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Why are we seemingly addicted to sadness?

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by Canterpiece, Aug 14, 2016.

  1. Canterpiece

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    Yeah, I know. Odd question. But why is it that we like to dwell on sad moments in our lives, and that they are often talked about more than happy moments? Even sad music gives us comfort in an odd sort of way. There are even groups who like to discuss sadness, and some that argue that there is almost some kind of beauty to it.

    We live in a world that gives the illusion that we are connected, when we are actually further apart. Take me for example, I have all my friends that I know from College on social media- yet, I don’t know where they live and I don’t get to see them outside of College. They’re all too busy working summer jobs, and some are in more permanent part-time work. Sure, I get to send them a quick message on social media, but it’s just not the same. I miss College. I miss being with people my own age. I feel alone a great deal of the time, and pointless. Don’t get me wrong- I don’t mind my family. I just miss my friends.

    Many of us stay up late on our computers, instead of sleeping. I’m trying to get out the habit of doing this, but it’s difficult. It’s hard to go to bed when the motivation to get up in the morning simply isn’t there. It’s somewhat of a rarity when I go to bed excited and happy to get out of bed in the morning. I miss those days. What I lack is something to look forward to, something to keep me going.

    That’s why I feel so miserable. My drive, my reason to keep going has faded over time. Instead I often feel like staying in my dreams forever, but I know the more I oversleep, the worse I feel. So why do I keep doing it?

    For me, the worse kind of dream isn’t the gory nightmare, but more so the happy dream where you achieve your hopes and ambitions, and it feels like several years have passed but then you wake up and realise that you haven’t achieved those things and a gush of disappointment and almost anger washes over you.

    You want to return to that dream, but you know that the longer you sleep- the less productive you’re being and it doesn’t get you any further to making that dream a reality. Instead, you have to carry on with your present reality of doing rather mediocre tasks like doing chores.

    Sure, it’s productive. But you can’t help but feel like it’s all just empty. Like something is missing. You know more or less what you are going to do tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. Unloading dishwashers, loading dishwashers, putting clothes on the line, taking clothes down from the line, and making lists of university courses/ apprenticeships.

    In fact, most of our reality revolves around escaping reality. We read books, we watch TV, we endlessly watch videos on the internet. Anything to keep us busy. And it makes you wonder… what do we actually have when we remove those things from our lives? How do we keep ourselves entertained? Something that was once something that enhanced our lives, has become our lives.

    We don’t see each other as often, instead we just send funny GIFs and every now and then actually have a decent conversation. We are so disconnected yet connected. :confused:

    ...I just needed to get that off my mind.
     
    #1 Canterpiece, Aug 14, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2016
  2. HM03

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    I honestly could have written this. And I honestly don't know what to say, I hope with both find something that fills us with passion and drive? Idk.
     
  3. NightmareDaze

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    This is going to sound weird but this game I played called Danganronpa kind of brought me to a revelation about the way humans work.

    The way this game presents it is that in order to feel true hope one must be plunged into the pit of despair, and such logic applies to all emotions with this being the most basic. Going by this logic in order to reach true happiness we must face true sadness and overcome it, which may be why humans seek sadness or get themselves involved in devastating situations.

    I sounded really deep and psychological but I'm just an obsessed fangirl so don't chalk me up as wise xD
     
  4. kibou97

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    Sometimes, people just need to feel a sort of emotion, even if it may not be for any specific reason. Including now for me for personal reasons, there have been plenty of times where, even if it's for just a few minutes, you just need to feel sad and doing things like listening to sad music while being sad can help serve to release those emotions.
     
  5. StefaniPurrr

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    Because, sometimes our expectations exceed reality. You have to become comfortable in your own skin and work from that. I knew a gay friend of my GF in college who I never really was able to get close to. He committed suicide leaving a note that said "his body had betrayed him." To this day I have no idea what that meant, and I wish I could have talked to him more back then. When I heard the news, I thought, "body had betrayed him" ... what does that mean ... we had an active gay culture on campus, including a fab gay night club. Just never understood why he opted out, there were options to be what you want to be. Everyone was shocked, he never talked about any profound issues. I wish I could have talked with him more. It's not like he was some big hairy guy, he was very small in stature, a very effeminate look and build, perfect for a transition. *sighs* Miss him.
     
