@Timmah1979: People, even and sometimes especially friends, will work to hold you back/down because they don't want you to do or even be thought to do better than they do. Some like to keep you under heel, even though they may like you, because they're jealous, envious, or whatever, and some often wind up resenting you anyway precisely because of what they do to/about you.

That is both my bitter experience over the decades, as well as my observation over that time.