HATE Rising

My friend left me a frantic voicemail message yesterday telling me to call her back ASAP to help her decode some "weird" phone call she received. I was convinced that this was going to be another one of her wacky "Dating-in Durham" stories, so i called her back immediately. Here's how the conversation ensued:

ME: Hey girl. Got your message. What's up?

SHE: Girl, some man called me today and said he got my information from ______, a girl I went to Columbia J-School with...

ME: OMG- is she setting you up on a blind date with some random down there?

SHE: Well, not really. He manages a Black online newspaper in New York and- I'm pretty sure he's offering me a job to be a journalist.

ME: (less excited) Great- so what's the problem?

SHE: (super excited) Well, I can't just leave my cushy, but lame, job here in Durham to live in one of my favorite cities to finally do exactly what I want to do- and work for my biggest idol- Cathy Hughes (black female media magnate- NOT OPRAH)! OMG- can you believe it?!



Of course I can believe it. Why- because she is not me and this sort of thing happens to her all of the time. A cool job just lands in her lap in the middle of a friggin' recession. I've sent out four cover letters requesting mere informational interviews and haven't heard so much as a peep. But that's not the real problem here. She is a good journalist- award-winning, in fact; and, she's passionate about what she does. Kudos for her! I say it and I absolutely want to mean it, but I am so consumed with my dissatisfying life that I have difficulty accepting my friend's good news.

I've been plagued by this issue for quite some time now. The "HATE" is what I call it. As with most of my "disorders," it helps me to cope with them when I write. With me, the HATE is so dire that I wrote an entire article about it, which I am in the process of shopping around to publications. Unfortunately, because my life is so sucky, I have yet to get a response to my countless query letters. Actually, one online publication expressed interest, but they only wanted to pay me thirty bucks for it. So what if I'm an unpublished novice- I know my worth. I want at least three figures for my thoughts. Of course, if nobody else wants it, I can always just publish it for free on my own damn blog- so here it is. Here for all two of you to read. Oh, I'm still shopping it around.


The HATE

Maino’s “Hi Hater” is more than just a hot song- it also happens to be my personal anthem. Just the other day, my homegirl announced that she got a promotion. I was ecstatic for her- proud even. She worked hard and put up with a lot of crap to earn her merit. All while I was smiling in her face and congratulating her, I could not seem to shake that familiar sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach along with the tiny imp on my shoulder whispering despicableness in my ear like: “She doesn’t need more money;” “She’s not even all that qualified;” “Where's my damn promotion?” I felt guilty for thinking such awful thoughts about my friend, but I just couldn’t help it.

I have a disease. It’s not really a disease in the terminal-go-to-the-hospital-need- medication sense. It’s more of a mental condition. I am a HATER.

Why would I admit that? Well, because it is a problem and the first step to conquering any issue is to confess. Though I am pretty sure everyone drinks his or her share of HATERade, I’m concerned that my consumption of the bitter beverage is about a gallon more than average.

Seriously, anyone can fall victim to my askance glare, eye rolls and acidic remarks- friends, enemies, men, women, educated people, not-so-educated people who are doing “better” than me, women with nice bodies, black men with white women, married people, rich people... must I continue? Most of the time, my adverse emotions are not even intentional. I will see or hear about something at random and suddenly SNAP. I need help.

While researching my condition I learned that “hating” manifests itself in a variety of ways. As a matter of fact, Urbandictionary.com has approximately seventy-three definitions for the word “hater.” With a term this broad, I am definitely not the only person suffering from this disorder. I pinpointed my particular strain of “hate” as:

A person that simply cannot be happy for another person’s success… they make a point of exposing a flaw in that person.

That certainly describes the bulk of my symptoms.