  6. Anime Max

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    I agree with burai97 and StefaniPurrr.

    Sadness is an emotion that I know is real. Happiness is usually momentary, and can be shaken and torn in a matter of seconds. I also yearn for a life where I can be male, but I know that I can't have that life. Therefore, I am left to helplessly indulge in my own self-pity. At least I know that I'm not crazy or inhuman.
     
  7. yuanzi

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    You just answered your own question. I was brought up to think that happy people were shallow people and all the deep thinkers were forever sad. When I looked around many people were taught the same thing. There might be some truth to it though since negative feelings did seem to inspire creativity.

    Sorry but I am 11-12 years older than you and I see social media 'friends' very differently: my fb friends are people who simply haven't bothered to click the unfriend button yet. No great expectation there at all.

    I definitely get that. The way that works for me is to keep challenging myself. Because otherwise I get too comfortable with life and at the same time lose drive/hope. Plus I always achieve a little less than my goals so all the more reasons to set really big goals for myself.
     
  8. Enjel

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    I couldn't imagine what you're going through. Certain days, I feel like a parked car sometimes; a vehicle just sitting on the drive way, picking up dust and old water stains with no one bothering with a key to start the ignition and take it for a drive. But, it's like the entire scope of the media tends to funnel you down to the worst of all happenings. In my situation, I try to filter out all of this. Sometimes, I think I'd rather be bored than beat myself up with depressive issues.
     
  9. SkyWinter

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    I think you dwell on sadness in order to understand it. Sadness is like a blurry picture you are trying to bring into focus. Without bringing the picture into focus you can't see what it is and therefore you can't understand it. If you can't understand it then there is no chance of ever grieving for whatever is in the picture that you lost, and thus you can never heal. Without understanding you end up continuing to dwell on the blurry picture and having to face the sadness, anxiety and pain that comes from not understanding it.
     
  10. Secrets5

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    When I'm sad or angry I can make speeches about how I feel, but when I am happy I ignore that as I think everything's fine when it really isn't - I'm just happy at that moment.

    Have you watched Inside Out? It's a cartoon for kids but the concept/message is more easily understood by adults.
     
    #10 Secrets5, Aug 15, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2016
  11. Canterpiece

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    Yeah, I’ve seen that film.

    Spoilers- although I certainly feel quite bad for the parents who took their children to it. Even I was cringing when their kids in the cinema wanted to know what happened to Bing bong, and they had to awkwardly explain what death was whilst not disheartening them. It sure was awkward sitting next to those parents.

    I could relate to sadness quite badly, and even from her first few scenes, my sister would nudge me in the theatre and say “that’s pretty much you”.

    There’s a scene in that film that I could particularly relate to, and that’s the scene when the mother comes into the room to tuck Riley in. She thanks Riley for staying happy and keeping the family’s spirits up, and Riley keeps quiet about how she is feeling to keep her parents happy.

    And that’s the scene that especially cut deep for me. Don’t get me wrong- I get the point of the film and all (that sadness is important because it is a way of letting others know something is wrong, and getting the emotional support you need and having a balance of emotions is important, and many memories have mixed emotions (particularly as you start to grow up) and all that) but there’s only so much that the people around you will take.

    Eventually, people start to blame you. Treat you like a bad person for feeling sad. “You are just bringing people down”, “couldn’t you at least fake a smile?”, “You are upsetting your mother”, “You are ruining this holiday/weekend/day/evening for everyone”, and eventually people just try and cut you out of things.

    But the thing is, I’m terrible at faking my emotions. If I’m sad, you’ll sure know it. I’m not good at faking smiles. But if I don’t I’m “ruining it for everyone else” and “making it harder for myself” so you go around try to appease people, and bottle up how you feel. Because if you don’t, you are apparently being too miserable and too much of a burden. But I think we all know what happens when you try to bottle up your emotions, you explode eventually. Everyone does.

