Nothing in the world seems to help. I spent forever trying to find something to watch, but literally nothing felt good. Even when I eventually put something on it felt empty and I just ended up staring at the wall. I tried playing videos games, some of which I really love, and I turned them all off after a few minutes. I’ve tried other things too. Half the time I don’t even eat. Time passes in slow motion, like some kind of purgatory. The worst is I can’t even sleep. I have the next few days off and they’re going to feel like an eternity. It actually scares me. How do you get through this? I’m desperate.
For what it’s worth, I see a therapist weekly and I’m on a few different medications. This particular bout of sadness is caused by an especially painful rejection.
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I took up the guitar during Covid, and it made me feel so good that I realized that I’ve been operating under a low-grade depression for a long, long time.
Try playing music, whatever moves you. It takes focus and concentration, and there’s a significant learning curve, but it feels so good when you understand a new concept, and can apply it to your instrument. It takes mental and physical discipline, and progress there may help with the rest.
I don’t have much confidence in my ability to play music. But music is the one thing that can get any kind of rise out of me during these phases. I wish I had musical performing talent, but I can’t keep rhythm and there’s something about the way my voice sounds or works that will never sound good. I’ve tried singing for guys tutorials on YouTube. But it is a dream of mine to play guitar and sing. There’s something about music that can convey a feeling in a universal way, the way words can’t. Which is funny because words are involved as in lyrics.
knowing what you’re sad about is half the battle. grief is emotion without an outlet.
have you thought about why you’re trying to ignore or hold onto that sadness?
have a good cry, or paint something, or hell buy something beautiful and destroy it.
you need to find a healthy outlet for this emotion you’re holding onto.
I once was overcome by a bad breakup, was spiraling and drinking myself stupid. one particular night I had enough and ripped a broken fridge out of my house and took a pickaxe and sledge hammer to it, then set it on fire.
The next day I woke up in my ditch, sore, exhausted, wet. I saw the fridge and was sad for myself. I realized that before I was sad at the loss but never felt sorry for myself. then I started to laugh at how absolutely absurd it was to pull a fridge out of my house, drag it 50 feet into my yard, and absolutely demolish it.
when I was laughing I knew I was going to be ok.
That’s kind of a great story, though. At one of my old jobs I got to demolish a lot of things in a similar fashion. We took used furniture and resold it, and anything that didn’t sell had to fit in the dumpster, one way or another.
I don’t know what I’m trying to do with the sadness, honestly. It always felt like it was the one that had me, and it was a matter of when it wanted to let me go.
I hear a lot about processing grief but I’ve never fully understood that as a concept. I have grief. I understand why I have it. But what does processing it mean? If it’s not something I can sit down and do with my hands, then I’m not sure. I spend a lot of time feeling it and having it. But that’s more like a loop. Or I feel like a hamster in a wheel.
it sounds like you may know what to do, you just haven’t found something meaningful enough to do it with.
try new things. carve wood, weld metal, write books.
when I was young I had to process a lot of emotions. nobody told me how, so I just did what came natural. I did dumb shit like run around in the woods naked at night, howling like a dog. climb up in a tree and cry myself to dry heaving. I wrote stories where the characters lived the way I couldn’t. I hated my family. wanted to kill my father. so, I wrote about kids running away from home, or becoming an orphan, etc.
my point is, as long as you aren’t hurting yourself or others, let your emotion tell you what it wants and give it what it wants for a bit, even if it sounds like the dumbest thing ever.
I hope you find your peace.
Distractions, usually. Or I just accept it and let myself wallow, until I get sick of myself and bounce back.
In my experience reading is much more efficient than watching/interacting with a screen. It doesn’t need to be something thought provoking, might even be some comics if it suits you more. But written words have power because you make your own rendition in your mind.
You don’t. You take it and try to make sense of it.
In my experience fighting this just makes it take longer.
Allow yourself to feel sad and don’t see it as something to avoid. Think about what can be learned from this, if anything can be learned from this.
Basically try to frame the experience as something that will help you in the future.
I’ve been here so many times though. I tried going outside today like a lot of suggestions gave, but it didn’t help. I just felt the same but somewhere else.
Now I’m just laying on my couch, no music, TV, nothing. Not even really on my phone. I feel like I have no capacity for anything else. And I keep looking at the clock and I feel the knot in my stomach tighten when I think about doing this the rest of the day and the rest of the weekend.
Why do you feel so sad?
I think it’s partly to do with feeling like it’s so hard for me to meet anyone. I hate being on dating apps and doing that whole song and dance. Another reason is that this wasn’t just someone I happened to like and ask out. I knew them for a while and realized I wanted things to be more. So it’s like rejection and loss of an existing relationship. They also chose someone over me, so I am also kind of overcome with feelings of inadequacy. There had been a physical relationship between us at one point, so I’m left wondering what was wrong with me.
Damn, sorry to hear that.
