my brand of sad…what’s yours?
I get sad often. Have done since I was a kid. It can just creep up and over me, take me by the throat and dangle there. Then, once embedded, it will drag up big, raw feeling from deep within. In gushes. I’m powerless once it’s upon me. I cry. A McDonald’s commercial can see me cry for an hour.
My Mum said I was born with over-active tear ducts. My ex used to call me (fondly), a “sad sack of shit”. He’d watch the cloak of sadness inch up and shake his head. Here we go.
I got sad this weekend, which is why I’m writing this today. Sad for the lonely people. Sad for the pain the human experience can endure. I was watching the news and my sadness had me 100% attuned to people’s faces. The loneliness was palpable.
Sad is different to depressed. Depression is an old woolly cardigan I wear, too. But sad, unlike the fug of depression, is deep and alive and poignant. It dances on the knife-edge of humanity. It swoops us down deep and enables us to see things we don’t see on the surface. It connects us to the underlying hum of pain that unites us all. Life is pain. If we didn’t access pain, we wouldn’t be driven to move forward.
I used to run from my sadness. But now I really quite like it. I sit in it and take a look around. I take advantage of the openness it affords me. I’ll sit on my couch and listen to sad-sack music and cry. Then it lifts.
My brand of sad these days opens floodgates and doors. Sad isn’t a sink-hole, it’s an opening in the facade that we can dive down into. Down there is authenticity, I find.
(PS If you’re after some download suggestions, may I proffer: Martha Wainright, Gillian Welch, The Editors, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, Bon Iver and The National.)
This is a gorgeous post that I flagged on instapaper a few months back. Jane at Ill Seen, Ill Said shares about feeling sad.
In our perpetually sunshiny corner of the blogosphere, it’s easy to think that nobody suffers from stress or despair or anxiety. I love that we all focus on things that we have positive feelings about, rather than negative venting. But sometimes it can create a false impression that we all live amazing, fulfilled lives.
Lately, I’ve felt very hopeless. That I’m far behind everybody else for my age. That there’s no trajectory to what I’m doing right now. That all work and no play is making Jane a dull girl. I’ve even stopped having those escape fantasies that I always used to have and swapped them with “maybe this is as good as it gets” thoughts.
….I’m starting to give up a little bit in my own heart. And I’m so very, very tired.
I also kept this link about the health benefits of tears…they flush out stress toxins, for starters. Good to know.
How are you with your sadness? Is it special to you?
PS: No, I’m not premenstrual this morning. I can read all your minds out there!!
PPS: as a soundtrack to this post, you might like to listen to The National’s soulful “Sorrow”. Just click here.
Sorrow found me when I was young…)
i think sometimes feeling sad is necessary to feel connected to the world and also is the yang to being happy. i agree that it provides an opportunity to view your wold in a different way. when my sadness comes from a genuine place (and not a facade for a different emotion like fear) i think it’s a good sign that i’m listening to myself and the world around me. good post, unexpected.
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Thank you for your post today, Sarah. This is timely for how I feel at the moment and as always your posts are helpful and insightful. Thank you again.
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Understanding sadness would require some empirical recollection of a time of happiness. In the absence of that, sadness is merely the norm. Having arrived at the conclusion that happiness is, at least until some day, beyond my grasp, I prefer to render sympathy and comfort to others.
In doing so, I acquire some sensation that, albeit ephemerally, feels more pleasant than the norm.
Beyond that, my sadness is never communicated.
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Sad is good sometimes.
Sadness about friends and family who have died allows us to remember the good times, long after the tears have dried.
Sadness about lost opportunities makes us grab new ones with both hands.
Sadness about issues seemingly out of our control makes us appreciate the simpler things we can change for the better.
Sobs in the darkness make the morning light brigher.
Let’s have a sadness day – embrace the sorrow for the pleasure that lay beyond!
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I am often told I have sad eyes. Like Paul McCartney.
Winter is the season I feel most sad. It is also the season I love the most. There is something about the stillness and clarity of the sky and the sound of wind that emotionally arrests me.
Last winter I went to New Zealand and walked through Mount Cook National Park for hours…….listening to the wind and feeling its pinch on my cheeks and knowing that no one knew where I was somehow absorbed my sadness.
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Gosh there are so many things I could write in response to this, but where does one start.
Most people have ‘one’ main emotion that sits with them and surfaces most commonly at various times, evidently reflecting their inner workings. Some get sad, some get frustrated and some get angry.
