When The Sadness Returns Again (For No Real Reason At All)

Your alarm goes off, but you don’t feel like getting out of bed. And after you pull on your clothes (all black) and finish your breakfast (just coffee), all you can think about is getting back in bed. The entire day, you’re tired. Not physically. Mentally. And that’s the worst kind of tired, because sleep doesn’t cure it. Even if you get a full eight hours, you still feel exhausted. Like you want to slip back into unconsciousness.

You’re not looking forward to anything, even the things you’re usually excited about. Once in a while you’ll actually manage a smile, a genuine smile over a TV show or a friend’s joke, and in that moment you’ll feel like you again. But the second the smile fades, you’ll go right back to where you were at the start. Like nothing ever changed.

The worst part is that you feel like a complete asshole, because you’re always complaining. Always turning down invitations that require you to leave the house. Always forcing laughs when they should come genuinly. But you can’t help it. If you could, then you wouldn’t choose to be sad. You wouldn’t choose to wake up every day, feeling useless. Hopeless.

You’ve been told, again and again, that it could be worse. So you think of all the great things in your life–and there are great things. You have parents that adore you and a pet that worships you and a warm bed to sleep in. But those thoughts don’t make you feel any better. You just feel numb. And that numbness comes across as ungratefulness. As bitchiness. And you’re worried that’s how everyone else is starting to see you, as some ungrateful, depressed bitch.

You have an idea of what will push the sadness away–success, love, friends, a purpose. But you can’t become successful when you’re tethered to your bed all day. And you can’t find love when you’re too worn out to make small talk with strangers. The sadness causes more sadness. It traps you in a loop of unproductive pity.

Eventually, all of the sadness will fade away. And it’ll stay away–maybe for a week. Maybe for five years. But you know that it’s going to come back. You know that, no matter how much money you earn or how many countries you visit, you’ll always be at its mercy. It’ll sneak up on you and make you feel powerless again, like you’re unable to control your life, your destiny, your own emotions.

But you can’t worry about tomorrow. You have to get through today. And then get through tomorrow. And tomorrow’s tomorrow. Because you can’t let the sadness win. It doesn’t deserve a victory.