Feeling sad lately, and more often than you’d like to admit? Depending on the circumstances from which your sadness stem, you could be suffering from depression, a similar mental health issue, or maybe you’re just going through a rough patch.
However, being sad and incapable of controlling your feelings is much different from being fully aware of your sadness and not wanting to combat it. When you decide you’d rather be sad, and actively try to feel down, this is a different problem. It’s possible you’re addicted to being sad.
Addicted to Sadness or Depressed?
A period of prolonged sadness qualifies as depression. While some are able to climb out of that hole on their own, most require help to return to normalcy. There are some cases, though, where depression leads to spending too long ruminating on all the negative things that have happened in your life.
Over time, being in a constant state of sadness can become addictive and even euphoric to some. This may feel like succumbing to depression, but it might feel like embracing a new sad self. So, can you truly become addicted to being sad?
Building up a tolerance for something and letting it absorb your life is what often leads to addiction. So, you start out a little bit sad and sink deeper and deeper into that feeling instead of trying to find a bright spot in your life. It’s no secret that some people suffer from feeling miserable way more often compared to most people. If this sounds like you, perhaps it’s worth asking yourself a few questions to find out for sure.
Can You Be Addicted To Being Sad?
Being sad is simply a part of life, and while there is no secret potion to ridding one’s experience of unhappiness, there is a solution to at least putting sad thoughts at bay temporarily. But what if you’re not able to do that? What if fending off depression and sadness altogether feels nearly impossible?
There is such a thing as being emotionally addicted. But more specifically, sadness can be considered an emotional addiction. Being addicted to being sad is quite common amongst many people who are either new to or experienced in struggling with their mental health.
No, addiction is not something attained purposefully; however, it is something that can spiral out of control if not managed quickly and effectively. To clarify, you need to understand what addiction looks like and, more specifically, what emotional addiction looks like.
Addiction, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is, “a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms (such as anxiety, irritability, tremors, or nausea) upon withdrawal or abstinence.”
If you were to insert sadness into this definition of addiction, it would take the place of the behavioral aspect of being addicted to something. Sadness is more or less a state of being in terms of addiction, but it does cause the effect of certain behaviors forming as a result.
If you are to suffer from sadness constantly and for a prolonged period, it’s very much possible to become addicted. Because your mind is consumed by your low feelings and disturbing thoughts, your body, over time, slowly begins to conform to this emotional state.
As a result, you unconsciously begin to become addicted to being sad.
What Do You Gain From Being Sad?
This is one of the primary questions you should ask yourself if you suspect that you’re addicted to being sad. One of the biggest tasks in overcoming any type of addiction is first finding out what the cause of that addiction is, even with emotional addiction.
While there’s often more than one cause to blame for someone being addicted to sadness, the most common reason for sustaining this addiction is the satisfaction that it brings to the current state of life. With that being said, being sad all of the time is no fun for anyone, nor does it necessarily spark a positive response.
In reality, you’ve become comfortable with your current state and seek situations to continue feeling this way. When you’re addicted to being sad, you may be satisfied with the sense of emotional or mental numbness or feeling so sad that you’re unaware of what’s going on around you.
This may not necessarily be the case with you specifically, but it’s just to serve as an example.
“If you often experience the emotional clusters of suffering and struggle (worry, fear, anger, depression, pain, low self-esteem, and victimhood) — that’s what your body is addicted to, and will instruct your unconscious mind (via its own communication channels) to seek out or create the circumstances that will produce — through those negative emotions — its desired fix.”
Source: How An Addiction Is Formed
As a follow-up question, ask yourself what positive and negative things you gain from your continued experience with sadness. Perhaps, remaining in this dark rut makes you feel comforted, and from that, you gain a sense of protection from whatever it is you really fear in your life.
This fear could be directed towards being very happy, never being happy enough, truly seeing yourself, or something more complex. At times, whether your sadness is temporary or prolonged, feeling sad can make you feel human or better yet, remind you of your fragility as a human being.