Did you know from a Chinese Medicine point of view, each organ has an emotion and each emotion when felt at its fullest is a reflection of that organ.
Emotions can be wonderful things, if we can peel back the layers and know what is behind them, not be afraid of this and trust that your body is feeling a particular emotion for a reason. With this on board, we can lear to take a similar approach to yours and welcome it rather than resist it.
Thank you for a truly honest and open hearted post. x
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samuel barber’s adagio for strings is the absolute saddest song, EVER. whenever i hear it, i am overwhelmed by sadness, and i want to crawl in my bed, close my eyes, and die. it sounds drastic, but i’m not joking.
it’s good for a somber old mood
, or rather 
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oh sorry, another sad song: Kings of Convenience’s “I don’t know what i can save you from”
endlessly sad.
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Sarah – great article, as usual!
- Second paragraph, “hear we go” …. should be “here.” Just a heads-up, it happens to the best of us, and you are truly one of the best bloggers out there!
Cheers
Rach xx
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Hi Sarah
I was often sad too since I was a kid too, my kind of sad Is the type that I hv too much empathy n worry about everybody else around me. If I get hurt, it wouldn’t feel as bad as if someone else get hurt.
And I always disguise it somehow n people wouldn’t realize I’m sad. Which make it even worse, because If you don’t talk to anybody , it just stays inside you. I’m a Virgo. Virgo tend to be sensitives and don’t like to ask for helps.
Sarah, Maybe because you are so aware of everything , environment, current affairs, etc, that it increase your sadness bit by bit without you even realize it .
And out of a sudden, you just feel sad without one particular reason. And you wonder why.
One UCLA study documented that on average, at age 5, we engage in creative tasks 98 times a day, laugh 113 times and ask 65 questions. By age 44, the numbers fade to two creative tasks a day, 11 laughs and six questions. As you get older, you just hv more worries n responsibility, I guess.
As for me as I got older I swap tv comedies to lifestyle channel travel n discovery channel, history , lifestyle you
, current affair news, the idea is to make myself smarter wiser, more aware n more adult-like. I swap comics n chicklits to non fiction. So I am becoming wiser (kind of) but I laugh less because I don’t watch friends or 30 rock anymore (or not as often). People tend to read this thick depressing book bfore they go to bed , and as soon as they get up, they turn on the morning news to see all the problems in the world.
I think if you are a wise person, you don’t have as many silly laugh as a silly person. You just think n think n feel. And figure everything out, instead of making a joke about it.
At least that’s what I do. I broke up with a guy because he always made a joke abt my problems. Actually he’s just trying to cheer me up. He said I take everything too seriously. But it’s just my character. it’s hard to change it. Sometimes I feel like I want to solve every problem in the world. Ahhh it drives me mad.
it helps to talk to someone. At least it makes you feel better. Sometimes I’m scared to talk to my gfs because I don’t want to be labelled as I winged all the time. But actually I just want someone to talk to, to get everything out. I guess that’s why people see shrink, they arent necessary depressed, they just want someone to talk to. They don’t necessary want a solution to their problem. N they can’t even talk to it to their partners. Because everybody likes a positive person, right? They don’t want to be labelled as weak/ negative.
That’s probably why I write a blog. To get everything out.
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My soundtrack of sorrow is The blowers daughter. If you see the movie ‘closer’, it’s like a farewell soundtrack. Sad melody
X
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I prefer to call it “sensitive” than sad. Because maybe being overly affected by sad things means I get the trade-off of feeling more excitement and joy when the time is right?
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Upon re-reading, I especially identified with Jane’s comment:
“Lately, I’ve felt very hopeless. That I’m far behind everybody else for my age. That there’s no trajectory to what I’m doing right now.”
The amount of people (mostly women for some reason?) I see with this dilemma is amazing. So many of us work jobs we dont like because starting over is too so daunting. The pressure to have houses and kids and a satisfying career at a younger age than our parents (and peers) is mounting. And it seems to be getting worse, not better. Hence, sadness.
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For me, emotion is the language of our subconscious. We feel emotion when it’s trying to talk with our conscious mind. It usually manifests itself in the form of a physical sensation, eg; butterflies in your tummy (nervous), that sinking feeling (apprehension), or tears (sadness, emotional tension needing release), etc.
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When I read the title and opening words to this on my Reader, I thought, “here we go again, yet another I feel sadness/angst/melancholy therefore I must be creative” post. BUT… I should know better than that. Apologies Sarah.
