How do I overcome sad?

It sounds like depression. Have you spoken to a physician about these feelings?

First relax and breathe. What’s really stressing you out?

I agree with @CWOTUS. It sounds as though you are depressed. This may not be something you can just push through on your own. Are you taking anti-depressants or is it something you can consider with your medical professional?

I have suffered depression and I do understand what you mean when you say you are feeling profoundly sad. Something that may help is to try to do some exercise each day. Even 20 minutes going for a walk in the sunshine might help a little. Get some good sleep if you can too and keep your diet healthy. Finding out if you are and then doing something about being depressed will also help because you will at least know there is a real reason for you feeling this way. If you need to take a little time off work to get yourself to a better place, do that. Perhaps you can talk to a friend you work with so you at least have someone who knows what you are going through.

@CWOTUS and @Bellatrix I have been diagnosed with lowgrade recurrent depression in the past. I have never needed to take anything talk therapy works for me. But this is not presenting in the way my normal depression presents.

@Adirondackwannabe I don’t know there seem to have been a lot more deaths this year at work then normal. But even then thats been my norm. My health but I’m handling it. Everything else is actually looking up.

Are you talking SAD (Seasonal Affective Disrorder), sadness, or depression, here?

You know the drill, I think. Except if it is SAD, you can also try light therapy. Sit yourself down in front of bright lights for an hour in the morning before you go to work each day. They sell lights for this purpose.

If it’s sadness or depression, then therapy, exercise, yoga, meditation, dance, charity, regular sleep, healthy food—all the stuff you are doing already. If they don’t work, medication might be in order. See a physician. You may also want to change type of therapy.

@wundayatta I guess I am scared of medication. But all tried and true fixes are failing.

I am worried that it will rob me of the capability to feel, that it is a sign of weakness, that I will be dependent on some chemistry altering mechanism. That it will put in a worse place.

I was referring to the emotion, I have been tanning for light therapy eat mushrooms and take a strong dose of d3 and periodically get those levels checked.

I understand your feelings about medication. I can’t really say anything to them, other than my opinion, for what it’s worth. Medication can change your feelings. However, there are many medications, and if you don’t like the side effects, the solution to that is to ask to try something else.

It’s not a sign of weakness. Is treating cancer a sign of weakness? Of course not. Neither is treating depression. Depression is a issue of brain chemistry. It has nothing to do with your moral fiber or strength. The most powerful people in the world get hit with depression just as often as anyone else. It’s a brain chemistry issue, not an issue of moral strength.

And you are not dependent on the meds forever. You can get off them once you stabilize yourself and build up your therapeutic coping mechanisms. I fully plan to get off my mood stabilizer in two years. I will have been on it for six year or so.

But even if I am on it forever, that’s ok. Better to be stable than to kill myself. If you let yourself get depressed and then you get out of it, and then you get depressed again and out of it, then each cycle will send you deeper and deeper into depression. That’s a formula for killing yourself. It is far better to use meds to intervene and stop the cycle. Or stop the descent. Or get out from the bottom. If you don’t, you’ll find you have far more serious things to worry about than finding a transplant donor. Don’t mess with depression. Just don’t. It is a killer.

Medication changed my life. If you don’t like the results, you can stop. I understand your fears but don’t write them off completely.

When you’ve tried everything else, the one thing left to try is medication. I agree with @Mariah – don’t exclude the idea until you’ve tried it. It’s by no means a permanent thing; sometimes the brain just needs a little outside intervention to get its chemical balance back in order.

Look into the depression, the darkness and write. Sometimes it is a gift, the minds way of asking for change. If you don’t have the energy to make the changes get some pharmaceutical help. Depression is not always a bad thing. It is the reason to enter into a new phase of your life.

Just wanted to throw in that it’s not unusual for meditation to bring stuff like this to the surface. Unwanted feelings get covered up by all kinds of distractions and mental “noise”; meditation keeps you from running to the distractions and quiets the noise, so the feelings come out of hiding.

That doesn’t feel great, but bringing the feelings out into awareness does give you the opportunity to work with them. Sometimes it’s enough to bring mindfulness to the feeling. That involves approaching it not as a problem to be gotten rid of, nor as who you are, but as a passing state. View and examine it as a meteorologist views a cloudy day, not wanting it to be different, but interested in it just for what it is.

Of course, if it’s to the point of interfering with your life as clinical depression does, then outside help would be in order.

If you can get depression categorically ruled out – professionally – then I’d feel more comfortable gassing about anything else and suggesting “various this-es and thats” to help you feel better. But depression can kill. I know one very-near suicide that resulted from a low grade depression that didn’t have a classical presentation, either.

I’m very wary of depression now.

I feel for you; I am in a similar place right now.

@wundayatta I didn’t mean to be offensive. Of course people need it and it is no reflection on them. But it is a new thing that I don’t understand. Therefore it is scary.

Best wishes to your future.

@Mariah True. Ultimately I would have control.

@downtide The kick start approach of thought is less intimidating.

@Shippy I used to write a lot and spend a ton of time in introspection. Somehow I moved out of that stage. But maybe it is time to get back into the habit. Much of life experience is learned through the “harder times.”

@thorninmud I am new at meditation. Other then the fighting it thing, it has always been a positive, calming, relaxing experience. The development of upsetting emotions that I can’t express has been frustrating. Thanks for the information. Knowing that it is normal is comforting.

@CWOTUS Thank you for sharing that. I am sorry you have had that experience. On one hand I am surprised at the revelation and on the other it makes sense.

@janbb I wouldn’t have guessed. I read from other posts your rl was taking off. Hugs.