This, in turn, can make some people feel reminded of their vulnerability. It’s similar to cutting or another form of self-harm — you’re reminded that you can once again feel.
How Often Are You Sad?
It’s not actually healthy to be happy all of the time, and so it’s important to understand that being sad is indeed a part of life. You shouldn’t be quick to entertain the idea that you’re addicted to being sad based on the times you’ve been sad temporarily in life.
However, if you feel as if you’re sad more than what’s considered the norm, that may be of concern. If you’re able to, ask yourself how often you find yourself in an extended state of sadness (a week or more at a time) and how often you find that you enjoy being in that headspace.
This is an important question to consider when trying to decide if what you’re experiencing is depression, an addiction to being sad, or just a blue period. Feeling sad is normal, but being unhappy every day of the week, 24/7, could be an indicator that you should seek help.
Mental health disorders are often to blame for one’s sense of being sad all of the time. Nine times out of ten, what you may consider addiction to sadness could be an underlying mental health disorder.
“Over time, if sadness is not always avoided and repressed, then it can build up and contribute to a case of depression.”
Source: Depression Vs. Sadness – When Should You Be Worried?
If you think that you may be addicted to being sad, consider keeping track of your mood, emotional state, as well as any troubling thoughts as often as you can. Keeping track of things such as these can allow you to keep tabs on how often you feel sad.
Additionally, it can help you take note of whether your sense of misery occurs more often than not.
Why Are You Sad?
If you are finding that you may be addicted to being sad, try to figure out what made you unhappy in the first place. Does your sadness stem from something bad that may have happened to you recently? Is there anything to blame at all for your sadness?
There may or may not be one clear answer to this question, but it’s worth trying to answer for your own sake. If you can identify the trigger, it’s a little easier to identify a solution. You can address the trigger event and work backwards to heal and find help.
Because everyone deals with and suffers from emotional struggles differently, it’s important not to assume that one specific cause for sadness is common. Struggling with one’s mental health is a personal journey, and each person deals with things differently.
You could be sad due to something deemed insignificant by an outsider, while someone else is grieving from the loss of a loved one. It’s no one’s place to place one cause over the other, so be sure to remember that when asking yourself this question.
No one issue or cause is common, but there are a group of common causes for sadness. One or another may not be to blame, but consider asking yourself if any of these potential reasons are to blame for you being sad all of the time:
- Struggling with finding happiness in all aspects of life
- Recently went through a significant event that may have caused trauma, depression, or sadness
- Finding it difficult to muster up any happy or positive thoughts
- Feeling abandoned or unwanted by those around you whether it’s family members, friends, or significant others
- Feeling emotionally “imbalance” no matter how hard you try to be happy
- The past or current state of life and if it is good or bad
- A past with struggling with mental and emotional health or similar negative experiences
- Fear of feeling happy due to the possibility of it leading to disappointment
Whether you can identify with some, all, or none of the potential reasons for being sad all of the time, there’s certainly no harm in trying to find out the answer to this question. It may take time before you can identify why you are sad, but ultimately, doing so will require you to be open and honest with yourself.
How Does Being Sad Make You Feel?
Referring back to the practice of being fully aware of your feelings, carefully monitoring how being sad makes you feel can help you figure out if you’re truly addicted to being sad. Likewise, asking yourself the same question is just as important.
More often than not, it’s how a particular aspect, such as behavior or emotional state, makes you feel that prompts you to become addicted to being sad.
When you do experience sadness, how do you feel in the present moment? Does being sad make you feel good/bad? Does being sad make you feel numb to other emotions, negative or positive?
These are all supplemental questions you could consider trying to answer in order to find out whether or not you’re addicted to being sad. Emotional addiction can come about whether you’re in a good place or a bad place in life. All is a matter of perspective sometimes. However, it’s quite easy to fall into addiction after being sad for some time.