Nothing is wrong with you because they chosen someone else. I understand the reflex to measure ones worth by how one is treated but thats a mental dead end.
Probably not what you want to hear but work on yourself. But don’t try to be someone they want to be with, rather try to be someone you want to be with.
“You have to be happy alone to be happy with someone” maybe the oldest bla in the book but that’s just because it always turns out as truth.
It will help you with any of the things that are on your mind right now. It helps you to take your mind of the thing you lost, it will boost your selfworth and when you become confident you will attract someone.
I know it’s hard to start but I really think thats the healthiest and most productive way out of this.
I will keep trying. I believe that you should never need another person to “complete” you. So your comment about being happy alone resonates. But I really struggle with applying those principles to my life. On a macro scale, I just feel so devastatingly lonely. Everything just feels so hollow. Contrast that to when I’ve been with people. Waking up with them in my arms makes me feel elated every time.
I can only recommend. Finding 5he root cause. Yeah, no small feat.
I thought and I might have had depressive episodes but the root was that I am an Autist and as such I had a completely wrong view of the whole situation and of me. This doesn’t make it better per se but it’s far more approachable.
Also had a therapist and while he helped me find that out he wa sno help for the resulting situation.
I’m glad it sounds like you at least did figure it out. Sorry about your therapist though. Hopefully you found another one that could help.
I know this is cliche, but go outside and walk. Walk until you feel better. Even better, find a place with trees you can walk in. There are books written on this subject, the Japanese call it shinrin-yoku, or tree bathing.
Thank you for the suggestion. I tried going on a 4 mile hike today through the woods but unfortunately did not feel better. I think I must have it pretty severely at the moment.
Drugs and Alcohol
I don’t know if you’re joking or not but speaking from experience, they may help a bit on the short term but never on the long run, if anything they’ll most likely make things actively worse
They asked how I escaped, not if it was a healthy escape.
“sadness” is just your subconscious processing things. it’s like a small micro-factory hidden somewhere in your mind. you have the options to either
(a) be a slave-driver and demand it be done quickly so you can return to “joyful” things (a.k.a. wastes of time)
(b) or allow yourself to have the time to heal properly.your decision, no one else’s.
note: it helps spending time in the garden, among plants in general, or just any place where there’s not too many cars driving by and making a noise.
Get a dog. Saved my life.
Escape?
Only thing that’s ever helped me a little is getting into water. Bath, pool, river whatever you can. Sauna might also work. Cold plunge is even better.
That’s interesting and one that I haven’t heard before. I like hot showers, but it’s usually a means of wallowing, not anything therapeutic.
Do you have someone you can trust to talk to in person, like a friend? Sometimes the best balm for the burn of a rejection is the acceptance of a friend.
I think I have friends that would listen if I asked them to. But I don’t want to be a burden on them. I think I could talk about it ad nauseam. They all have spouses and real people lives. I’m sure they care, but I don’t think they have the capacity to “be there” for me like when we were in college and all of us figuring out relationships.
I do things that require my attention. Passive consumption of media like movies, books, music don’t cut it for me. I go biking or motorcycling where distraction would mean an accident. Or I hit up a sports competition, especially with teammates who I feel some obligation towards to help me stay invested. Whatever it is, I try to find ways to force my attention out of spiraling thoughts.
Next few days off seems like a primo opportunity to break out of all sorts of routines and patterns. I would be looking to do something crazy new that requires a lot of active attention.
That all sounds fun and I’m glad to hear you have those things in your life. I’m just not sure what the equivalent would look like for me.
The silly sounding answer is that you just have to try stuff. You won’t know what you’re into unless you go look for it.
I also suffer from looking at other people enjoying things and thinking “that’s great for them but I don’t do that stuff”. You’ll always have the time for indoor time wasting when the weather/budget/whatever is in the way.
It’s very easy to feel zero urgency to go out and do stuff and to look back and think “huh did I waste two months I don’t remember anything happening recently”. Just look up events and meetups and hobby clubs in your area, you can just check it out and leave without losing anything. Sadly corporate social media is where a lot of stuff gets posted, but you can find a lot of stuff just fine without an account.
You can also think of not just what the “event” is but also what kind of people you think would go. I’m not necessarily that interested in TTRPGs but I know those events would attract interesting people I have common interests with.
No time like the present.
Next few days off seems like a primo opportunity to break out of all sorts of routines and patterns. I would be looking to do something crazy new that requires a lot of active attention.
Don’t stay inside. Find the nearest place to where you live with a lot of trees and few people, and go there, and walk. It won’t cure it, but at least won’t make matters worse the way sitting being sad in your room will.
I do like being outside.
find a used bicycle, if it needs work, even better. tune that thang up and go for rides.
This. Forest Bathing. Parks, Ravines, Forests, farmcountry hikes, whatever. Get outside and spend the day, all of it, outdoors and away from tech.
Like bathing in the woods?
Or washing trees?
The way I understood it was to immerse yourself in nature as a metaphorical bath.
Exactly.
