Mental Health: An Attraction to Ennui and Sadness
When I was little, many of the adults around me observed that I seemed very somber and serious. Some even remarked that I seemed to have an inner sadness.
"What nonsense!" my mother declared and proceeded to dress me in "cheerful" pastel yellow sweaters. Made me look like a regretful Easter chicken.
Regardless, the sadness my 7-year old self felt at seeing a dead animal at the side of the road felt far more intense and "real" than what I felt when something really good happened. Sure, I was pretty happy when I got my first bike, but I was never "one of those kids" you see in YouTube clips who completely lose it and run squealing around the house when they get the toy they wanted for Christmas.
To say that I feel a certain attraction to ennui and sadness wouldn't be completely out of line, although it's perhaps more accurate to say that I simply am not one of those "enthusiastically bouncing around like a Labrador puppy" types of personalities.
Trust me, I have been screened for depression, plenty of times. I am not depressed. I also don't suffer from anhedonia.
My friend Ann, the therapist, simply thinks that I am not UN-comfortable with feelings of quiet sadness, while most people are.
And maybe that's where a nugget of truth can be uncovered: In our modern world, we have come to believe that having sad feelings is an indication of a mental health issue... so people are prescribed happy pills, rather than being allowed to actually experience their sadness. I have no fear of experiencing sadness; grief doesn't make me uncomfortable.
In the earlier parts of the 20th century, I would most likely have been described as having what psychologist C.G.Jung referred to as "The Melancholic Temperament."
Funny how, back then, it was merely a personality trait, and now it's an illness.
But to get back on topic here, are we really doing anyone any favors by labeling an ever-increasing number of aspects of the human experience as "abnormal?" Yes, I can hear someone in the peanut gallery going "It makes Big Pharma happy!"
Honestly. I don't care one whit whether Big Pharma is happy.
In the end, I am quite content with who I am, and I how I approach my spectrum of emotions. But it saddens me, at times, that it makes society at large uncomfortable that I am not "happy and shiny" enough...
See what I did there?
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your weekend!
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Created at 20210110 00:32 PST
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"Anhedonia." There's a new word.
I completely understand what you seem to be saying. Ecstatic, exuberant joy isn't something I feel often, and I prefer to keep my excitement a bit understated. I prefer the calm, content sort of happiness over the extroverted enthusiasm one sees portrayed in film and TV.
It's probably a combination of nurture and nature. As a Minnesotan, this highly educational PBS feature explains a lot about the culture where I grew up.
Enjoyed that. Very Scandinavian, in a way... which figures, since so many people of Nordic extraction settled in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
There's just not a lot of exuberant expression in Scandinavia, and I do remember some of the louder and more enthusiastic kids being told to "tone it down."
There is so much pressure on us all to be happy all of the time, that alone is enough to make someone depressed. We should really be celebrating how diverse we all are, encouraging each other to just be who we are, to express how we feel. Like you said it is all coined towards getting customers for big pharma.
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Agreed @trucklife-family, and we should especially be celebrating that the human experience includes a full spectrum of emotions, not just the half-dozen or so considered "socially acceptable" as part of being a "normal" human being.
I don't like the world normal!
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There's nothing wrong in experiencing those "negative" emotions like sadness, anger, jealousy etc. The important thing is to know what you're feeling and get through it. There are all too often outbursts of above mentioned emotions, because people tend to bubble it up and then one little happens and the bubble bursts. That is the problem. I think people should be more expressive and share the emotions in a constructive way. For example "I am angry that a certain action lead to me not reaching a certain goal". Recognize the emotion, address it, learn from it and hopefully move on.
Good point about people bottling up their feelings... that is definitely not a healthy pattern, and those unpredictable "explosions" have a way of coming along at very unfortunate moments!
It all reminds me of something I learned in psychology a very long time ago, about the dangers of unexperienced emotions as a trigger for depression. Better to get it out, as you suggest... and learn from the experience.
Indeed, and I think it should start at home to learn how to deal with those emotions. Then again there are still adults who also don't know how to express themselves. For them I would advice group counseling and when they've mastered it, hopefully to teach it on.
I've always been attracted to the dark side, and I'm never 'unhappy' when I'm apparently sad, a fact I have to constantly explain to my husband, when I'm in tears and being rather grumpy, melancholy or despondant. 'It's just moving through', I explain. And I never write poetry when I'm happy - so there's that. What's the point of constant shiny? It's dull.
Except, when I'm really excited, I show it! I'm definitely the puppy. But my husband - who's probably more like you - loves me for it. A glimmer of innocence and enthusiasm in a cynical and often sad world, he says.
My wife is very much the excited puppy when something good happens, or even just when I bring her a bunch of flowers or a chocolate bar. And I definitely love her for her expressiveness (among many other things), but we also honor that we each have quite different ways of experiencing and expressing emotions.
In a sense, it is a bit of a testament to our "addiction" to happy shiny feelings that so many people equate momentary sadness (which I might feel at watching the last rose of the season wilt in the garden) with a general sense of unphappiness. Just like the Inuit might have 30 words describing snow, so we might have many that describe a passing dark mood: sadness, ennui, despondence, sorrow, dejection, downheartedness, etc. Sometimes I ponder whether part of the reason I feel more in touch with these is simply that I am a writer and book editor and see so many words...