Health: gossip, a form of jealousy

Gossip, idle talk or rumours about another’s private affairs…
Unless gossip rolls like water off a duck’s back, it can destroy self-confidence, erode entire communities, and create major health problems. It comes from jealousy, greed, and envy.
‘There are three things that destroy communities: drugs, alcohol and jealousy,’ said Lloyd Haarala, an Anishinabe man, when he spoke with me before conducting a sweat lodge near Ladysmith, B.C.
How many times have gossip and jealousy ruffled your life; hurt or angered you?
Words of gossip deliberately attempt to humiliate, embarrass, or undercut someone. Gossipers create scandal by telling tales to anyone who will listen.
If their words or ideas find fertile ground in recipients’ ears truth is neglected. Gossip spreads like wildfire.
When I was 23 I worked as a military nurse. I was reasonably attractive, tall, slim, and the thing that made me a target, I was single. At that time being single was a job requirement.
I’d lived in small places, where everyone knew everyone, but I’d never lived in places overrun with jealousy and malice. In days I was the target of rumours.
People claimed to know what I was doing before I did!
It was the only time in my life when I dated three men in one day, informing each of them of my other commitments. I saw places, heard music, and ate good meals with men friends, no strings attached. Men outnumbered women significantly; they liked my presence.
At a social function one weekend a wife accosted me vehemently, in the women’s bathroom where other wives chatted, ‘You leave my husband alone!’
It’s a good thing I knew her name so I knew who her husband was. He was a middle-aged accountant with whom I’d spoken 10 words -- about my pay cheque.
As shocked as I was, I left the room with my head up, after glancing at her, ‘What makes you think you have such a prize that I want him?’
As the year wore on gossip webs spun through the community marking me.
Rules prompted talk: only officers are permitted in the officer’s mess unless a public function is held; all female officers must wear uniforms or dresses in the officer’s mess. So husbands were exposed to me, ‘that young, single woman’.
I was hurt. So many lies were said about me; I was labelled a slut.
I have no idea if male officers, whose advances I’d shunned, were talking about me or if the wives were so mistrustful of their husbands that I was perceived as a threat.
Perhaps when, in innocence or naïveté, I parked a married officer’s car in my driveway over night, while he was in hospital, added to the image. He required hospitalization after drinking and I drove him with his car. He told me to use it to get home and return it when I came to work in the morning.
Innuendo made its mark on my person, but the Creator works in mysterious ways.
Later that year, although I had been tarred and feathered by the wives, they lacked a tall slim woman for their fashion show. I was approached to model. Snickering to myself I asked, ‘Boy that’ll be a quiet night, who will you talk about, if I’m there?’
Gossip haunted me again when I was married. I did not take my husband’s name when we married so assumptions were made. A vice president of the hospital was seen with me. The hospital, another fine place for gossip, fed the rumour. It reached my friend’s ear. She laughed and said, ‘So what! They’re married?’
‘Exactly and they were together, I saw them having dinner! They didn’t even notice me.’
‘It’s okay; they’re married -- to each other.’
Once the staff knew we were a couple dynamics changed; they came asking me to take things to management.
‘My lines of communication are the same as yours. I’m no carrier pigeon,’ I replied.
When I was again single, working for Wawatay, gossip was once more directed at me by a woman who I met at committee meetings where the aim was to improve communications in Sioux Lookout.
It was at a time when we hoped to prompt readers to send news from the communities; we’d extend Wawatay’s outreach. I had the opportunity to move to Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug.
Although the woman from this committee did not know me or know why I was moving, she said I’d do anything to sleep with a man.
Word got back to me through three friends. Hearing the allegations I felt pity for the gossipmonger as well as amusement when I said, ‘We learned something important about her and why she does things; I’m not sure what we learned about me.’
So back to stopping gossip and jealousy, if you are busy doing the best you can with your life you don’t have time to be jealous about someone else’s.