On Sadness

I’m carrying so much sadness today that I don’t even know what to do about it. Writing generally helps… so, even though I have no idea what to write about, I just will and see how it goes.

Yesterday I got some news of a death in my therapist’s family. I never thought it would make me this sad, but it is.

It always makes me sad when she goes on a leave, even though one part of me is quite functional — I take a leave of a week whenever my therapist says that she’s planning her leave, just to process and grieve that temporary loss of support…that sometimes feels permanent because I always wonder if she’ll actually come back. You see I’ve been ghosted by therapists before, and we live in the day and age of people ghosting each-other quite often. Though, it’s been three years I’ve been with her and not once has she ghosted me, not even for a week to be honest — but the learning from the past stays in me as fear.

Anyway, so she informed about the passing away of someone in her family. Of course my first thought was she won’t be available for the sessions (for me), my next thought, who knows till when; next, maybe never again; next maybe she’ll refer me to someone; next, who might it have been (who passed away); next, how she might be feeling; next, how she might have written the email (in what state); next, I hope it wasn’t someone immediately close to her; next, hope it was someone who was older (and had lived their life as much as they could); next, how can I help; next, how should I behave (if and) when she returns; next, should I ask her who it was?…. and many many more thoughts that I can’t even write right now.

Then I got busy with something else — cat fostering, cat separation, coming to my parents’ place etc. Things that obviously make me sad and gloomy. And because I was here, my thoughts stopped, I went into a functional freeze, I just sat and cried…and cried… for the cat leaving…for my therapist…and for the sadness of knowing really gory ‘secrets’ about my parents, and my family… and the grief of losing the image we hold on to so dearly of our parents especially, and of everyone else in the family (lots of things have been going on in the extended family since October 2024).

I slept last night (no thoughts) and I still had dreams of my therapist, which I vaguely remember as just her being in a sad circumstance. I’ve also been having dreams of someone who kind of rejected me, and the sadness I’ve carried hence, all of a sudden, for the past month or so — almost every day I wake up sad.

I’ve woken up tired for many years now, for many years with backache, for many years before that (for as long as I can remember) with headaches. All physiological symptoms…but, for the first time in my life, I’m waking up sad, daily. Daily, I have dreams of sad people, of people who made me sad, even if they didn’t mean to…and daily it stays with me. I don’t complain to them anymore, I don’t talk about them in my therapy (in my therapy, I am mostly angry)… I no more write my journals, I don’t share it with my sibling or a friend. Daily, I wake up sad, and I remember my sad dreams, and the faces of people who’ve hurt me, or those I’ve hurt…and daily I hold that sadness in me.

I go about my day, I acknowledge the losses I’ve had to bear, and those still to come. And I do nothing about it — because I’ve finally acknowledged that there is absolutely nothing I can do now…probably there was nothing that I could do then.

Still, life has given me a small blessing in the form of a new friend. I spoke to her about how sad it makes me that someone I’ve been seeing for the past 3+ years, even if only in a professional capacity, as a client, has lost someone. Someone close enough to make an impact on her work. So probably someone close enough to make an impact on her, personally, deeply I guess.

I don’t know what to feel about my sadness now. But I guess I just accept it. Though I veiled it, initially, with worry…with fear…with a need for control (that maybe if I exit her life/work, she’ll have one less thing to deal with)…but, when I spoke to my friend, we removed all these things that bring an illusion of control. Maybe if I worry about something, I can find a solution for it. Maybe if I fear something, I can avoid it, or maybe if I am concerned with something I can fix it. But, human beings, their emotions, their experiences cannot be fixed, avoided, or controlled. So, ultimately what I am left with is sadness. Once I remove the worry that she might never come back and take my sessions, once I remove the fear that maybe, just maybe I had something to do with her sadness…Once I remove the illusion of control — that maybe I can do something or respond in a way as to reduce her suffering, is when I just FEEL. I just feel sad for her. It’s quite surprising to me — no-one tells us you’ll learn to feel real emotions for your therapist.

And I feel sad, for myself, since I will be losing a little kitten because I don’t have enough space (or physical resources) to keep her.

The things and the common feeling, sadness, that I just have to face. The fact that I will still be an adult child of my parents — people I no more like. That there’s no escaping that relation, but just a deep drowning sense of sadness.

That I will still have dreams, probably every night, of people I made sad, or who made me sad, and that I’d have to live throughout my day knowing it’s always at the back of my mind, even though I am trying to act functionally appropriate all day.

Just sadness, and the heaviness that comes with it — realising day by day what my exhaustion is made of.