Sadness…or crying because something has affected you… is normal. Who doesn’t feel sadness for and by other people’s sadness? watching or reading a tale of sorrow, who doesn’t get affected? In turn that leads to a general sadness, which can bring about greater appreciation.
Yes there are people who derive pleasure from the sadness of others but… that too stems from sadness and oh God, it goes on and on.
I agree with Mia… it’s more a sensitivity to the world around us than sadness. If you can feel joy then you should feel attuned to the opposite of it otherwise how would you know you feel joy?
Depression is a different thing. Not my thing. I do not deny it is ‘real’, legitimate disease but what tires me is how readily people give in to its disease ‘classification’ when what they’re feeling is a lapse in energy. It happens. Like weight, our moods, modes and manner fluctuate.
…and yes, it is that simple. Most times, for most of us, happiness is a choice.
Gala Darling posted this link and I wholeheartedly agree with each point…except occasionally 5 and point #1, when it comes to shoes and chocolate, is a woman’s right!
http://www.happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2010/07/5-common-happiness-mistakes-boosters-that-actually-do-more-harm-than-good.html
I agree so much with point #4. I believe constantly expressing negative energy begets hopelessness.
When I’m feeling sad, I cry loudly, really wallow in self pity for about an hour… BUT… for some reason I do this whilst cleaning out closets, the linen cupboard, etc… very therapuetic. Very practical too!!
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One amazing phenomenon that inevitably emerges from sadness is creativity. I am always (subsequently) compelled by the sounds that emerge from my guitar; the images that I create with canvas and oil pigments; the things that I have written when enveloped in an unusually pervasive spell of unhappiness.
It is confronting, at times, but always stunning – even upon reflection!
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One amazing phenomenon that inevitably emerges from sadness is creativity. I am always (subsequently) compelled by the sounds that emerge from my guitar; the images that I create with canvas and oil pigments; the things that I have written when enveloped in an unusually pervasive spell of unhappiness.
It is confronting, at times, but always stunning – even upon reflection!
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When I am sad I cry quietly. When I find myself weeping then I know for sure that the feeling I am expereincing is one of intense sadness.
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Thank you for sharing, it feels good to know I’m not the only who, quite alot of the time, feels sad about nothing at all (since I was a kid).
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I completely agree about sadness giving fullness to authenticity. I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this – am in a rush – but an American academic wrote a book about this recently (Against Happiness: In praise of Melancholy (Eric G. Wilson)). Cheers
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Thank you, Sarah! It’s so wonderful to see someone openly discussing sadness without judging it or trying to get rid of it. Sadness is an emotion I feel often, and then I feel guilty for feeling sad when I lead such a privileged life, which spirals my sadness downward into a whole new kind of existential angst. There should be no guilt for sadness!
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Sadness in healthy dosages does wonders for your state of mind. I think its brave that you cope to your sadness, because like the snippet, the internet leads us to believe that everyone is rosy and happy all the time. We both know that is not the case. I get sad often and I try to face it and then move on from it, never dwelling in my sadness for too long. I really enjoyed this post. Thanks
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Went to see Jonsi last night. I think you all should breathe this one in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pc2A66m7Zg
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Fabulous post.
One tiny issue I take with Dusk Zone’s link is that we can often make ourselves more miserable by getting worked up about how we think we SHOULD act/feel instead of just giving ourselves the space to accept that we’re feeling how we’re feeling.
It’s that fine balance between taking responsibility for your own happiness and stressing about being happy.
So – eat the chocolate and enjoy it or make a decision not to eat it and celebrate that. Go with what genuinely feels right for you at the time
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I don’t know sometimes where sadness ends and depression begins. When crying is just having a good cry and when it’s like quicksand, waiting to suck you down. I do know that sadness is something I cannot stop, but I can decide what role to let it play for me. Since I wrote that original post you linked to (thank you!), I’ve mastered it a little. I don’t want to be cured of it. It’s part of me, it’s a real reaction. But I do want to understand its place; that I don’t have to be EITHER happy OR depressed. I can sensibly be both and, as you said, I think there’s more authenticity in that.