    People tell you that you’re just being over-dramatic, and that everyone feels sad so you should just shut up and put on a smile to please your family because they’re stressed/in pain/ had a bad day themselves and they need cheering up as well, so apparently since they’re upset as well you’re not allowed to be upset because you’re just some teenager and their happiness is more important than yours because who gives a damn about your melodramatic life, you spoilt child, you have no problems and it’s just your hormones so you should just shut up and smile like everything is fine and never complain otherwise you’ll make everyone else feel as miserable as you are, and if you do that you’re a terrible person and you’ll never have any friends if you let them know what’s on your mind when they ask.

    Sorry, I know I’m projecting here. It’s just, I get told these things so many times, and it really starts to get on my nerves.

    :bang:
     
  12. Patagonia

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    Tremendous piece. I can relate to so much of it. I cannot offer any words of wisdom. But what I can tell you is that it is good you are aware of these things at such a young age. You mentioned your dreams about fulfillment and achievement. Worse is waking up much later in life and realizing how much time you squandered NOT following your dreams. ( see, there I go, focusing on sadness). So, keep expressing your feelings. Keep writing. I think it will help you find the answers you are looking for. Thank you for writing this.
     
  13. SHACH

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    I feel this quite intensely and it has made me quite depressed. Life is utterly pointless these days if you live the norm. Though that could be said of every age... Except the madness of living in a fantasy world is a new level of toxicity.

    Yeah I was feeling this so strongly at some point that I wrote a song about it, called Dance Desperately, which you can read the lyrics to here During the time of writing it I was fishing the only thing that could make me feel better was to dance madly alone to Smiths songs - another form of wallowing in misery, but I suppose with a bit of exercise. It made me feel good anyway.

    In terms of how I have motivated myself to go to bed and get up. Well I hate being tired so I do like going to bed by at least 11. But I've started going to bed at 10 and waking up at 6/7 even though it's summer holidays. I do it so that I can exercise outside (therefore giving my body some energy and my brain some endorphins) first thing, which actually motivates me to shower since I'm then sweaty, and then I have myself do my guitar practice before I need to go do anything. I like guitar, but I find it hard to get up and do anything sometimes. So I have made a commitment to do that in the morning, and it makes me feel like I have purpose because I do want to be good.

    Once I've done that first thing in the morning, I can look back on it during the day and feel a certain amount of fulfillment, even if other people are managing to do so much more, ive done what's important to me. Then I feel like I have a bit more motivation to try and spend some time outside, and to read when I feel like maybe surfing the web.

    I've also made arrangements to do small things with people every week, which gives purpose to my week, and I use the free UK teen therapy website kooth.com on Tuesdays for support.

    I put most of this in place after reading the War of Art, which you can find in a free PDF pretty eeasily in Google. It basically explains how all these things that suck your time and hold you back are forms of resistance from your real goals. When you realise your mind is tricking you and all you need to do is choose to do what you most want to acheive, then you can start making progress.

    In terms of my War of Art, it is useful to have this crippling insight into misery - it's good to write about as long as I don't let it consume me. Because as you said, my audience loves misery.
     
    #13 SHACH, Aug 15, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2016
  14. Canterpiece

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    I have also been brought up with that idea- that optimists are just naive people who haven’t grown up yet. For a while I believed that. You see that idea in the media a lot, the quirky yet idiotic optimist protagonist VS the pessimistic, genius villain. It also didn’t help that all the people who were self-described optimists that I knew were complete and utter idiots.

    I once knew a guy who was as happy as can be, but due to his stupidity he was often taken advantage of and teased by others. He was however, quite physically strong and unfortunately this backfired at times. He wasn’t good at dealing with the teasing, and occasionally he understandably cracked.

