The Sadness Within

Depression and Anxiety

I began writing this post in 2022, but I was much too overwhelmed to even begin it and much too exhausted to want to complete it. Plus, the thought of sharing such a delicate part of who I’ve always been internally just didn’t seem to matter since it’s never mattered to anyone with whom I’ve actually wanted to share it.

I’ve been internally sad for a long time … since I can remember … since I was self-aware enough to know that I could feel. I could say I was aware as early as infancy – toddler stage … when I remember the first time that I was inside of my body … aware that I was a person staring out of eyes as I tried to understand the world around me even though I distinctly remember that I had no sense of pain.

I recall specifically feeling no pain during that infancy stage [I think I was 9 months old] because I was playing with contents from my mother’s purse. I remember a lot of those contents vividly, such as a makeup sponge, tissue paper, a razor blade and other objects. I remember touching them and immediately putting them in my mouth. I recall liking the way the sponge felt in my mouth because it had a squishy feel, and it was the color red.

I also remember the razor blade. Its sharp edges immediately attracted me, and as I held it in my tiny hand, I remember having no desire to place it in my mouth. Instead, I took it and began moving it around until I saw red. The red was blood, and the blood was mine. Remarkably, I remember feeling no pain at all as I sliced surface pieces of skin on my fingers. I didn’t even know it was supposed to hurt. I only knew something was terribly wrong because I heard my parents screaming as they walked into the room and saw blood all over me on the bed.

Yet, beyond the physical feelings of pain, there was an internal pain that I couldn’t stop. It was a deep sinking inner sadness of loss. I felt it every time I was with my mother – a malignant narcissist. I first recall noticing it when I was three. I felt it every time I wanted closeness with her but was unable to grasp it in any way. But I also felt this internal sadness when I felt I couldn’t connect with anyone in my family or anyone else around me. I simply recall feeling eternally lonely without understanding the reason.

The deep inner sadness within was a lonely place, and even when I tried to explain it to others, they seemed to wish it and me away. It was a remote feeling that became even worse after I experienced some horrific childhood traumas, and nothing I did to ease that sense of deep inner sadness within would cover it. Sometimes, just out of the blue, I’d be moved to tears that I couldn’t explain, but the internal sadness I felt was so intense that I couldn’t shake it. It was as if sadness followed me around and haunted me.

At age nine, I thought I put a name on this sadness after reading a book from the library about depression. It was a topic that seemed much too big for me to understand. Yet, for some reason, reading the material made sense to me. I felt like I needed help, but I belonged to a family that didn’t regard such things as depression as being real. For one, I was told I had no reason to be sad. Despite the traumas I experienced, sadness shouldn’t have been a thing. “After all,” I was told, “God blesses you to wake up to see another day.”

Even still, I had sadness within, and over time I’d learn to cope with it and try to cover it up even though it was always there. It has always lived with me as if it has belonged with me. Even through times of contentment or seemed happiness and bliss, that inner sadness would creep up as a reminder of its existence. Sometimes it would send me into tailspin of deep cries that I didn’t understand – literally bellowing me over non-stop until I found relief when it came to an end.

The Sadness Within

The sadness within I speak of refers to a deep, often unspoken emotional pain or melancholy that resides within me. It has stemmed from various sources in my life such as past traumas, unfulfilled desires, unresolved grief, loneliness, or even a sense of existential discontent. This internal sadness is complex, not always visible to others, and is very often difficult to fully understand or articulate.

Here are some common aspects from this sadness that resides on the inside of me:

• Unresolved Emotions: Past emotional wounds or experiences that haven’t been fully processed can manifest as a lingering sadness. This might include childhood trauma, loss, or heartbreak that wasn’t properly grieved. I can say that I’ve experienced a multitude of emotional wounds that I’m still working through. It’s been a lonesome and long journey.

• Loneliness and Isolation: Feeling disconnected from others, misunderstood, or emotionally isolated, even when surrounded by people, can create a deep internal sadness. It can come from a lack of meaningful connections or feeling like my inner world is unseen by others. More often than not, I feel disconnected, as if I’m traveling through this life with no one. Despite having two very good friends, I spend my days alone. Outside of work, I have very limited contact with others.

• Unmet Needs or Desires: When I feel like I haven’t achieved what I’ve wanted in life or if I feel like I have unmet emotional or psychological needs, there is often a pervasive sense of sadness. This is when I question my purpose in life. Since leaving my previous career where I felt filled with purpose, I now question my purpose daily. I also question whether anything I previously did was filled with purpose. What was I made for?

• Existential Sadness: Sometimes, I feel sadness related to questions about life’s meaning or purpose. This type of sadness usually arises from feeling lost or disconnected from a sense of higher purpose or direction. I especially question whether I’m living God’s will for my life. Once upon a time, I believe I was walking according to God’s will for me, but as time has progressed, I feel this less and less. I essentially feel lost because my life looks nothing like I imagined it would look for me.

