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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Things that help me are nature, exercise, and escapism. If you can, get out into nature and just observe it. Try to break a sweat for at least thirty minutes if you can, but any amount is beneficial. Escapism might be harder but if you have a longer attention span I’d recommend reading. For a shorter one I’d honestly recommend Tetris.
Set timers for mealtimes, workouts, and bedtimes
I am not a therapist so take my advice with a massive grain of salt.
My advice would be to get out of the house and go walk in nature or go hiking. This worked for my sadness and depression. In my case staying at home just made things worse and since I didn’t feel like being among other people at the time hiking was my solution.
Cry. We get trained early to hold it in. Whether it’s a good intentioned “please don’t cry” or a heartless “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about”, we learn when we’re young that it’s not okay to let out our emotions. But sadness passes in tears. My wife of 25 years died less than two months ago. I have good support from people who understand letting out your emotions and I’ve been crying hard almost every day since then. I’m mostly past the acute grief now. I’m getting out and doing things with people, spending time with friends. I still have moments where I see something of hers and have to take a moment to cry. But I’m up and living my life.
So be gentle with yourself. Hold space for your sadness and let the tears come. It’s the only way I know of to pass through it.
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.
Go get involved in a volunteer kitchen. That’s literally it. Social connectedness is the most close correlate with happiness, and that’s light exercise in meatspace (literally)
Sounds like you’re depressed to me. My advice is learn to tolerate enduring pain then do things while you’re not happy and even irritated.
To make it more tangible you play video games past the few minute mark and you make it a chore to get past the intro cinematic or tutorial level. You might not enjoy video games at the end of it but like you’ll feel a little different.
I would say get curious to help you with what you’re going through but I’m not sure if you’d have the inherit joy or exploring and you’d have to explore things by sheer force of will
Edit: you could use sheer force of will to try other people’s advice.
“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.
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.
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.
Get a dog. Saved my life.
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.
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.
It can take time. Try to make it a habit.
Escape?
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.
If you have friends they will. Even with how you’re feeling right now, if one on them sudden had some horrific news and asked to just talk to/at you, you’d show up right? They’ll do the same. It’s great that you’re reaching out to people here, reach out to people in real life as well. It might not be perfect if they have other commitments, but I’m sure they will find time to help. Hell write it all down and DM me if that’ll help!
A combination of exercise, physical activity and doing something that serves a purpose, for example doing some cleaning, tidy up an area of your room/house/desk because a cluttered environment has a massive impact on your mental state.
That “remember you are both the animal in the enclosure and the zookeeper taking care of them, so clean their enclosure and feed them.” meme is more real than you could imagine, so grab a shower and have a long soak in a bath, eat something hearty but simple like a slowcooker stew with some rice (and don’t feel bad about putting leftovers in the fridge)
I’ve been in the same state before, it’s a hard one to build up the motivation at times, sometimes you just have to say “Fuckit, today I am taking things slow. There’s nothing I NEED to do immediately.” (And if there is, potter your way around and get it done at a pace you can manage, you’ll feel better for having completed a task)
Also provide some novel enrichment!
Fill a pumpkin with ground beef then smack the devil outta it
I understand both that you’re joking, and the particular reference, but honestly it would make for an interesting afternoon.
It genuinely would, an less messy and more vegan alternative would probably be a duck tape coated cardboard box filled with paper shreddings and those puffed cornstarch peanuts, little more biodegradable and easier to clean up
I celebrate making progress. It doesn’t matter how much. “I did a thing today. That’s good.”
As you should, the power of small victories shouldn’t be underestimated
