The feeling of melancholy does not leave. Where can I get the strength to live on?

1 13404 December 18, 2021 at 02:53 Author of the publication: Ksenia Voitkovskaya, doctor

My soul is dreary and chilly, as it happens in the fall in the slush. Like nature, frozen in anticipation of winter hibernation. Cold. Yearning. Loneliness. Hopelessness and emptiness. I don't want to live. Feeling of longing. It seems that all the good things in your life have already happened. And nothing further is expected. Only dull melancholy. Routine. The rustle of days going nowhere.

My soul feels like a stone slab, cold and heavy. I have no strength to carry this weight.

What to do when sadness hits? How to deal with apathy and despair?

System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan reveals how to get rid of melancholy, depression and depression.

Longing - an emotion or a feeling?

The term melancholy is a complex emotion, highly developed sadness. A disorder caused by despair, hopelessness, life changes, and dissatisfaction with oneself or the world around us. It arises due to certain reasons, more often with the realization of the impossibility of correcting the current circumstances.

Melancholy is long-lasting and is accompanied by reactions in the body that cause serious illness. In addition, the behavior pattern also changes: stupor and self-will, committing unpredictable acts.

Sometimes they say “I’m sad.” The word “gnaws” means torment, worry, interfere with life. The awareness that there is an emotional problem that needs to be identified and a way to resolve it must be found.

Vegetative-vascular dystonia

With this disease, a melancholy state is combined with vegetative disorders:

• rapid heartbeat, extrasystole;
• increased sweating;
• feeling of hot or cold flashes;
• cardialgia, burning, feeling of pressure in the chest;
• burning sensation in various parts of the body.

The melancholy-anxious state is especially pronounced in vegetative-vascular dystonia after a panic attack or when pain occurs.

Many symptoms of this disease require differential diagnosis with somatic pathology.

Types of melancholy and their causes

People are sad because they lack comfort and peace of mind. This is what it means to be sad. The reasons that provoke emotions are different. Based on this, psychologists have identified types of melancholy.

Longing for a loved one

A type of emotion that has several possible causes that provoke a sad state. One of them is a long separation. The most common life circumstances: business trips, military service, study, work in different cities. Separation from a loved one is always difficult, there is no way to contact, at least hear a voice, make sure that everything is fine. Some people are able to control their emotions. Then they do not affect life. But sometimes it is difficult to control oneself; attention is fixed on the impossibility of immediately correcting the situation and the feeling of sadness (the constant companion of melancholy).

Breaking up with a guy (girlfriend), divorce is also a reason. After a breakup, most people become depressed and miss their old relationships. The nagging feeling does not disappear even when meeting with the “ex”. In this case, people yearn for the irrevocable past, the bright feeling, the positive emotions that they experienced while in a relationship. When you part with your loved one, there is a desire to return the relationship, but this can no longer be done, only melancholy remains in the soul.

The third possible reason is love addiction. Emotional distress due to longing for an imaginary, impossible future. Unrequited love is its fundamental factor. Teenagers are more often focused on the desired object, they are not even interested in themselves, which is why life passes them by.

Longing for a deceased loved one

This could be a loved one, husband, parents, close relative or friend, son or daughter. The result is the same - melancholy, despair and hopelessness, a sad soul. Feeling like the pain will never go away. A person is consumed by memories, because a loved one is alive there. Such an emotional state can drag on for years, then deep depression manifests itself: apathy, inner emptiness, a feeling of one’s own uselessness in this world. Longing for the deceased is the most destructive type of emotion, which is difficult for even psychologically strong people to cope with.

Existential angst

The experience of the meaninglessness of one's existence. Envy, anger, a feeling of futility, fleetingness, despondency, and the constant question “why not me?” arise. A former classmate achieved more, someone else was promoted at work - everyone has their own predetermining factor. Partly, this is fear associated with one’s position in society, the fear of changing the current state of things, of going beyond the comfort zone. Many people face such problems - it's existential angst.

This type often works as a springboard. People, asking the question “what have I achieved?”, then ask themselves “what can I do to achieve what I want?” After reasoning, most take action, and life becomes interesting again.

