View Full Version : Really intense sadness and nostalgia
Does anyone else get these very intense feelings alongside anxiety and related problems? I do. Anything and everything makes me cry, I seem to be hypersensitive to other people's suffering. My dad went to the dentist today to have a tooth out and came home in pain and feeling rough and couldn't eat anything. I felt really sorry for him and really distressed about it even though it was only a tooth. Just the sight of the bowl of soup he couldn't finish struck me as intensely sad and upsetting. I have been in tears on and off all day, as well as having really bad anxiety symptoms.
Then I was watching Wimbledon and I thought of all the other years I have watched it and the things that were going on in my life then, and I thought of all the things that have changed, and I felt really anxious and upset about changes that might come in the future, like my parents dying, but it was more than just feeling upset, it was like an anticipatory grief.
I am also still enormously anxious...I'm taking my tablets religiously but I still get these feelings...does anyone else feel this sadness? Is it to do with being over-sensitive? I have always had a tendency to be like this - my mum told me that when I was a little girl my grandma used to say I was too sensitive for this world!
Anyone else feel like me?
Hi S,
Certainly when I was off medication I used to get very strong feelings of sadness, sometimes about the most stupid things. For example, in my first year of uni a friend of mine used his window rod to reach out of a window and push a potato into another student's room. I felt really sorry for the latter student, who wouldn't know how the potato got there - even though he wouldn't really care and even though I didn't particularly like him!
In my experience hypersensitivity is something that certain people are always prone to, but adverse circumstances tend to bring it out. Do you feel that some kind of distractions might help? Maybe even some kind of physical activity?
F
mtatum4496
02-07-08, 22:33
When you are dealing with an anxiety disorder, your nerves are raw and constantly on edge. It does make you extra sensitive to all sorts of things. I have experienced episodes where a memory or something going on around me would bring about waves of emotion that are far beyond what I experienced before. It doesn't mean your meds are not working, just that your nerves have not healed enough at this point to not over-react to thoughts and events. But if you do find this continuing, please discuss it with your doctor. It may be a need to adjust the medication so your nerves can rest and continue the healing process.
Yes...I suppose that's what it is. What's difficult is these emotions are so real, if that makes any sense. I suppose what I'm trying to say is this... that I've had obsessional thoughts before, for instance, the common one, that the world is unreal. When I get better, in fact, even while I'm still suffering with it, I can still see that thought for what it is, the product of my illness. Whereas with these emotions seem to me to reflect the reality of life...sometimes I feel that human existence is desperately, unbearably sad, filled with loss and pain. The best we can do is enjoy the moments when we lose sight of this reality. I know this sounds really depressing...sorry. I can be very introspective. I remember my dad once saying that living with me was like living with Soren Kierkegaard with a hangover! xx
Hi,
Yes, I have been known to cry at adverts!
Also TV programmes, the next day in work people can't believe that I could cry at something which they didn't think was sad. I can be sobbing with tears running done my face. Although I think it is to do with anxiety, for me it is also because I have lost people I love and anything vaguely sad takes me back to that time. Because a few years ago even with the anxiety nothing used to make me cry.
I know what you mean about looking back and remembering when things were better, seeing someone I haven't seen for a long time, hearing a song from years ago things like that make me sad because I felt like a different person then.
My sister used to say that I was over-sensitive and too easily upset.
Lots of people on here recommend exercise, would you do a dvd? I'm wondering if I should get a dance one thats fun and lively, it will definitely be a laugh for anyone who can see through my window!
Sorry I haven't been much help.
Take care.:hugs: Anna
I've got mixed thoughts about this thread because everything that's been said has been said in such a way that we are in the "wrong" because of what "others" say and think of us and that bugs me!:mad:
I'll try and explain why........
My sister used to say that I was over-sensitive and too easily upset.
And I bet your sister hasn't got a sensitive nature?...so then who is she to judge to say that you are "over" sensitive? I would say you're just "sensitive" and that there's Nothing wrong with Being sensitive because a sensitive nature means you CARE about all those you love and the world around you. How can that be wrong so why let what she thinks of you make you feel "wrong"???
sometimes I feel that human existence is desperately, unbearably sad, filled with loss and pain.
