Addicted to Sad

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Then I started paying attention to my physical feelings and noticed that the grief felt comforting. I noticed warmth through my body and an open feeling in my chest. I experienced that feeling as love for Rick and Patricia, for the victims, their families and supporters. The sadness felt like a warm comforting embrace.

There was also fear. ‘This could happen to my children or my friends or their families.’ I felt the fear as a livening, being more aware and more watchful and energetic. It was stressful, but physically pleasant.

I must like those feelings. Or more accurately, I’m addicted to them. I want to be happy; I am happy much of the time. But I keep pulling myself back into sad: browsing the Internet, reading antiwar political web sites, going to meetings or protests about grievous things, or just letting my mind wander onto such subjects and stay there.

It’s not just social sources of sadness. I’m attracted to the sadness in people’s lives. Last night my neighbor Martina’s friend Jane came over to help her with Christmas dinner and with her four grandchildren. Jane was in terrible pain from knee arthritis and couldn’t help much, and she was in a foul mood. I felt drawn to her and spent 20 minutes or so consoling and getting her some cannabis oil to relieve the pain. While I was doing that, I noticed the same warm feeling that I had had on Facebook.

What is going on here? I could have chosen to admire Jane’s strength or focused on the needs of the kids who were playing around the room. I could have just observed without reacting emotionally at all, but I homed in on feeling sad about Jane’s suffering. I could actually feel the physical reward of sadness. I wondered what was happening to me. I searched online and found that the addicting power of negative emotions is well known.

Psychologist Dr. Ali Binazair wrote on Huffington Post, “Pain and negative emotions activate the beta-endorphin and dopamine pathways. Chronic jaw pain or painful thoughts light up those pathways just like the infamous addictive drugs do.”

Dopamine is the “go get ‘em” hormone. It tells you good things are nearby and energizes you to attain them. Endorphins are the pain-killing, soothing, “it’s all right” hormones. I was probably feeling endorphin effects while crying over the Disarm the Police stories.

Fear can also feel good. Along with endorphins, being afraid or anxious causes the body to secrete adrenalin, making us feel more alert and alive. That excitement is why roller coasters and scary movies are popular. Anger also releases adrenalin. It lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol, so it’s a powerful stress reducer.

You might ask how our bodies could have evolved to like sadness, fear, pain, and anger. Are those emotions supposed to be good for us? Sometimes they are. For millions of years, people became sad or afraid because they had good reason to be. Someone they loved had died; they lost their home, they were physically injured. They were threatened by predators and enemies; they were living in poverty, their loved ones were leaving, things like that. They needed some hormonal warm hugs and pain killers to keep going, or they would have died. You earned your sadness and fear points and traded them in for endorphin and dopamine release.

That still happens, but some of us are getting our rush cheap. We tune in to other people’s pain and grief, so we get the benefit without the actual trauma. We fear or resent things that aren’t big deals, gaining an adrenalin boost even though there’s nothing we can do with it, or need to do.

We might feel fear that we have offended someone, or be angry that they have offended us. What is the point? There is no point, except that those emotions release endorphins and dopamine, and we like how it feels. We are unconsciously addicted.

We may acquire our emotional addictions at a very young age as a way of coping with painful experiences in the world. Become sad, afraid, or angry; feel better. Harvard professor Kimerer La Mothe PhD wrote in Psychology Today, “Emotional addictions are creative, if self-destructive responses to pain.”

Heredity also plays a role. Some people are born happier than others. Some people learn different coping styles than others from their parents. If you are addicted to sadness or anxiety, you probably have good reasons for it.

What’s wrong with this?

Dr. Binazair says there’s a way out of sadness, a detox program of sorts. But do I want to stop? Is my sadness hurting me or anyone else? I get some good writing material out of it, and it motivates me to take action to help. I see people’s pain very quickly. I’m usually the first one with a warm glance, a comforting word, a touch on the shoulder, or sometimes an offer of practical support.

