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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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.
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?
Exactly.
The way I understood it was to immerse yourself in nature as a metaphorical bath.
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, a 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
Sounds like you have some grieving to do. And that’s a lot of work. And it’s messy and there’s no direct route. But your therapist should be able to give you things to try.
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.
Aw I’m sorry you’re going through this.
When I was at my worst, I volunteered at the food pantry almost every day. Helped me focus on tasks while sometimes interacting with people…overall distracted myself for moments of the day and made me feel a bit better about myself. Obviously, I couldn’t volunteer 24/7, so it wasn’t a cure-all, but it was something that helped to slightly lessen my pain at the time.
Unfortunately, a lot of volunteer gigs seem to be during normal working hours. At the time, I had off work so I was able to do it.
I know you’re in therapy, but have you heard of DBT? Standard one on one talk therapy didn’t work for me. I was put into a group therapy DBT program where it felt like they were essentially teaching it to us in a very structured manner.
The gist of DBT is basically saying that you have intense emotions and that’s ok. It gives you various techniques about what to do when you have that intensity and how you can build a more satisfying life when that isn’t happening.
The thing with all of these DBT techniques too is that they aren’t going to all work for you. But if you really work at it and play around with it, you can find a combo that works ok to help make things in life more tolerable.
Would you say that the rejection triggered this current mood state? If so, I 100% relate to it and it is how a lot of my mood episodes seem to occur. If this is the case, would you mind talking about the event? I can go over some of the ways I might try to approach it with the skills I’ve learned.
I haven’t heard of DBT but I will look into it. Thank you for the suggestion.
Get a dog. Saved my life.
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.
Move your body if you can, light to moderate exercise, even just going for a long walk is the absolute best non-medical treatment for depression. Your body makes a bunch of the feel good chemicals when you move that depression deprives you of. Also a change of scenery can help a lot. If there is a place you’ve wanted to go nearby like a museum or a park or something that can help you start to process and move on from a bad relationship end.
I live somewhere very hot so when I get like that, every other month or so, I go to a shopping mall and walk a few laps in the air conditioning and watch all the people. Your mileage may vary but walking around in places with a lot of people helps me.
It also might not hurt to talk to your provider about adjusting your medication if you feel like you are for more than a couple weeks. The most important thing to remember is that states like these are temporary, you have felt better before and you will again on the other side, you just have to get through it.
It’s hard to see them as temporary, but I logically acknowledge that you are definitely right. But I think my emotions are feeling hopeless right now and I can’t Socratically walk myself out of it. I think hopelessness is the best way I can describe it. Maybe despair. I can try and get outside some tomorrow. A lot of times I get to places like a park and just want to go home as soon as I’m there.
I also feel like I’m coming off very contrarian which I hope isn’t the case.
I’m the same way when I’m down. Nothing anyone could say seems to apply to me and I’ve always got a logical, (mostly) rational reason why. Depression is weird like that. I’m bipolar so I’ve done a lot of therapy and tried a lot of medications but none of it really sticks when I’m at the bottom of the cycle. The advice I offered was stuff I had to figure out on my own the hard way, but it was not something I invented. It was little bits and pieces of things therapists and confidants had shared with me over the years that eventually clicked.
But the only truth that matters is that the only way out of it is through it. You’ve got to find the things that work for you because we’re all different. It’s about taking care of yourself first and foremost. I rationalize and use research about neurochemicals and mindfulness to stay afloat, you might find something else that works better to help you cope. All you have to do is keep trying and eventually you’ll find it.
I will try. Thank you for the suggestion and kind advice.
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.
I can only recommend finding the 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 was no help for the resulting situation.
(edit: sorry for bad typing and autocorrect with bad eyesight lol)
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.
He was pretty standard in like mother trauma and get your feelings and needs out. Nothing that I required help with per se, but still he helped me in my path.
A new one though is nowhere to be seen. I have pretty much given up getting a ‘professional’ diagnosis and a therapist that is able to cope with high functioning high masking adult autists. And that’s in a so called first world country.
But now I know who I am and what I need.
Sorry to hear you’re going through this. It sounds complicated in your case: a history of a depressive or lethargic baseline, medication in the mix and an unavoidable reminder of the rejection.
TV, computer games, etc, cannot meet human needs. We are an interdependent species that generally need meaningful human relationships.
I think that instead of figuring out how to not be sad, you might need to look at what has made you genuinely happy over the course of you life.
Also, do you have a diagnosis that justified the medication?
That’s true about meeting human needs. I have the same struggles trying to meet people on dating apps when I’m like this too, but I think what you said is still a strong point.
Anxiety/depression and ADHD diagnosis. Since I was in middle school.
A partner is a wonderful thing. Sometimes they just happen organically when we’re enjoying ourselves in other ways.
A baseline support of people you care about and who care about you can be very nourishing.
My own best memories are of shared laughter with friends, even if those friendships were fleeting. Those times did more for me than consumption (eg of media).
The diagnosis sound challenging. Are there other neurodivergent people in your life that you enjoy meeting? What are your happiest memories?
I had amazing friends growing up. Now I feel like I have no friends at all. I just joke that I know a lot of people who would be offended if they heard me say that. The truth is I still have them but they all got married and had lives and kids. I rarely hear from them and see them even less frequently. Sometimes I feel like I just got left behind.
I’m struggling to think of any happy memories at the moment that aren’t associated with negative memories later on. That’s not to say I don’t have any happy memories. I’m sure I have many. I’m just not in the headspace to find them.
It sounds like you’re feeling. understandably, lonely. Sometimes that’s because our relationships with our friends have changed, although it can akso be because we become a bit numb even to what is good for us.
I remember what it’s like not being in the headspace to find good memories. It really helped me to keep a mental journal of those. Although I did have to crawl out of a hole slightly first to be able for that.
One thing is for sure, your emotions are telling you that you need something and in my experience doing other things (like playing games etc) only amplifies them. It’s as if they’re demanding our attention and contact.
I do journal, but very infrequently. All the happy memories that came to mind were all of girls that eventually lead to heartache. It’s hard to separate them when they’re so tied together.
I can try to do something over the next few days. But sometimes it’s the evening weekends that get really hard. When you somehow managed to scrape your way through work but there’s nothing else to do. I used to drink probably too much. But even when I wasn’t in the middle of something like this it had more to do with the damn boredom. Right now I’m actually too depressed to drink.
I would say every relationship I had was painful at the end. Breaking up is so hard whether it’s the person making the decision or the person who finds out. I look back on them fondly now, though, and I’m still friends with some of those. My last breakup was very amicable and we’re still besties.
The reason I say all that (and feel free to check out if this is getting too much) is I wonder do you tend to weigh the final moments more in your memories? I’ve been able to separate those breakups, depersonalise them and it’s left me with a solid footing where I look back and feel enriched by the relationship that preceded them.
Learning about cognitive distortions can maybe help a little here, especially maximisation (of the negatives) and minimisation (of the positives).
I think based on past experiences I have a major fear of abandonment, and I see every ending as being abandoned. I also have little to no confidence in my ability to meet anyone new. I feel like each time it happens that was my last chance.
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.
In the end trying is all you can do.
Well as I have to learn the same thing, you are at least not alone with having to try everyday.
It’s hard but also necessary. We can do it.
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.
Overwhelming intoxication.