You're absolutely Right to say this because it's True! The only part you miss out though is that there are also good things in life which we should focus on rather than just the bad otherwise we can make ourselves depressed because of what life IS. We just have to learn to accept that life is filled with bad AND good.
For instance, we have a robins nest in the garden. I've been watching the adults feed the young but I'm not sure how many are in the nest. This evening one of the young left the nest and was promptly killed by our cat and left on the lawn.
It made me feel very upset that it was denied a chance to live so I could allow myself to get very depressed about it knowing that if we didn't have a cat, that bird might have lived. Life is like that though. We cannot control events around us and bad things Will happen whether we like it or not. All we can do is not dwell on them and instead focus on something good like recovering from a setback.
What really bugs me though is when people criticize us for being who we are by saying we are "over" sensitive as if there's something wrong in being sensitive, and we believe them because we think so little of ourselves because often it is these people who have always put us down for who we are in the past!
Be Who you Are and Be Proud of What you Are regardless what others say or think of you because there is No finer person in this world than a Sensitive person who cries at upsetting events because they CARE about this world and the people we lose and who live in it.
Just remember though to not let bad events drag you down because there is nothing you can do to change what living means and to accept the good and the bad in equal measure. BE upset by the bad but don't dwell on it and Live for the Good in life and find reasons to Enjoy Living.:hugs:
Yes, you're right, Bill... there is a tendency amongst sensitive people to see their sensitivity as a weakness, probably because being very sensitive can make you feel weak, especially when we live in a society which doesn't prize sensitive and intuitive people. The workplace is very much geared to the resilient and the competitive... you only need to watch shows like The Apprentice to see how ruthlessness and arrogance are respected today. The nervous, self-critical and shy amongst us are pushed to the sidelines and regarded as weak. I sometimes wonder if other societies at different times in history would be better for someone like me to live in. For example, I can't imagine John Keats faring very well in the modern workplace!
Maybe we sensitive types should stop being so self-critical and self-deprecating. After all, I can't honestly say that I would want to stop caring!
(Sorry this isn't very well written...feeling a bit stupid this morning!)
Yes, you're right, Bill... there is a tendency amongst sensitive people to see their sensitivity as a weakness, probably because being very sensitive can make you feel weak, especially when we live in a society which doesn't prize sensitive and intuitive people. The workplace is very much geared to the resilient and the competitive... you only need to watch shows like The Apprentice to see how ruthlessness and arrogance are respected today. The nervous, self-critical and shy amongst us are pushed to the sidelines and regarded as weak. I sometimes wonder if other societies at different times in history would be better for someone like me to live in. For example, I can't imagine John Keats faring very well in the modern workplace!
Well let's be honest, he didn't fare very well in the early 19th Century either! :\
I remember reading that in some native American cultures, sensitive men who were kind to small animals and things were respected and had their own status in the community, apart from but complementary to the competitive masculine types. I thing I'd have fitted well into that role!
I guess we should remember that shyness and anxiety are survival mechanisms, so must be worth something in the evolutionary stakes. Being alert to danger when "braver" (which may just mean less imaginative or perceptive) people walk right into it is a definite advantage!
Ruthlessness, greed and arrogance are going to finish up killing our civilisation. We're seeing now that blind faith in the competition ethic has led to accelerated depletion of the world's resources (hence oil at $146 a gallon), whereas if we'd been co-operative and looked facts in the face we might have established ways to live sustainably.
But actually, not all workplaces are aggressive. Although I have problems at work due to my anxiety, my colleagues are anything but pushy and ruthless - they're mostly introverted geeks not unlike me! Their asset is not their aggression but their brains. I think I've been lucky in that respect.
F
mtatum4496
03-07-08, 13:19
I don't think anyone here means to imply that being sensitive to the conditions of the world - our own little world or the worldwide community at large - is wrong. I think the focus is that the degree of emotional response one experiences in relation to the world is exaggerated when one's nerves are overly sensitized.
An example from my own experience:
I was having a good day and decided to do something I have not done in a long time - visit a flea market. There were few people in the market and so not much background noise for me to deal with.