I notice, though, that this sadness-seeking is not actually healthy for me. Like any drug, it feels good in the moment but leaves me depressed for hours. I doubt it does much good for the objects of my sympathy, either. The cannabis oil I gave Jane helped her, but the warm looks and sympathetic words probably not so much. She may have felt pitied, which I know from experience feels awful. She might have preferred me to reinforce her positives or express confidence in her or give more practical help. I’m sure she didn’t want me to be sad.

Are there personal downsides to being sad? Perhaps. Some health effects have been documented in sadness, including higher levels of inflammation and slower recovery from heart attacks. They’re not huge effects, but it does seem that happier is likely to be healthier.

Sad people can become lonely, because we’re not as fun to be around. I saw this effect for myself when I went to visit two friends in a nursing home today. Michael is smart, but angry and sad. Ellen is happy and positive all the time. I enjoyed being with Ellen and spent much more time with her than with Michael, even if she’s not as good a conversationalist.

Is it possible that painful emotions like sadness have positive social effects, and it would be selfish to give them up? If I gave up sadness, anxiety, or anger, would I be less motivated to participate in political actions like Black Lives Matter and Jewish Voice for Peace that seek to stop the killings in US cities and in Palestine? Would I be less likely to give Jane medicine?

I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I might have to modify my motivations. Dr. La Mothe says, “Emotional addictions are expressions of a creative, if life-denying, will. The task, then, is to tap into that creative will and get it to create something else.” Find life-affirming motivations to do what you want to do.

Letting go of sad

Might you be carrying the weight of emotional addiction? If you find yourself doing something even while telling yourself, “I shouldn’t do this,” or asking “Why am I doing this?” or hiding the fact that you are doing it, you are probably addicted to it. Like all addictions, the more you indulge an emotional addiction, the stronger its hold over you becomes. Meanwhile, according to Dr. Binazair, other feelings get crowded out by the endorphin haze.

Life will go better without the addiction. Other things being equal, happy is good. But how to let go of sadness? From reading various sites, it seems we need to find other ways to produce endorphins, dopamine, and the other feel-good hormones serotonin (the chemical raised by anti-depressant drugs like Prozac) and oxytocin (the “attachment hormone.”) These are mostly raised by exercise, physical contact, love, meditation, and doing things that make you feel good about yourself. We may need to get help with some of those, and we definitely need to get away from the addicting emotion for a time. Dr. Binizair says it takes 7-21 days for the addiction to wear off.

Seem familiar? From addiction.com

For more life-crippling addictions, it might take much more than a massage to reduce the cravings. In Dr. Gabor Maté’s book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, he shows that the more wounded by life a person is, the lower their endorphin and dopamine levels are likely to be. They will be more drawn to their addictions and might need substantial support and some changed life circumstances to let go of them. That’s why victims of sexual abuse and child abuse and of racial or economic oppression often have far higher rates of addiction. That’s why homeless people find it very hard to stop using; it’s the only thing that makes life tolerable.

Emotional addictions, though, can hit anyone. They can cause misery in otherwise pleasant lives. They’re worth changing.

What convinced me to try to change my addiction was my reaction to Jane’s coping behavior. There was no room to sleep at Martina’s place that night, and she seemed in far too much pain to take the bus home. I offered her my and Aisha’s spare bed to sleep in. She refused, saying “I can make it home.”

In response, I felt angry at Jane. Why was she being so hard on herself? I didn’t tell her, but I was upset that she wasn’t staying with us. Why was that my problem? I realize now that she was depriving me of my fix. If she had stayed, I could have spent hours on an empathizing, sympathizing, helping binge, but she took away my drug.

This kind of reaction can’t be healthy or helpful. I don’t need it. I can still fight for things I love and try to help people I love without feeling sad for them or anxious about their future or my own.

I hope I can learn to get the hormones without the emotional drugs. I know it will be hard, because triggers for sadness are everywhere. Even if all the bad news is shut off,  my on physical health can cause a rush of anxiety or sadness if it’s not guarded against. Although I’m sure there will be many relapses, I’ll give it my best shot. If you’re in a similar situation, I invite you to take the challenge with me.

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