Sometimes my hate is justified. I refuse to give props where none is due. As hateful as it might sound, I think most reality stars are untalented media whores who are not worthy of the attention or money they attract. That's clearly a mere casual observation; however, it could easily be misconstrued as “hate.” Whatever- I have a tendency to say what’s on my mind- negative or positive. I do not know or care about reality people anyway. The simple cure for that form or hateration would be to heed to the old adage, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”

What worries me more is the hate geared towards my friends and loved ones. When this hate hits me, I am capable of curbing my verbal remarks, but I tend to experience an emotional Tourette’s where I can’t stop my terrible feelings and thoughts- even against people I truly care for. A situation this dire requires a professional’s diagnosis. I turned to North Carolina A&T's Professor of Psychology (and my BFF), Dr. Renee Alleyne, for a more in-depth analysis of my disorder.

According to Dr. Alleyne, there is no concrete psychological definition for the contemporary syndrome of “hate.” “I think what you are referring to is jealousy…or even envy,” states Dr. Alleyne. Certainly I am already familiar with feelings of jealousy and envy, but just to be clear, we checked Dictionary.com and found their definitions to be pretty similar to my symptoms.

Jealousy can be used to describe feelings of “resentment or anger against a rival or another’s success.” Okay, that sounds like hate. Envy is a “feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc.” Bingo. For further elucidation, Dr. Alleyne and I also looked up the word hate, and lo and behold- “to feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward” jumped right at me like a fake booty on the cover of King magazine (I hate King too).

Apparently, I suffer from a jealous-envy-hate amalgamation of “Hate.” Those emotions are completely natural and fairly easy to cope with separately. However, the hybrid of them all- under the dark cloud of “Hate” is a whole other beast.

Dr. Alleyne assured me that although jealousy is a part of human nature, the amount of jealousy one possesses and the effect it has determines whether or not it is healthy or normal. “Small amounts of jealousy may serve as motivation to do better. However, if you are so jealous that you experience a significant level of distress, then that is a clear indication of how unhealthy jealousy can be,” says Dr. Alleyne.

The envious feelings I direct towards strangers is usually superficial and fleeting. The hate I inflict on my peers is the result of something deeper and more profound. Dr. Alleyne cited the Appraisal Theories of Emotion
Frijda (1986), Lazarus (1991), which suggest “that emotions are a result of people’s interpretations and explanations of the events. Specifically, an individual’s emotions will be based on the good or bad implications that the event has
for the individual, as well as how the individual explains the cause of the event.”

“When your friend announced her promotion, right away you interpreted this situation as a threat to your success, which caused you to have negative emotions,” surmised Dr. Alleyne. She was right. My friend and I work in the same industry and I sometimes feel that I could- or should be in her shoes.

My professional circle is rather small, so I constantly hear of some acquaintance’s progress. I get so frustrated because I tend to compare my status to theirs and project my shortcomings on them. Dr. Alleyne suggests that if my friends and I were in totally different fields, I would less likely have negative feelings about their success.

I explained to Dr. Alleyne that sometimes my hate gets so severe, that I lose sleep due to my ruminating thoughts. One night after seeing one of my peers in a magazine ad, another in a movie, and hearing about yet another’s career success I actually broke out in hives! Dr. Alleyne confirmed that an excess of negative emotions could indeed cause both psychological and physical ailments. “Jealousy leads to stress and stress has been linked to a number of physical illnesses including severe headaches, common colds, heart attacks and strokes.”

The very thought of my hate causing serious damage to my overall health is quite unsettling. I need to take action. Dr. Alleyne says that my self-awareness is already a good start. “If you become aware of your hater ways, then you are in a position to do something about it.” She recommends that haters try identifying the positive aspects of their lives and focusing on achieving their own goals instead of on someone else’s prosperity.

In a case as severe as mine, Dr. Alleyne thinks speaking to a professional to help deal with underlying contributing factors would be a good idea.

Hating in excess is not healthy or beneficial to anyone- no matter how natural it may be. Although, I sometimes feel that my hating is uncontrollable, it would behoove me to get a handle on it to at least avoid hurting my friends and loved ones. I definitely don’t want be labeled as a hateful, jealous person who can’t appreciate another’s success. Armed with my newfound understanding of “hate,” I am on the road to recovery.

If all else fails, I could always attempt to make a successful career out of hating like a popular New York City radio disc jockey. Wait- I meant EX-NYC radio disc jockey. Look at where the HATE landed him.