    He was an odd sort of character, he lacked common knowledge and sense on several things yet he was better at arithmetic than I was. Then again, that isn’t hard. :eusa_doh:

    He was incredibly naive, although this may have been the result of some really extreme sheltering and there were some things that we just didn’t have the heart to tell him. You would have been thought to be a bit of a monster if you told him the truth on certain topics he was blissfully clueless on.

    But overtime, I realised that it wasn’t just optimistic people that were idiots, you get idiotic pessimists too.

    It’s interesting how as a society we treat optimistic people as idiots, yet how many times have you been told to “just be more optimistic”? It’s a way of life that is often put on a pedestal and promoted, whilst simultaneously being mocked relentlessly. It’s confusing.

    We’re constantly given this message of “ignorance is bliss” and that if we think about life too much it ruins it. The underlying implication being that life is secretly terrible, and that if we don’t block out our thoughts then we are forever destined to be miserable.

    Perhaps in an odd sort of way, mainstream optimism is actually rather pessimistic.

    We are told to be optimistic because it’s good for our health, but we aren’t actually told how. Instead, we are shamed. We are told off for being pessimistic, yet no help is offered. Instead, many just try and get you to shut up. We are told to put on a brave smile and “just be happy” because “no one wants to hear about your problems”. That in itself is problematic.

    I would actually disagree on the whole negativity and creativity thing; I don’t think the two are always linked. Personally, I have been able to be creative whilst in a more positive mind frame and I have also been able to be creative in a negative mind frame. All that seems to change for me is the type of content I produce.

    Usually if I’m in a good mood I’ll write a happier story and crack chirpier, light-hearted jokes. Whereas if I’m in a bad mood, more misfortune tends to land upon my characters, and my jokes tend to go a little bit darker. Usually when I write a story, I have a main theme in mind and an underlying message.

    Sometimes if I’m in a bad mood, the story might go a little darker than I first planned, but regardless of my mood I tend to stick to similar themes throughout my stories to try and keep a sense of consistency.

    My point to all this is that you can indeed be creative and be happy. There are actually quite a few variables that can affect creativity in general. I once saw a documentary that focused on creativity, and it consisted around a simple social experiment.

    The group that was being observed was split into three separate groups. They were all given the same task with varying difficulty. One group had to work hard and concentrate, another group were given a more moderate version of this task, and the final group didn’t have many limitations set to them.

    The group that had to work hard and concentrate, with stricter rules, didn’t show much creativity. Instead their efforts were more focused on getting the task completed, rather than finding a simpler solution to the puzzle and thinking more “outside the box”. They were productive, but they took the hardest and less efficient route to solve the puzzle.

    The group that didn’t have many limitations didn’t do well either. They weren’t sure where to even start, and many of them just grew bored and instead just messed about and didn’t solve the puzzle. They found the puzzle hard, and a solution seemed impossible to reach for this group.

    The group that was given a more moderate version of this task were shown to be more creative. They had something to start from so they weren’t completely lost, but there weren’t too many limitations set to them, so they didn’t have to put in as much effort as the first group.

    In a sense, lazy people who are set a task that isn’t a great deal of effort are often the most creative, because they’ll always be the ones who will think of the more efficient, and more creative methods of doing the task at hand.

    And the more efficient that task runs in a business, the easier and smoother things are as a whole.

    Admittedly, things are different when compared to different age groups. I was more referring to what it’s like to be a teenager these days and our relationship with social media, although I can only speak for myself in terms of my experiences.

    For me, my social media friends consist mainly of two large group of people. The people I know from College, and the people I knew in Secondary and Primary. I still keep in touch with some of my older friends, and I keep in touch with my College friends too.

    But the thing is, social media has become the only source of keeping in touch with my friends. I don’t get to see them in real life outside of College, and we don’t get to just “hang out” which is something I long for. Instead, many work most days with part-time work and don’t get much time off.

    The only time they’re free is at weird times, and I often find myself staying up late just to talk to them. And because I stay awake, I get up later and because I get up later I feel terrible, which in turn makes me want to stay up more and talk to my friends because I don’t really want to get out of bed in the morning. But if I don’t talk to them, I miss them.

