How to deal with sadness

[SharpAndBlunt]

Hi,
I just wondered if any other members have any advice on dealing with sadness.

I ask because I find it very difficult. This morning, for example, I felt a huge sense of sadness, but instead of being able to be with it, I 'stuffed' it in order to 'get on with my day'.

Now, in the afternoon, I feel a tightness in my chest and it's a real physical pain. I get this a lot and I'm sure it's just from stuffing my emotions.

It's like by swallowing it it comes back on me.

I wonder how I can be better able to live with my sad emotions.

[Three Roses]

Feeling inexplicably sad is, for me, one indication I may be entering an EF. The phrase used by Pete Walker, the "abandonment melange", fits this particular sadness to a T. It's a sadness that rises from almost nowhere and leaves me feeling stranded and alone.

Here's a link to his websites page of FAQs where he explains the abandonment melange - http://pete-walker.com/fAQsComplexPTSD.html#Abandonment

[MoonBeam]

SandB. I experience exactly the same thing. I experience this in t as well, when we get close to something, some experience that may elicit emotion. I can't seem to let it out and it manifests physically, often as an ache and tightness in my chest.

The other side of this is the occasional eruption of emotion, where it floods out due to some trigger or deep sense of failure or shame. I'm always alone when this happens. I can't even really identify what is driving the flood. It's a cycle that leaves me feeling a bit hopeless and defeated.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and talking about it in t. Previously I think not being able to access emotions, other than as a survival mechanism in childhood, was because I was afraid if I started to let it out, it would never stop. It would overtake me. Now I'm seeing that a part of it is, it really hurts and I don't want to feel it, especially not alone. There have been two times in t where I broke down related to something we were working on and my T came and sat next to me while I cried. Those are the only times I have ever felt safe enough, cared for enough to let it out and not have it feel futile and invasive. It felt like a healthy release; painful, but like a release. Like a tight metal band that was around my chest snapped for a moment and I could breathe and the physical ache stopped.

I think for me, there is something to be said about feeling safe. That in order to sit with the sadness and walk through it, I need to know I'm going to be ok on the other side. That I'm not alone in it. That part is tough too because I have a lot of shame around crying and feeling sad.  I'm working on this. I have found a little easier tool for me is to try to identify what part of self is holding the sadness. Is it grown up me, or teen me, or some other part of me that needs comfort? I may not be able to feel all the feels and have a good cry about it, but if I can acknowledge and say, oh, I see that's coming from a time when I was really young and scared or confused or hurt, then the tightness and ache in my physical body lifts a little.

I'm going to check out Three Roses suggested link again. I'm beginning to understand this is something I have to learn how to do now, because I didn't/couldn't as a child and never learned what healthy emotion looks or feels like. I think this is a really multi-faceted symptom of complex trauma and I'm really glad you posted about it.

[SharpAndBlunt]

Three Roses,

The abandonment melange was something that really hit me hard when I first read it. I recognised it all so well, and that was the first time I had ever heard it described. I haven't read that section again yet, but I plan to, if I feel I need do again, which I suspect I do. Thank you for posting about it.

MoonBeam, thank you for posting about your experiences around this. For me, too, the emotion can feel physically like a band around the chest. I also only get emotional when I'm alone, and when I'm sure no one can see me or hear me. If I'm in a remote part of nature, for example, sometimes I'm moved to tears and I don't know why.

I really liked what you said about feeling safe when you feel sadness and being able to go through it if so. Like you I feel shame around my sadness. I think sharing sadness with someone who really cares and, doesn't try to judge, or fix, is really empowering. Unfortunately, I have never really had this, a safe place to share the sadness.

However, I think that even being aware of these influencing factors is very, very helpful. Knowing that I can just be with the sadness, I don't have to contain it, I can just experience it, is a bit moving, and such a relief.

I will continue to try to not stuff my sad feelings and in this way maybe if I can feel safe within myself then I can allow myself to experience the emotions, and not block and deny them.

Once again posting about my feelings seems to help in processing them. I'm grateful that this is a safe forum to explore such questions.

[Eyessoblue]

The sadness you mention I believe are to do with emotional flashbacks, I've been going through this for the last couple of years. I have days when I'm ok and don't feel anything, but I have days where for whatever reason I just feel so empty inside and start crying for no apparent reason, I can be anywhere doing anything and I feel the tears burning my eyes that I just  start to cry and feel that emptiness. I've been doing a lot of work in therapy on this and my therapist says it is emotional flashbacks which is a prime symptom of cptsd and this will just come and go. I've said will I ever get over it and she said maybe or maybe not!! It's all those lost moments we had and the slightest sound, silent thought or smell can set us off. My worst time is when I'm in the car on my own and I just start crying for no apparent reason, it did drive me crazy, but through therapy I've learnt to sit with it and just let it be, I let whatever comes up come up and I just cry it out and then move on... it's really frustrating though.

[Not Alone]

Even though painful, good that you can allow yourself the feelings that come.

[woodsgnome]

I regularly seem to go through similar states of denial and trying to suppress emotional distress ... and ... all I ever seem to end up with are feelings that are worse than what I started with. It's taken a long time, though, to come to this realization.

Yesterday I encountered this situation yet again, but instead of stuffing it below the surface, I gave in to the futility of it and cried my eyes out over something I know I'll never be able to change, yet alone understand. Except -- I can change the outcome on this end, and by doing so more truly honour the sense I have inside to fully grieve what needs grieving.

No magic outcome, I guess; still sad, still hurt. Releasing the impulse to understand or make sense of what is only senseless, I've at least found relief emptying some of the build-up in a natural outburst. No explanations, it's almost illogical like so much of this; but whatever it is, it feels better to have done so.

Yes, I'm sad -- but human as well. And I'd rather be sad and fully human than make it worse by denying the need to grieve. 

[SharpAndBlunt]

Thanks all for your input. Feeling sad is enormous and must be honoured, at least for me. I'm still finding it so hard to acknowledge that feeling and to allow it. I'm holding back a dam, and that's bound to get tiring and painful after a while.

What is frustrating is that I want the dam to drain, but I'm not able to let it do so. Not yet.