• Emotional Sensitivity: I am a highly sensitive individual, and I often experience the sadness within as a response to the suffering of others and/or the state of the world. I find that I often absorb negative emotions from my surroundings, leaving me feeling weighed down. This especially happens when people open up to me. As they tell me their stories, I tend to not process the emotions connected to their stories until later, especially when certain details about their stories stay with me. Those are times that I might pray in silence for the person because there’s absolutely nothing I can do to help them.

• Depression or Mental Health Issues: In some cases, the sadness within can be a symptom of depression, anxiety, or other mental health challenges. This kind of sadness can feel pervasive, affecting daily life and relationships. Since I have battled depression and anxiety for much of my life, I can usually tell when the sadness within me is because of depression. With depression, there is usually a blanket of weight that shrouds me – making everything absolutely too heavy for me to even want to carry. That’s when I start crashing out with no desire for life. I can’t feel anything. I can’t cry. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Or it’s the opposite, and I sleep all the time and overeat. But usually, I am mostly numb even though the sadness never leaves.

• Social Isolation or Misunderstanding: I am autistic, and I tend to struggle with social interactions. I also feel misunderstood by others. The difficulty in forming meaningful relationships, combined with the feeling of being different or alienated, often leads to loneliness and sadness.

• Sensory Overload and Emotional Fatigue: I am highly sensitive to sensory stimuli, which can lead to overwhelming experiences in my everyday environments. This constant overload can result in emotional fatigue and, over time, contribute to feelings of sadness or despair. At times, the sensory overload and emotional fatigue have been so overwhelming I’ve felt myself having a meltdown. That’s when I have to leave the scene to take a break. Alone time is so important to me in these instances.

• Masking or Camouflaging: In some instances, I’ve tried to “mask” my true autistic self to fit in socially, often at a great emotional and mental cost. This effort to appear neurotypical has lead to extreme exhaustion, frustration, and a deep sadness, as I have felt like I could never fully be myself. Yet, all the while, it’s obvious that I am different from the neurotypical’s around me. They notice it, and I notice that they notice it, and this only makes the feelings of sadness even stronger at times. Those are the times I wish I could be oblivious like I most often believe that I am while living in my authentic self and reality.

• Difficulty with Communication: Expressing feelings, needs, or emotions can be challenging for me too because I have selective mutism. In the middle of a conversation, I can freeze up because the words just won’t come to my mind for me to articulate. In large or even small social settings, mutism becomes a huge problem for me because of social anxiety. This communication gap leads to much frustration, isolation, and sadness, especially when I feel unheard or unable to connect with others. Most often, I am ridiculed within these situations for not speaking up, “the cat having my tongue”, or appearing as if something is wrong with me. It’s hard explaining selective mutism to people that often refuse to understand me.

• Rejection and Bullying: In many situations, I have experienced rejection, bullying, and/or discrimination throughout my life due to what others see as my differences {autism, selective mutism, high sensitivity, introversion, and just being different, etc.}. These painful experiences have left emotional scars and have contributed to a profound sense of sadness or unworthiness over time that I’ve continuously working through.

• Internal Struggles with Identity: I have often struggled to understand my place in what seems to be more of a neurotypical world. This internal struggle to balance my way of being with societal expectations has created a sense of sadness or existential questioning that I often grapple with at times. Finding support groups and reading material that aligns with the struggles I face has been very helpful for me.

• Unmet Expectations: Although I haven’t always considered being autistic as a problem for me since most people who know me have no idea that I am autistic, I have experienced challenges with employment, relationships, and daily life tasks that have left me realizing that some people are agitated by characteristics about myself they don’t understand. After the fact of these experiences, I’ve been left with feelings of frustration and sadness over unmet personal or societal expectations. Since resigning from my previous career, I’ve found it much harder to navigate the employment I desire for myself, but I also reason that it’s because of declining job market.

While autism itself doesn’t directly cause sadness, the societal, emotional, and sensory challenges that come with being autistic can contribute to internal sadness. For me, addressing this has involved understanding and accepting my autistic identity, finding supportive communities, journaling, writing this blog, and receiving therapy.

In addition, the sadness within is often hidden behind my outward appearance. No one usually knows I’m dealing with sadness at all. I actually smile and laugh through it as if it doesn’t exist, even when I feel crushed under the weight of emotional pain. Since I can remember, I’ve learned to mask and hide a lot, and I’ve practically dissociated my way through this life to survive. I suppose this comes from living through trauma and suffering through rounds of narcissistic abuse. Keeping busy also takes away the dull ache of sadness too.

Overall, I find that addressing this sadness within usually involves self-reflection, therapy, journaling, emotional healing, and finding ways to reconnect with joy, purpose, others, and God. It’s been quite the struggle though because the sadness simply doesn’t just go away. I can’t even pray it away. So I accept what is and try to make the best of it. Can anyone else relate?