Adrenaline yearning

A depressed state of mind caused by an excess amount of adrenaline in the blood. In essence, it is self-poisoning: the release of a hormone into the body, without releasing energy outward, causes physical heaviness, and as a result, mental anguish. Lack of activity in people accustomed to playing sports is one of the reasons.

In another case, the body starts the process of producing adrenaline for protection. People become more confident, stronger, and take risky actions.

Strong experiences are perceived as a threat, and the amount of the hormone increases accordingly. An alarming feeling of fear, shame, and a desire to act arises (but how is unknown). Physical changes begin to occur in the body: tremors of the limbs, accelerated heartbeat, dehydration, and less often - convulsions, headaches.

And the adrenaline look also manifests itself when retiring or losing a business.

Let my path be terrible, let it be dangerous,

The path of melancholy is even more terrible...

(Anna Akhmatova)

Longing for home or homeland

People often encounter this type called nostalgia. When leaving their hometown for a long time, forever, during the adaptation period, people begin to compare their new place of residence with home. An emotion can manifest itself stronger or weaker, depending on the character and ability to control oneself. The longer the separation, the fewer achievements, the fewer acquaintances in a new society, the stronger the pain in the chest. All thoughts come down to memories of my home, how cozy it is there.

Nostalgia

Life in the present has become boring, like a vicious circle from which there is no way out (home-work-home), or a number of negative events have happened - reasons that provoke an obsessive longing for the past. In moments of emotional breakdown, due to unpleasant incidents, people tend to indulge in memories of when everything was “good.” For example, a man and a woman’s relationship is not going well, and one of them thinks and remembers how good they were together at a certain point in the past.

Sometimes people are able, thanks to memories, to rethink the present and understand what needs to be done to correct the situation today. This is called self-analysis.

Vital melancholy

Unreasonable melancholy, the result of which is physical and, as a consequence, emotional disorder.

This type is experienced by those who are deeply depressed. Physical manifestations are varied:

• unexplained panic attacks, fear;
• without liberty;
• problems with appetite, digestive system;
• inability to concentrate;
• sudden changes in body weight;
• broken state;
• weakness, lack of desire to act;
• causeless tears;
• apathy;
• pain in the neck, heart, back;
• decreased vision;
• changes in the menstrual cycle;
• sleep problems;
• constant feeling of guilt;
• mood swings;
• squeezes his throat.

The cause of the development of melancholy can be a typical conflict of an everyday nature. But not everyone experiences vital melancholy.

It occurs suddenly in people whose body produces insufficient amounts of hormones: serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine. But it more often occurs in women during postpartum depression, when caring for the child takes up all the time.

Mortal melancholy

A scary look that appears due to a highly developed feeling of dissatisfaction with oneself or resentment towards the world around us. People who are already experiencing some kind of melancholy in the initial stages of apathy are susceptible. If you do not stop (on your own or with the help of a specialist), the condition worsens and develops into a desire to commit suicide.

Elderly people are also prone to death melancholy. Thoughts about the approaching end of life shake the emotional background more and more every day. A person inspires himself with thoughts about an unfavorable future and loses the opportunity to live normally in the present.

Russian melancholy

The emotion arises due to thoughts about the lack of a high goal in life. A person thinks about the future of the country, the community and ideological well-being of its inhabitants. And he suffers from the feeling that everything will only get worse. Accompanied by loneliness, the impression that no one around is able to understand the state of the soul.

Seasonal blues

Every year, during the transition seasons (spring, usually autumn), most people begin to feel blue. Due to changes in temperature, increasing or decreasing daylight hours, the body sometimes experiences stress. It manifests itself as a feeling of sadness, a desire to sleep rather than take action, and boredom.

Morning hangover syndrome

A condition that occurs due to poisoning of the body with alcohol, its main component being ethyl alcohol. In addition to the physically “broken” state (headache, nausea in the throat, vomiting, etc.), people may also experience emotional distress.

Problems that seemed difficult but solvable before drinking alcohol no longer seemed like problems at all after drinking alcohol. But during a hangover, the opposite happens: the problem begins to seem insoluble, which is why worries begin. Sometimes at this moment a decision is made to drink more alcohol in order to again get rid of obsessive thoughts about problems. Alcohol addiction begins: a “vicious circle” arises: poisoning - problems - poisoning. Alcohol “eats” a person more and more each time.