Although sadness has a negative connotation, it can actually feel satisfying to some people. And unfortunately for me —myself included. Though the state of being sad doesn’t feel good, feeling sadness can make someone feel a positive emotion. For instance, remaining in a dark, emotionless place can make you feel comforted and protected from positive emotions that may bring disappointment.
“No one can be happy all the time, but you can be sad if you let yourself become addicted to it. You become addicted to sadness because it requires very little of you. It requires little effort except that you feel sorry for yourself, and that’s about the easiest thing you can do.”
Source: Sadness Is More Addictive Than Happiness
Furthermore, some people like the feeling of being sad because it helps them to forget the pain they may have experienced. It helps to feel as if the pain doesn’t exist temporarily, similar to what one would potentially feel with substance abuse or addiction.
Is Being Sad More Important Than Not?
When you’ve been in a constant state of sadness for quite some time, entertaining the idea of being happy feels like a long shot; it’s easy to continue being blue. Perhaps, even when there’s the slightest opportunity for you to feel a brighter emotion, you quickly avoid it and seek out things that sadden you.
In a situation like this, being miserable has become too important to you. It’s possible you’ve grown so accustomed to this dark emotion that you’re now afraid of how unexpected other emotions may feel. You’d rather not risk feeling something different, experiencing something new.
As you try to answer this question, consider going even further as to ask yourself why being sad is so important.
The ultimate test for addiction is asking yourself whether or not you would put your most important priorities before the addiction itself. If you were addicted to being sad, there would be no question of whether or not the more important things in life matter more than the actual addiction.
If it all depended on fighting for the things that deserve your love and attention, would you fight for those things, or would you allow your addiction to take first place? This is a question you should ask yourself and do so carefully.
Honestly ask yourself, is my sadness more important than the bigger things in life I should be dedicating my time and attention to?
Do You Often Make A Conscious Effort To Be Sad?
This, too, is a way to identify the fine line between what’s considered an emotional addiction and what’s not. Sure, there are times in which some may entertain the idea of being sad because they’re not ready to feel anything else or, better yet, confront their true feelings.
Even in times of happiness, brief or prolonged, do you make a conscious effort to go back to being sad? Do you make a conscious effort to revert back to being sad whenever you begin to feel anything other than that?
Believe it or, sadness is much more addictive than happiness for many people. It’s so addictive that some would rather make the conscious effort to be sad over being happy. The possible reason behind this is often that feelings of positivity could potentially end in something negative happening.
Happiness, for many, is hard to come by and, nonetheless, hard to maintain. If you find that whenever you do feel happy (or just not sad), something negative happens and you become disappointed, it could easily become a habit to make yourself unhappy on purpose. This, in return, could cause you to become addicted without you even realizing it.
Is Being Sad Your Way Of Attracting Positivity To Yourself?
Ever heard of the saying, “Expect the worse, hope for the best?” This is often a slogan many live by to prevent themselves from becoming hurt or upset when something they expect to work out in their favor doesn’t.
By expecting the worse, you prepare yourself for possible disappointment; however, by hoping for the best, you can be cautiously optimistic that things will work out in your favor. In many ways, reverting to emotions such as sadness and anger can be a coping mechanism.
By entertaining your feelings of sadness as a means of potentially attracting positivity to yourself, you begin to associate negative thoughts or emotions with positivity automatically. Over time, this can cause you only to feel negative emotions such as sadness or anger, not just in positive situations, but in negative ones as well.
Your emotional state of sadness, thus, becomes almost permanent as the addiction progresses. Being vulnerable is what attracts positivity and happiness to yourself most of the time, but it can also attract negativity.
If this is your fear, then being sad is most likely a façade for hiding the fear you have towards disappointment. Consider why you first began to use this method as a way to attract positivity. Was it something you did in the past, but only temporarily?
Is Sadness Your Most Primary Feeling?
As mentioned before, no one is immune to feeling sad, and in fact, sadness is a natural emotion that you should allow yourself to feel on a healthy basis. However, if grief is your most primary feeling, meaning that you only feel sadness and no other emotion as much, there could be an underlying cause to that.
