The truth about sadness is it isn't dark or scary. There’s no stray jacket or sappy music as your soundtrack. You walk the streets like a normal person. You wear bright colors and you compliment strangers. You actually try really hard to be happy. You use all of your might. You even trick yourself into
believing everything is alright. But the funny thing about sadness is it turns into anxiety which has a friend named stress, which can kill you at any moments time and you wouldn’t be ready.
We think we know what sadness looks like, but we have no idea.
We think we know the tell tell signs but we've learned throughout pop culture and within our society that sadness does not have a face, class, gender or race.
I was 8 years old the first time I thought about committing suicide. There was an idea that swallowed up my entire existence. The thought was that, "I don’t belong here." This isn’t my life. I want to go back to my home. At the time, I knew my mother didn’t love me. I was so sure of it as an 8 year old girl. In fact, I knew she hated me. It shined from her eyes every time she gritted her teeth through disgust at something childish I had done. I was a child but I still understood energy. And energy never lies.
The energy my mother had towards me was of hatred, or at least that's what I thought at the time. It wouldn’t have been so noticeable if I was an only child because then I’d say that’s just how she loved. But I had siblings that reminded my mom of her father, someone she cherished with all her heart. So I got to see from a third party perspective what love looked like. That was my reality. It felt so real! It sucked. Even though as an adult my perspective has changed and I know that what I perceived as hatred was just frustration towards a child she was trying to protect. But I didn't understand or see that back then. So I fantasized about dying because it would be the best payback to the living.
When I was a child I didn’t hide my sadness like I do now. But the humorous thing about that is: adults don’t care about your happiness when you’re a child, because you’re a child. You have nothing to be sad about because you don’t work, you don’t have bills and you have a roof over your head, and food on the table. As long as you have those things who cares if you're sad. You’re a child. Your emotional state doesn’t matter.
So I guess that’s why I didn’t give a fuck when I was child. I wore my sadness on my sleeves. I wrote everyday in my journal that I wanted to die or that I wanted to kill myself as if putting it on paper would make it manifest. I didn’t hide my sadness. I snuck what I thought were sleeping pills from my mother’s medicine cabinet and I hid them under my mattress. That of course, was my Plan B. Plan A was to slit my wrist! I snuck down into the kitchen one night and grabbed a knife. I pressed down firmly. But it was a scratch and I already felt so much pain. I couldn’t do it. Not like that. I needed to go peacefully. But my peaceful plan stayed under my mattress, hidden in my belongings for I think 3 years. I still to this day do not know why I never took those pills. If I was unhappy as I remember, why didn’t I escape this reality and return to a place that I remembered as home.
My sadness did not start to evaporate until my sister was born. Then I believed my mama loved me. She gave me my sister. There was something about my sister's light in this world that made me want to live. She started singing before she could talk. Her voice, was the voice of an angel and till this day her voice makes me realize how lucky I am to be alive during the same time as her.
The point that I am trying to make is, the average person would never think that someone like me, would have or will ever be sad enough to feel this way. I've worked diligently in always keeping my pain to myself, because that is what our cultured has pushed down our throats. That's how we have been taught to survive by the people that raised us. We have also been programmed as a society that emotions like sadness, anger, shame rage are low vibration and shouldn't be shared because it'll bring down the energy of who ever you are around. But the truth is most people feel this way but society has made it harder for us to acknowledge it on a broader scale. Most people fear that if they admit they're sad, they'll be put on a medication for life. They've turned normal emotions into a clinically diagnosed disease that makes us feel broken and like we need to be fixed. When really its our avatars saying "your not living to your fullest potential."
Once we start to tell the truth about our individual pains, traumas, repressions and let downs we will be able to grow and heal from them. We won't feel shame or guilt when we shed tears. Then there's the individuals like myself that acknowledge the pain, seek out help and who consistently work on themselves all the while uplifting their community, friends and family. We can feel the sadness of most individuals, but we stand our ground to be of service and know that it is part of being human and being of this Earth. But, now is the time to share our pain, so people won't think "what is wrong with me. I'm always sad but she seems like she's always in a good mood or she handles stress so well." Even though, I still believe that some things should be private and be done in isolation, I also believe that collectively we should start letting each other know that you are not alone I'm going through that too. Or I just had a similar experience and had to fall in the sunken place for a few days lol before I could pull myself out.
If we must, we will seek professional help when necessary but we should never feel like we are a plague to society for feeling an emotion that was given to us by The Creator! Let's normalize talking to each other about our sadness without feeling like you will be looked at as if you are less than for feeling. The truth about sadness is we all get depressed sometimes and when we do its okay to let your loved ones know. Don't hold it inside. Tell the people you love and know that there is nothing wrong with you for feeling this way! Sadness is a natural frequency or energy in motion that we have access to, that alerts us that something in our lives need to change.
If you are or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, please reach out immediately to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. These services are free and confidential.
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