I passed one booth that was equipped with books and two comfy chairs. There was a sign by the chairs that read "Please feel free to sit down and rest while you browse through our books".
Now, under normal circumstances, I would see this as a kind gesture as well as a nice marketing touch, smile and go about my business. But in my current state, this hit me as being such a monumental act of kindness in a cruel world that I sat down and had a good five minute cry in the middle of the flea market!
In case anybody wonders, I am a male, over six feet tall and over 200 pounds - not exactly the type that society expects to be crying amongst books in a flea market.
There is nothing wrong with being sensitive; personally, I consider it to be a virtue, not a weakness. Sensitivity opens up all sorts of doors to appreciating beauty in the world in its many forms, as well as acting as a means of keeping us aware of injustice. But when there is too much of a good thing, other things that are equally positive and good get pushed to the side.
Sensitivity is good - but when there is so much sensitivity that it interferes with the ability to function, that is an indication something is wrong and should be addressed.
Yes, I agree with you, mtatum...I think Bill was talking about sensitivity as a characteristic, rather than the heightened over-sensitivity that comes with over-tired nerves. Your flea market example is a good one; that's pretty much the state I was in when I cried over my dad's trip to the dentist. I know that it isn't tragic, and wouldn't strike even a sensitive person who was otherwise well as tragic, but in my over-sensitised state I seem to have disproportionately emotional responses to things.
By the way, Francis, even if you don't agree with me about Keats, surely I deserve some credit for having worked both him and Kierkegaard into the same thread?!!
im exactly the same as you. And i too was really sensitive as a child. I remember i cried once when my mother bought a new cupboard or the bathroom. I was just sad to get rid of the old one! I think it is being over sensitive but also when u r anxious u r more sensitive than usual. If i get upset about something i think its the worst thing ever and ive never been this upset before in my life (until the next time and the next time). I also when im watching a film which i havent seen for a while will remember whn i wathced it last and think about what events were going on in my life.
Yes, that's it, that feeling that this is the worst it's ever been! I get that, I always think this is the saddest, most upset I've ever felt. Although, having said that, as a child I was terribly emotional and intense, possibly even more so than I am now...or at least in a different way. When I was a child not only did I worry a lot about death and disaster but I was always fretting about philosophical questions like the origin of the world, where did God come from, is there an afterlife etc. It was hard work for a six year old! xx
Just wanted to add... personally, I think that to a certain extent those thoughts were a sort of embryo form of the ruminative obsessions that I developed in my teens. I remember when I was six watching my grandfather's coffin being lowered into the ground and feeling the most intense existential terror. For months afterwards I was obsessed with death and the afterlife, and gave my poor mother detailed instructions about my own burial. I know all this is slightly different to the over-emotionalism that I was describing at the beginning of the thread, but for me anyway the two have always seemed to be linked. xx
I know I have not posted for some time, but have been meaning to, as I have anxiety and panics for many years, I am addicted to valium and cipralex, but cry every day of my life, I wake and the thought of facing another day feeling lonely and lost its like not way out. I was on seroat for 3 years and the doctor took me off cold turkey, and that really made me feel like I was going mad, I spent most of my time in bed crying and not knowing where I was.They had some people from a hospital to see me, and they put me back on them for a while and then weaned me off with Effexor, I have cried every day since then. I seem to live in the past, and the older I get, my mind travels to past times and it makes me sad because of the nostalgia, and Iwant those times back, but realise thats impossible, but the the tears still come, Could it be that I am expecting to cry when I wake, like a habit, I wish I knew. Please try and understand this message, and will some one answer me, God bless from Blossom.
nomorepanic
04-07-08, 23:34
Blossom - wow so good to see you again! I missed you
Lovely to see you back
xxx
Hello again,Suffering a bit from the nostalgia again tonight... it's a strange feeling, I keep thinking about this time last year and what was going on in my life. It was actually a very difficult time, my operation was looming and I was very anxious, but for some reason when I think of it now I have a profound sense of loss and sadness.
Sorry you feel so bad, Blossom, please keep posting and take care. xx
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.