    :bang:
     
    #14 Canterpiece, Aug 15, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2016
  15. OGS

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    I have to say I find it frustrating how people tend to dwell on the negative. It's actually one of the main reasons that I sometimes have to take a break from this site. It sometimes feels like people just want to wallow in their sadness. Someone will say "I feel X and it's awful, does anyone else feel that way?" Person A will say "Wow, I feel that way too. It's awful. Sometimes I just want to give up." This is apparently the right answer. Person B will say "Wow, I used to feel that way and it was awful. I got over it by doing Y." It seems obvious to me that this is a better (or at least more helpful) answer. But so often B will be told that they are unrealistic, un-empathetic or just stupidly optimistic. I just don't get it...
     
  16. SHACH

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    The dude didn't even read my huge message (see above - please read)

    I have to say I always thought happiness was very much a virtue. My sadness does inspire my creativity, but generally I try to keep a balance at least when interacting with people.

    Oh and i totally agree with the guy above. I'm planning g to quit this site completely this week because it really brings me down - everyone here is ruminating about everything negative. I sort of want to cut that down in my life.
     
    #16 SHACH, Aug 15, 2016
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  17. Canterpiece

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    No, thank you for cheering me up slightly with this comment. :icon_wink

    I'm glad you liked it, and yeah... I do find that writing about it does help. :slight_smile:

    ---------- Post added 15th Aug 2016 at 04:00 PM ----------

    Misery likes company. That’s why many of us have the urge to find others that are going through the same thing. We want to feel less alone, and if possible get advice from those that have managed to overcome such things. This is a support forum after all.

    I don’t mind getting advice, in fact I encourage it. I can see where you are coming from, but I can also understand what it’s like when people come up to you with a solution you’ve tried but doesn’t work for whatever reason and they act like it’s revolutionary despite it being one of the first things you tried.

    The one thing I don’t like is when people tell me to just “stop being sad”. Wow, that worked. I’m so happy now. They find it frustrating that I’m sad, and would rather I keep quiet and paint on a smile because who gives a damn about actually addressing the issue when you can just pretend to be happy for everyone else? After all, it’s making them miserable. And we can’t have that. :dry:
     
    #17 Canterpiece, Aug 15, 2016
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  18. Canterpiece

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    To Quote myself from before-

    One of my greatest fears is losing my friends, I’m worried they’re just going to get sick of me being pessimistic. But if I keep in how I feel in order to keep them happy, sometimes I snap. I know on those countdowns of which friends you should lose, usually “the pessimistic friend” is on that list. Sometimes I worry that if I don’t get better at acting, I’ll lose everyone. It’s probably an irrational fear…. right? I hope so.

    When I try to look happy, people can tell I'm not. And apparently I have an aggressive looking resting face, so I keep annoying people by accident. Sometimes I wish I could just hide my head under a plastic bag so then people wouldn't think I was trying to pick some kind of fight with them when I'm not. :/

    Stupid face. I hate my natural expressions sometimes.

    ---------- Post added 15th Aug 2016 at 04:28 PM ----------

    Huh, I haven't heard of that website before. I'll go check it out. Thanks. :slight_smile:
     
    #18 Canterpiece, Aug 15, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2016
  19. Canterpiece

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    In fact, I think this video pretty much sums it up-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXXBUnMDFLg

    When I want to convey emotion, it's hard. When I don't, it's not. :lol:

    :eusa_doh:
     
    #19 Canterpiece, Aug 15, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2016
  20. SHACH

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    I actually have a surly looking resting face too haha. People ask me whats wrong and I'm like "dude, this is just my face". Generally I am pretty cheerful when talking to people though. I dunno what to tell you about how to fake more happiness for people... I don't exactly fake it I just engage fully in the moment when I'm talking to people, and I let myself be temporarily amused by the small things. I have felt it being very hard to do when I've been really really low though, so that's why I recommended he therapy site, hopefully someone can help you reach a place where you can balance your sadness a bit. .
     
    #20 SHACH, Aug 15, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2016