a £2.99 B&M girl myself). There were even people who, while in the middle of one enormous project were sharing plans for their next massive task. I was left feeling deflated, frustrated and if I’m completely honest, a bit sick. 

My thoughts were racing; where did they get all of this money from? Are they going into debt over this? How are they doing all of this themselves when they have day jobs, where do they find the time? I found myself remembering the several trips to Homebase, recalling the cost of everything from specific types of paint to the different price points of toilet roll holders, mentally calculating how many tens of thousands these people must have been spending to complete their renovations. After a while, I took a step back, wondering what was ‘wrong’ with myself. Shouldn’t I be ‘practising gratitude’ and thanking my janky internal doors for partially serving their purpose until I can afford new ones? Am I being a disgustingly jealous person that deserves nothing but negative emotions? Should I be reorganising my finances to try to get a home worthy of whoever the ‘in’ interior designer is? 

Eventually, when I’d separated myself from the situation, I began to think more objectively. I’d heard of people feeling this way in the past, more so on the subject of all their friends getting married while they’re single. In that scenario, I could understand the intensity of emotion where all your friends are loved up yet you might feel lonely yourself. Given that, why was I being so hard on myself when it came to the subject of money and assets vs how widely accepted of an emotion it is RE relationship status? 

How to Get Past Feeling Left Behind

The self-reflection on this subject continued for me for a few weeks after the initial realisation of these emotions. Over time, I began to learn and understand how to begin tackling strong feelings like feeling left behind. I wanted to share these things in case it’s useful to someone reading this.

Finding Your Own Path

Realising or finding your own path is important to begin to come away from feeling left behind. In my case, I noticed that, in reality, I didn’t really want the types of homes people were sharing on social media. As beautiful as they were, I didn’t like the colour schemes or found the decor impractical in one way or another. I also didn’t envy the amount of time people were spending on DIY activities. As much as I like being creative, I absolutely hate painting so wouldn’t personally choose to go singlehandedly down an upcycling route for example.

In terms of other iterations of this topic, maybe this looks like realising the benefits of the single life for the moment or figuring out how you’d like to meet new people if you’re looking for love rather than feeling down that you’re not already at the point of marriage. Maybe it looks like understanding that you’ve been spending your time working hard in your career field rather than studying for that qualification you saw your best friend complete. Everyone is on a different path, these paths are made as much by our timelines as they are our preferences in life and there is no right or wrong time for things. Comparing myself to others simply didn’t work when talking about major life events as we’re all so different.

Staying Present

A major help to me was remaining in the moment. I’m not a huge fan of this statement being used as the ‘fix all’ it seems to have become in the modern day but I do see it’s purpose here. Spending time keeping my mind focused on the here and now helped me to come away from wondering what I should be doing or what I should have. 

Acknowledging Feelings 

Sometimes, I find I just need to feel my feelings. This looks like exploring why I might be feeling a certain way about something and unravelling it via quiet moments to myself, journaling or through another creative outlet (I love writing poetry). For me, feeling left behind may only be the tip of the iceberg with deeper-seated emotions surrounding who is ‘deserving’ of certain things in life. This may arise if I’ve generally had negative interactions with the person in the past or even felt like particular parts of my own life are ‘out of control’ while I perceive someone else to have everything together. Exploring emotions in a safe setting has been a gateway to further self-discovery for me. I also feel that exploring things with a therapist has been beneficial in the past, especially with stronger or more difficult emotions.

I hope this post has helped to shed some light on this subject and has potentially been helpful if you’re experiencing a similar feeling. If you have anything to add or have any other suggestions on moving past emotions like this, please comment to share with the community.