Emotional changes occur due to a protective reaction in the brain. People with a hangover do not always remember what they did while drinking alcohol. The brain protects the owner from feelings of shame, guilt, and remorse. The inability to remember events causes the body to feel nervous excitement - worries about what exactly happened, whether wrong, thoughtless actions were committed.

Anyone who indulges in revelry out of melancholy cannot drive away melancholy with revelry.

More than 9,000 people have gotten rid of their psychological problems using this technique.

(Ryunosuke Akutagawa)

Neurosis

Emotional distress, in some cases without apparent causes, is combined in this disease with episodes of increased anxiety, fatigue, inadequate self-esteem, changes in the value system, inconsistency of judgment, emotional lability, tearfulness, sleep disturbances (characteristic drowsiness in the daytime is combined with difficulty falling asleep).

Emotional disturbances in neurosis are combined with physical manifestations:

• pain in the abdomen, chest, headaches; Moreover, when examining the physical causes of the pain syndrome, they are often not found;
• autonomic disorders, up to attacks of extrasystole;
• panic attacks with changes in blood pressure, darkening of the eyes, possible loss of consciousness;
• signs of vestibular dysfunction: difficulty maintaining balance, unsteady gait, episodes of dizziness;
• hypertrophied feeling of fatigue, rapid fatigue even with a slight load, a pronounced decrease in performance, a long recovery period.

With timely diagnosis and adequate treatment, neuroses can be successfully treated.

Therapy for melancholy

In a sense, melancholy is a person’s disorientation in society and the world. If you can’t cope with it, then you should seek help from medicine. There are several types of treatments (based on psychology) that can help cure sadness and its consequences.

Behavioral psychotherapy

Its essence lies in the study of experiences through behavior. The founder, John Watson, created the “stimulus-response” formula based on manipulation: a positive or negative action provokes a reaction in the patient, from which psychotherapists draw conclusions about his condition.

The goal of therapy is to examine the factors that lead to certain behavior patterns. Formation and strengthening of the ability to think and act adequately, training in self-control.

This type of therapy is more often used when it is necessary to correct borderline mental disorders and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Treatment helps restore the ability to live normally in familiar conditions.

Cognitive psychotherapy

The founder, Aaron Beck, created a type of psychotherapy based on the fact that people create problems for themselves due to negative thinking. Each person is unique and perceives new information in his own way, and if there is a tendency towards negativity, negative emotions appear in relation to the new.

Beck believed that in order to change your behavior, you need to change your way of thinking. What does it mean: identify and correct cognitive errors. The most common:

1. Forming an opinion about the general based on the individual. For example, one salesman in a store was rude to a buyer, and the buyer concluded that all salespeople are rude and ill-mannered.
2. Not accepting positivity. Based on the idea that positive experiences have no meaning, only negative ones matter.
3. Maximalism. The tendency to divide everything only into black and white, no shades.
4. Irrational thinking. Making decisions only in an emotional impulse.
5. Bias. Reluctance to specify the situation and take into account the facts when assessing what happened.
6. Tendency to exaggerate negativity.
7. Complete disregard for the positive.
8. Failure to accept the reality of things.
9. The tendency to relate oneself to everything, even if it has nothing to do with the person.
10. Embellishing oneself or someone or something.

During cognitive psychotherapy, a person realizes and corrects mistakes, learns, and gets rid of the tendency to think negatively.

Interpersonal psychotherapy

Cures by solving problems of interpersonal relationships. There are two concepts of interpersonal psychotherapy, developed by Sullivan and Yale University scientists Gerald Klerman and Myrna Weissman.

1. According to Sullivan, a person’s characteristics consist of two leading needs - tenderness (biological) and security (interpersonal relationships). The first is to satisfy, weaken the strength of physiological needs. The second is to reduce anxiety and uncertainty. And it is precisely the satisfaction of the second need in false ways that leads to mental disorders.
2. Psychotherapy by Klerman and Weissman is short-term, clearly structured, focused on solving current interpersonal problems in patients with mental disorders. It is used in the case of a connection between the patient’s psychopathological symptoms and his problems in society (painful experience of grief, interpersonal conflicts, role transition, relationship deficit).