If sadness is your most primary feeling, there are at least two possible causes:
- You’re addicted to being sad
- You are suffering from an underlying mental health condition
When asking yourself this question, it’s important to once again gauge between what would be considered an addiction versus what would be regarded as an underlying mental health condition, such as depression. This would most likely be best determined by a licensed mental health expert or physician.
“But for about 20 percent of American adults, mental health disorders such as depression or anxiety may mean that happiness is always just out of reach. They do not choose to be depressed or anxious; they do not know another way of being.”
Source: Are You Addicted To Unhappiness?
Mental health disorders are prevalent not just in the U.S. but everywhere. It’s important to remind yourself that you’re not alone in your sadness, but it’s even more important to find the exact reason for your sadness. If sorrow is your most primary feeling, it’s most likely due to something deeper, such as depression.
While self-diagnosing yourself has become somewhat common nowadays, it’s always important to seek the perspective of a professional. If sadness is your most primary feeling, consider going back to the previous questions and asking the “why’s” and “how’s.”
Doing so may help you further pinpoint the reason behind your constant state of being sad.
Are You Hesitant Towards Seeking Help For Your Sadness?
The moment you realize you may be addicted to being sad, it might be worth it to seek help for your addiction. But what if you’re hesitant towards seeking help for your constant sadness? If so, are you hesitant out of fear for seeking help, or do you fear getting rid of the sadness altogether?
If you think you might answer ‘yes’ to the latter part of that question above, it may be all the more reason to seek help. The first step to fighting any addiction is to admit that you have an addiction. The steps leading from that further involve acknowledging to yourself that you can’t fight your addiction alone.
If you’re hesitant to seek help for your sadness because you’re afraid of feeling any emotion other than sadness, that’s a clear indicator of your addiction in the first place. If you’d prefer to stay miserable and sad rather than happy, be sure to remind yourself that one has a benefit over the other, and it’s certainly not being miserable.
If you do find yourself struggling with the idea of seeking help for your sadness, consider going further as to ask yourself why you may be hesitant towards getting help with your emotional addiction. After all, what do you have to gain from not getting help in the first place?
How To Break The Cycle Of Sadness
Addiction or not, being sad is no fun for anyone, and too much sadness can do more harm than good. While being unhappy can be addictive, it has the potential of causing much damage to your long-term mental and emotional health. If you are interested in breaking the constant cycle of always being sad, it’s never too late to seek help.
The first thing you should consider doing when trying to overcome your sadness is to get rid of any negativity that may be contributing to the fragile state of your emotional health. This could look like breaking off any toxic relationships, mending broken relationships, improving your overall self-esteem, and more.
Positivity is the best medicine, and it’s no secret that it can prove powerful in the face of any and all struggles. Even more true to being addicted to being sad, the decision to break the cycle is solely up to you and no one else. Getting better has to be a conscious solution that you intend to be committed to, no matter what.
Breaking any type of addiction is hard and may not work out the first time, but as long you remain committed to getting better, you are sure to succeed at some point!
It’s recommended that you consult with a licensed professional who has experience in helping people suffering from emotional addiction and/or mental health disorders. By seeking the help of a licensed professional, you can ensure that you don’t have to go through your journey alone.
Likewise, having someone there to support you can be a great experience.
Additional Resources
Here, I’m going to list several resources and links that has helped me immensely when I was at my lowest, and hopefully they may be of help to you, too.
For information on how to break an emotional addiction, visit here.
For more information on how to seek help if you’re suffering from a mental health disorder or emotional addiction, visit the SAMHSA’s national helpline at the link below:
Substance Abuse And Mental Health Service Administration – National Helpline
For more information on the signs to watch out for from addiction to sadness and suffering, consider visiting the links below:
10 Warning Signs You’re Addicted To Suffering
Depression Vs. Sadness – When Should You Be Worried
Are You Addicted To Suffering And Struggle?
Emotional Addiction – Dr. Mark Steinberg
For more information on how to break an addiction to sadness, visit these links listed below:
