Sudden waves of sadness

[Silveris]

You probably know what alexithymia is - trouble parsing emotional states and understanding what you're feeling. It has many forms and gradations and they all can vary from person to person. A particular one that I experience sometimes is this:

A sudden tidal wave of profound sadness.

Unprompted, it comes out of nowhere and engulfs and envelops completely. I could be sitting on a bus or walking down a street or making notes in a meeting, and out of the blue the clouds gather, light falters, strength seeps out of me and the mind is overflowing with the acute and heavy sadness. Sadness. Sorrow. Ennui. Hopelessness. Dejection. Whatever the right word for it may be.
Only it remains and everything else is pushed out. I might break down in tears if the wave hits hard enough. On the street, at work, alone or not. It ebbs away slowly throughout the day and might come flooding back at any point.

It might be once a month, might be several times. I noticed it happen more often when I'm under stress, but even then I cannot find a definitive source.
I just don't understand what these waves are and it's depressing to be at a whim of a mental process I do not understand.

[Little2Nothing]

I have those moments as well. It comes unbidden and can last a short or long while. Those moments are quite painful. They are connected to something but I can never figure out what. 

[Blueberry]

I used to have those, never knew they were part of alexithymia. I often got them when I was in somebody else's family, like on a visit, where things were seemingly good, at least where I was definitely emotionally safer than in my own FOO. I don't seem to get them any more, tho I didn't work on them disappearing, they just did.

[Silveris]

Lttle2Nothing:
I hope you find the connection

Blueberry:
Lumping it with alexithymia might've been an error on my part. I have no idea if they are related at all. I just have both and they seem to be co-morbid.
I'm glad your went away.

[Kizzie]

Silveris, I read in your intro post that you have arranged to see a therapist soon. Has that happened yet?  If you can find one who is familiar with Complex PTSD (and not just trauma or PTSD), that would be your best bet.  They would be familiar with repressing or stuffing emotion. dissociation, etc., and it leaking out in waves as you have described.  They can likely give you a hand to start unburying slowly and safely all the emotion that seems to be packed away underneath your day-to-day self.

I am mostly free of that experience these days due to talking here and in therapy, but every once in a while I will get a shot of sadness.  It's nothing big or overwhelming like you but it's enough for me to pay attention to what is happening in my life to see if I can get to the root of what has brought the sadness on. 

I hope you can work on this with your new therapist and talk about it here because it is fairly common when we're getting nearer to our truths to feel these bursts of emotion, sometimes more intensely than others.  It's a signal from within that there are wounds that need looking after.

[Silveris]

Hi Kizzie, thank you for your input. I am going to intro sessions with two different therapists next week. One of them is trauma-focused. Bringing up this issue - and plethora of others in due time - is on my agenda once I click with someone.
If I'll ever find out the source of this I'll share my insights.

[Kizzie]

    

[Silveris]

I think I have some insight now. It isn't really anything new for me but now I'm almost positive there is reason and connection to it.

It's hard for me to understand my emotional states and their somatic effects, especially negative ones. I do not notice that I am emotionally anxious or mentally strained, I just plough through without giving it any thought. But as I mentioned before, stress increases likelihood of these mood swings by a lot, and I've noticed years ago that when I'm tired my irritability goes through the roof. Physical exhaustion is easier - muscle fatigue and tension, stamina drop, etc. But mental exhaustion is trickier as there are no other signs, just emotional lability and gradual worsening of character. It can take days or weeks to manifest after prolonged exposure to stress of any kind. During that time I don't notice I'm stressed, I might even be energised by a new work challenge or by some exciting events in private life. But after some time I begin waking up sad and lethargic. My usually stoic mood shifts and I find myself tearing up when watching a video or hearing a song. One day these pent up stressors can be longer contained and I break down in tears without a warning.

So my working theory is: I don't notice changes in my emotional or mental states due to alexithymia. But my body still has to process what I ignore or don't register at all, and these internal processes result in emotional overload and breakdown.

Since I am aware of this I will try to be mindful of my energy expenditure and will take breaks just in case something is building up. I'm trying to get in touch with my body and not be a passenger in it, both by myself and as part of my therapy sessions, but so far I've seen no results. Not aware of any connection between emotions and body so far.

If you can relate to any of this, perhaps we're in a similar boat. Please share your thoughts or insights.

[Desert Flower]

hey Silveris, this is interesting what you're writing.
I'm not sure what I have is of the same kind, but this is what came up while reading this thread: I tend to not feel any emotions for a long time, that is I do feel part of me is sad and needs to cry but it can take ages (like weeks) before I can really FEEL it. I was taught to bury any negative feelings and I've gotten very good at it. I have trouble getting to the crying sad part of me. The way it comes out, after ploughing on like you say for a long time, is in the form of Anger. I get angry at a tiny little thing that goes wrong and I can just explode. I've learned that this is the angry child part of me, who needs to be seen and acknowledged for how well she's been behaving and how hard she's been trying to do everything right, without anyone even noticing. And I also learned, underneath this anger, really, is buried sadness. And a profound unfulfilled longing to be seen. Only I have such a hard time reaching the sadness. The waves are there, but they stay beneath the surface with me.

[Silveris]

Hey, Desert Flower,
Were you able to feel feelings prior to burying them? Positive feelings are still there? I've noticed that anger is a common thread among neglected children for various reasons, and its roots are justified.
I see the child in there, and sympathise with her and with you now. It's tough and unjust not being acknowledged. I wish you meet people in your life who'll see you and your victories.

[Dalloway]

Silveris, I remember reading your post in March and thinking that something similar is happening to me, but I couldn´t really articulate it back then. But now that I had very recently experiences of this kind, I am starting to be aware of this in my life, too. For me, it always comes out of the blue, usually when experiencing something pleasant or neutral, suddenly a wave of profound sadness washes over me and I try to explain it to myself somehow but I can never really come close to deciphering it. And I realized that it might be connected to what you wrote about being disconnected from your emotions, that I can´t translate my somatic experiences into feelings or words. I´ve been living all my life disconnected from my emotions because it was safer this way and also because I was emotionally neglected, so I coudn´t develop these skills and it also meant being disconnected from my authentic self. So I find this concept very interesting and I can relate to it very much.

[NarcKiddo]

I've learned that this is the angry child part of me, who needs to be seen and acknowledged for how well she's been behaving and how hard she's been trying to do everything right, without anyone even noticing.

Thank you! I think you have just helped me find a significant part of the puzzle for myself.

I've come across this thread just now, having returned from a road trip going to visit my H's family. Those trips are always stressful. H's family is pretty OK. There are issues but they are not my issues and I have got better over the years at not absorbing them. And the trip has gone well. Child NK has been on best behaviour - even to me, so adult NK has not been dealing with fallout behind the scenes. Although, thinking about it, Child NK has actually been showing signs of distress because I have been stuffing my face with cakes and desserts at every opportunity. I have been itching to come home but found myself very tearful on the last leg of the drive yesterday. I feel exhausted and sad. As soon as we arrived back home I felt very irritable at everything. Old stressors that I thought had stopped being stressors came out loud and clear.

[sanmagic7]

hi, silveris,

i saw 'alexithymia' in your post and immediately could relate.  i also suffer from this situation, and, like you, my body bears the brunt of my emotions, most of which i'm not aware of at the time.

thru years of not only being aware of this, but lots of thought and research about it, i can totally relate to sudden outbursts of sadness, or other emotions/feelings unrelated to what's going on in the moment.  from my perspective, what i've noticed is that extremely strong emotions, such as anger, have often built up over time, have settled within me without me knowing about it, and then the straw breaks that camel's back, and i kind of explode. over time, and with practice, i've gotten a bit better at recognizing anger sometimes before it gets to that point.

as far as the sadness goes, again, similar dynamic.  i believe i've had so much sadness in my life that i haven't been able to feel, so many tears that haven't been shed, that watching a show, or being in some kind of situation can trigger what's been stored, and it comes out in great, huge pieces.  whether it's the feeling, or the tears are included, i don't always know exactly what the trigger was or why it pertains to me, but i'm expressing it nonetheless.  i do believe we have a lot of grief stored up inside us, and it just leaks or explodes out every so often.

it's caused me to struggle a lot in life without even knowing it.  i looked strong, could deal with most everything, but was mostly always confused, like people knew something i wasn't privy to.  over time the leaks/explosions have shown themselves and i've pretty much just come to accept that they'll be there. 

one thing i learned in therapy about tapping into past emotional events was to go very gently, take them in extremely small pieces.  not being aware of what emotions were appropriate at the time, (i was utilizing EMDR therapy, which brought up the emotions i hadn't been aware of at the time), and i would easily become overwhelmed to the point of getting sick, or my body not functioning correctly - especially, my legs.  i couldn't get them to work right, often for several days afterwards. 

it seemed to be the case that my mind/body had stored those emotions/feelings (humiliation came up more than once) and thru EMDR, they were released and i felt them for the first time many years after the actual incident where they would have been appropriate.  it was like a double hit, and the overwhelm was horrific.  so, just a word of caution to watch for that.

best to you with your journey re: all this.  i think we have a lot of tears and sadness inside, not only for what happened to us, but also for what we didn't get. 

[Desert Flower]

Thank you! I think you have just helped me find a significant part of the puzzle for myself.

That's great NarcKiddo! It's nice to know it helped.

[Desert Flower]

Hey, Desert Flower,
Were you able to feel feelings prior to burying them? Positive feelings are still there? I've noticed that anger is a common thread among neglected children for various reasons, and its roots are justified.
I see the child in there, and sympathise with her and with you now. It's tough and unjust not being acknowledged. I wish you meet people in your life who'll see you and your victories.

Thank you Silveris, it's good to be seen.
Well, positive feelings are definitely here now, actually I can just be suddenly overwhelmed by feelings of contentment. But this is only very recent. Before I started on this journey, I did not really feel much of anything really. I was very dissociated that way.