Both concepts help to improve relationships between people who already have some mental disorders.

Social psychotherapy

Has a larger range of possible patients: people with behavioral problems, mentally ill people, criminals. The main goal of treatment is to improve the patient’s behavior in society through psychotherapeutic manipulations.

Social and physical health are interconnected, which is why this type of therapy is classified as a psychosomatic direction. Today, socio-political changes cause certain feelings in the majority: uncertainty, confusion, uncertainty, and sometimes aggression. Negative emotions, especially long-term ones, provoke bad consequences - illnesses. Social psychotherapy is aimed at eliminating these emotions caused by society.

Drug treatment

The main method is antidepressants. Medicines that help improve mental performance, increase physical activity, stabilize the emotional background and relieve mental changes that accompany melancholy. A psychotherapist prescribes a course of medication, the duration of which can be up to six months. The doctor monitors the patient’s condition throughout the entire treatment period and makes adjustments if necessary.

Interesting fact:

In Ancient Greece, people felt guilty before the Creator for emotional distress (sadness, lethargy, laziness). This is what helped them improve.

Endogenous depression

With this disease, a feeling of melancholy is one of the main symptoms. A persistently reduced emotional background leads to a decrease in physical activity, a sharp reduction in the circle of friends, a decrease in initiative, and spontaneous activity.

As a rule, patients cannot clearly explain what caused this condition.

The danger is that such melancholy can lead to complete self-isolation of a person.

This condition is a sign of a serious illness and is a reason to consult a doctor.

How to get rid of sadness

Not all people are eager to turn to specialists. Sometimes they do not realize that there are problems that need to be resolved soon. And sometimes because of fear of addiction to antidepressants or a stereotype - if you went to a psychotherapist, it means you’re abnormal.

Then the person decides to stop grieving on his own. There are effective ways to overcome emotional distress.

Enjoy life

Negative emotions, melancholy, gradually “infect” thinking, and the perception of the world around us begins through a negative prism. The main thing is to realize and want to fix it. At first it is difficult, the habit of not noticing the good has taken root. In everything that makes a negative impression, we must look for the positive, because absolutely everything in this world has both negative and positive qualities. And it is also advisable to smile more often.

Communicate with loved ones more often

Mom, dad, friends are the best support in difficult situations; they won’t wish anything bad. Whether to share your experiences with them or not is a personal decision for everyone. For peace of mind, ordinary communication on abstract topics is enough. This will remind a person that he is important and needed by someone.

Take more walks in the fresh air

Oxygen promotes proper metabolism, saturates the blood and organs. This improves the functioning of the body.

The main goal of a walk should not be the end point, but to improve your mood. To do this, you need to follow the example of young children. They notice how a beautiful bird flew by, what a cute cloud there is in the sky, how nice the flowers smell. Adults have forgotten how to pay attention to this, but they should. Life will be filled with new colors, and this is one of the steps towards getting rid of melancholy.

Love yourself

Working on fears is the most difficult, but the results are stunning. If self-doubt has reached its limit, you need to start with an external transformation, which will already entail changes inside. To do this, you need to go to the mirror and just carefully examine yourself. Not all disadvantages are like this. There are two approximate options:

• turn to specialists - many beauty salons have them, the main thing is to overcome embarrassment and seek help;
• independently identify shortcomings for yourself and find their solution: problems with your figure - go in for sports, haircut - change hairdresser, clothes - change your wardrobe.

You don’t have to buy branded clothing; there are many stock stores and second-hand stores where you can buy great things for pennies. The main thing is not to give up. Going towards your goal, intermediate results are a great incentive to achieve more.

Learn something new

Cooking, hairdressing courses, driving, foreign languages. There are many hobbies. You just need to choose the right activity.

Melancholy is cured by activity; there is simply no time to be sad. And if the classes are also interesting, then bad memories are forgotten, and their place is taken by the joy of new experiences.

Play some sports

Exercise is the best way to relieve tension. If possible, you should go to the gym; in addition to emotional release, there is an exchange of energies and communication.

