Friday, September 7, 2012

Addicted to a Certain Kind of Sadness

What kind of sadness are you addicted to?

I have listened to the song at the bottom of the post quite a few times. It's played on the radio, I've watched them perform the song live on a late night show, I think it's even on my iPod, but a few days ago I heard it on the radio and this line really stuck with me.  I have never really thought about addiction as harmful behavior outside of substance dependence addiction until I couldn't get this line out of my head!  I mean, it's not like you can die from being addicted to shopping or gambling or computer or sex, but I understand that you can be addicted to them. 

Can you be addicted to a certain kind of sadness?

Webster defines addiction as the quality or state of being addicted. 

People seek adrenaline.   I believe they are called adrenaline junkies (which certainly sounds like an addiction to me)!

But sadness?  Can you be addicted to a certain kind of sadness?  I think so.  Maybe, probably, addiction isn't the perfect word, but I think sometimes I feed off of a certain kind of sadness and maybe even seek more of it.

Maybe you are oversensitive to bullying/your child being excluded because you were bullied/left out as a child. Any time your child isn't invited somewhere or you feel that they are left out, does it make you sad for them?  I understand wanting your child to be included and treated right, but when they are excluded, do you let the sadness take over your thoughts, obsess over the "why isn't my child invited?" or "why are the other children excluding my child?"

Or what if you have a difficult problem that you're trying to find the answer to and you start to obsess over it?  We have a client that is fully capable of gathering the necessary information and dropping it off at our office, but they're scared that they are missing something or we will not be satisfied with the documentation provided or something.  They obsess about it and continue to put it off as if the problem will solve itself. 

Grief is a certain kind of sadness that I had to work very hard not to become addicted to.  When I wanted to stay in bed all day, I forced myself to get up, but it would have been very easy to just lay there numb and let the days pass by.   I can totally understand how people can be addicted to this kind of sadness.

What about if you're feeling hopeless in any given situation?  The negative thoughts continue to breed and fester, you focus on the bad, awful, unspeakable, unthinkable-until you're ready to break.

I think I'm certainly drawn to people in need.  If I know that someone is hurting, I feel the need to somehow, someway, make it better.  If I can't make it better, I need to at least let them know that I'm here. Is that an addiction to a certain kind of sadness? 

A friend told me earlier this week that you can't bring a problem to the table without offering a solution.  Well, I'm over writing this week.  All of my creativity has been used up in preparation for Rally Day and I really don't want to offer any solutions today (and I'm still addicted to a certain kind of sadness, so I'd just be blowing smoke up your ass;))




Are you addicted to a certain kind of sadness?

No comments:

Post a Comment