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Oh gosh,
this is so strange because sometimes (quite rare, maybe 3 times a year? or even less) I will be overcome with this as well. It usually strikes me at night when I’m lying in bed, right before entering sleep. I will think about so much and it makes me feel so sad, but then super SUPER happy as well, about existence and the beauty of things. I go through a whole wave of emotions. I think about the people in my life and how much I love them, and how they won’t fully understand me and me them. And when I am overtaken by these thoughts I cry, long, deep, painful tears, then it ceases. It feels so good though to release them because I feel as if I can heal myself. I’ve never really thought about tears ridding us of toxins but this makes a lot of sense to me.
Please read this, it is quite ‘short’ given the benefits of having read it: http://papercastlepress.com/blog/?p=5154
Then this after it: http://papercastlepress.com/blog/?p=6709
Hope you enjoy these and find some comfort in them.
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i can cry at the garbage truck picking up my rubbish knowing that life is all in order and i am being looked after!
i love this discussion, i love all of your discussions. you are the first article i read in the age on sunday. you openly espress a lot of thoughts to open peoples minds and hearts to many wonderous thoughtful things and i really appreciate that. thanking you sarah…..you truly are wonderful.
i’ll have a tear now that i’ve connected with such a wonderful soul!!! xx
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I loved this post.
I identify.
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It’s so, so inspiring that you are this comfortable with your sad days. And not ashamed to admit them. When this happens to me I end up hating myself at the end of the day for not getting more done. Maybe it’s just something we’ve gotta learn to deal with; the sad thing happens to everyone. Since no one wants to admit it, though, I tend to convince myself that I’m the only person who ever feels that way.
Thanks for the post. Saving this for future a future sad day.
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P.S. I was going to send you an email about this but then read your note by the contact form and realized you probably wouldn’t see it for awhile! ha. I just wanted to let you know I recognized the photo you used for this post, and I just wanted to give you the link so you can credit it if you want…? It’s from here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosie_hardy/3077845276/in/set-72157604736073126/
Not trying to be snarky; I just figured you didn’t know where it came from! Or maybe you did credit and I’m just not seeing it…if that’s the case, I’m sorry!
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Oh, The National. They’re Ohio boys, where I’m from. I feel like they just ‘get’ it. ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’ makes me tear up every time it comes up on shuffle. My mom used to sing me this song when I was a kid and she found me in tears…pretty sure she made it up. “It’s okay to cry…crying takes the starch right out of you…it’s okay to cry.” I think by ‘starch’ she meant all the pent-up stuff that is gone after a good cry. Somehow that song made it okay and constructive to cry. I’ve got a good mom.
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The Dirty Three = ultimate sad session muzak.
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Lovely post Sarah. I think I’m generally a pretty happy bunny except for PMT times, when the hormones do weird things and I feel it descend on me like a cloud. I actually said to my partner the other day that I can feel the negativity descending and that weekend he knows that I’ll probably just weep at anything, from those puppy commercials to someone just plonking a cup of tea in front of me.
I too love to put on a grab bag of sad songs and let it all out – or I ring my mum and wail for an hour about all the injustices in my life, the world, etc etc until she says, ‘Darling, are you premenstrual?’ She’s always right
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Hi Sairs…nice to see someone expressing what many are too scared to. Love your honest, open heart.
Georgia X
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Hi Sarah and everybody else commenting
Thanks for this post and the comments.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we’re not the only sad sacks around and that it’s okay to be really sensitive and cry on the floor listening to tori amos and not feel guilty or weak about it.
my life wouldn’t be as rich and colourful if i didn’t cry every time i spilt milk
Alice
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Wonderful – well done
Well-expressed and so clear in the expression of sadness as valuable (providing you can leave it of course),
There isn’t an intelligent person alive who also has sensitivity, who can’t feel a bit of what you’ve written about at one time or another, for you haven’t written about just sadness but also about what it means.
Best wishes
Roger
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Nice one Sarah. Sadness sinks me often.
I’ve read lately that we should “garden our pain” – rather than running away from it, we should have a look at it, be curious, and then “cultivate” it. Not wallow but instead mulch it, air it, mix it in and use it to grow something unique, something that wasn’t and *couldn’t have been* there before. I really like that idea and that’s the approach I’m going to try to take from here on in. It’s a part of life, so I’m going to welcome and respect it rather than run; and I’m going to use it in the best, most positive way I can.
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I get sad sometimes too, for no reason! It’s nice to see others get the same as some people get annoyed with me for feeling this way when ‘i have no reason to be sad’
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Hi Sarah,
I read your blog for the first time today. Very new to this cyberspace thing – only recently discovered what a blog was.
This hit a nerve with me. I like you feel sad often. Sometimes I am being too hard on myself, sometimes I am overcomplicating things, sometimes it is related to the depression and post traumatic stress disorder I suffer, which developed following my work with child victims of sexual and physical abuse. Sometimes I think, as has been said, it is my yin moment, suggesting some necessary reflection.
Recently I saw a kinesiologist and I found the experience fascinating. Expecting to be told I was suffering ‘stress’ (work, study, family, children – life in general!) instead I was told the main clearing of stagnant energy required was to clear a sadness that had been with me since I was eleven.
The kinesiologist was quite adamant – I was eleven years old when I had experienced a sadness that had left an energetic imprint on my system that had then been built on with other sad experiences over time.
I was at a loss to rationalise this until she began clearing the blockage (through massage and acupressure) and I immediately thought of my Great Grandmother who passed away when I was young. When I got home I dug out an old family history document my Dad had given me years earlier and sure enough my Grandmother had passed away when I was eleven years old. It had been my first experience of death and the first funeral I had ever attended.
Needless to say the whole kinesiology experience was amazing and has certainly had a positive influence on me thus far.
Thought this was worth sharing.
Loving your blogs re the building biology, Nicole is truly an amazing person.
Wishing you lots of happy times (all balanced with the necessary sad times),
Neat
X
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I got a mean case of the blues on Monday, so much so I just had to go home from work. There was nothing for it, I just couln’t stop crying. Which was pretty embarrasing when I went in & told my boss I was going home sad.
I am glad to hear other people get sad for no apparent reason too quite often. I have always felt like I am strange because of it. For some reason Nutri Grain cereal commercials often render me a weeping mass. The one with the boy helping his mum…I am like “he loves is mum….thats sooo..niiice *boo hoo hoo*”
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Hi Sarah
There’s nothing wrong to feel these ‘negative’ emotions, particularly as you are a unique individual.
A class of special people, highly sensitive ones, can be found all around us in society and whilst it is encouraged to always be strong and positive, it is up to the sensitive ones to feel the low lows, for it is only if you can feel this depth could you ever be artistically inspired to create, and in turn manifest the highest of highs. This is what is required to create inspiration.
So, sorry, it comes with the territory of being a writer / artist / creator type. At least you can write about it I suppose, helps to get it out’. I empathise with you when your former partner calls you a sad-sack because unfortunately that just makes it worse, and when it comes from a loved one for whom you just want a little support and encouragement well, there’s nothing worse.
I also bet that you don’t always get sad for no reason. Sometimes we just feel down from the environment around that forces us to perform in a continuous warrior-like fashion with little respite, when all we crave is some real time to regenerate and rejuvenate… It’s a daily challenge for a sensitive soul to continuosly battle when that person’s true passion is not there.
The answer? A difficult one. I’m still figuring it out. Walking away from the constant pursuit and challenge is a good start. It does, however, position you as a total non-comformist to the accepted society standards, but then again happiness comes from living your truth and if that is what it takes then well, you just gotta be different!…
As the day follows night, so too will your happiness return to light the darkness of the sadness now present in your life.
Much love and light
Ed
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[...] air. Do you feel it? Everyone around me is saying they’re feeling raw. And alive. My “brand of sad” post sparked a lot of this. And my computer death story also got reader and astrologer [...]
Hi Sarah, I just came across your “my brand of sad” blog and totally agree with Georgia. I’d like to add a belated entry, just in case anyone re-visits or is browsing through old posts.
When I felt sad as a kid, I would sit in the middle of my horse’s paddock on the slope of a hill and she would wander over and munch the grass around me – there was something about this connection with the natural world that would sooth me.
Since then, I have learned that is possible to transform sadness like this into joy by delivering myself a healthy dose of unconditional love and acceptance – the key word here being “unconditional”. Not a love and acceptance that is based on approval or about how I look, what I’ve achieved, the state of my relationships or career or anything else that I’ve done or not done.
My horse wasn’t judging me and it is in these times I believe we need to focus on challenging the inner critic (ego) within us.
Unfortunately, this usually involves firstly allowing ourselves to sit with the feeling, acknowledging (as Paul said) that it carries a message and remind ourselves to pay more attention to our inner world that we’ve been neglecting while we have been focusing on “doing” and “achieving” in the external one. I have found this works when sadness comes from nowhere as well as when it’s triggered by PMT (I think we are just more sensitive to unconscious issues during the time of the month when our hormones are active).
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