A morning or evening run will improve your physical and mental health. Many cities have free outdoor gyms that are better than stuffy gyms.

Get creative

Creativity is medicine for the soul; it allows you to understand that you should not underestimate yourself. The picture depicts anything. Handicraft teaches patience and gives excellent results. Dancing releases negativity and makes you happy.

Journey

You don’t have to go abroad; you can travel around your own country. There are many places in our homeland that will allow you to discover unusual and interesting things. Dating and communicating with strangers is an opportunity to discover something new in yourself, to realize that life is unique, and you shouldn’t get hung up on problems.

Technique "Thickening colors"

One can imagine the current situation in an even worse scenario. This makes it possible to understand that, in fact, what already exists is not so bad. For example, wages are very small, but what if they were even lower? And the thought already arises that it is not so small. Yes, this will not make it bigger, but the emotional perception of the fact itself will change.

Melancholy consumes, it is important to realize in time the impossibility of changing its cause and stop yourself. If the situation cannot be resolved, you need to let it go. Depending on the factors that provoked the appearance of melancholy, over time, either a solution will appear, or the once exciting event will be forgotten, and life will go on as usual. A person decides for himself how to live, the main thing is to remember this.

If you don’t want to give up and are ready to really, and not in words, fight for your full and happy life, you may be interested in this article .

In Vasmer Max's dictionary

melancholy dreary “dreary”, blr. toskníts “to yearn, to grieve”, Old Russian. taska “embarrassment; grief, sadness; anxiety, excitement” (Srezn. III, 1057), tslav. състъзнѫти ἀγανακτεῖν, Czech. teskný “fearful”, tesklivý “fearful, dreary”, slvts. tesklivý, Old Polish. teskny, teskliwy, along with sknu, ckliwy, Polish. tęskny, with a secondary nasal (see Los, Gr. polska 1, 27). Praslav. *tъska; the nasal cannot be reconstructed on the basis of late Polish. forms, contrary to Mikkola (Berühr. 171; BB 22, 254), Vondrak (BB 29, 211), Pedersen (KZ 38, 395); see Elk, ibid., 60. Possibly, associated with skinny; see Brückner 570; Golub – Kopechny 383 et seq.

Victoria: “In one word – annoyance”

“I almost died at the age of 13, I took the wrong medications.” In one word, it’s a nuisance. In one sentence, “I’m still dying.” If a few hours ago there was still a chance to fix something, to kick the ass of offenders at school or camp, there was a tiny chance to kiss a boy, there was a chance to overcome your problems and become a real beauty by the age of 16, but now it’s gone. But she perceived it somehow calmly, without a jerk, without crying: just even, very strong annoyance. “I’ll never again...” And I also really wanted to go home, where there were still garlands on the windows from the New Year, and I really wanted some kind of Christmas drink. When the medicine was taken out of my stomach, I was so happy, I was ready to sing and scream with happiness, even if I was forbidden to walk and move. It was so wonderful that life gave me another chance, it cannot be described in words. It’s as if they scared you that everything would be taken away, and then they returned it - and you are already so inspired for life ahead and ready for new achievements.

In Dahl's dictionary

and. (cramp?) oppression of spirit, languor of soul, painful sadness; mental anxiety, anxiety, fear, boredom, grief, sadness, heartache, grief. Homesickness sometimes turns into a physical illness, with a debilitating fever. Melancholy takes in looking at him and bothers him. Mad melancholy! out of boredom, idleness. A lot of melancholy attacked, song, olon. How an evil melancholy lay in my heart, the song. Drink - the melancholy will pass! There is not a piece of bread, there is melancholy everywhere (approx. There is a land of bread, and there is paradise under the spruce tree). I was so sad that I wouldn’t let go of the piece! It’s beautiful, but my stomach is sad. To yearn, sit down. novg. olon. arch. to be sad and sad, psk. hard vomit app. to ache for something in your soul, to be very sad, to be bored, to grieve inconsolably, to be withered in heart, to grieve, to languish; | to suffer from pain, to suffer from bodily illness. The mother misses her son, and the wife misses and misses her husband. On Theodora, the dead yearn for the earth, January 26. Longing, action. or condition according to verb. Dreary, prone to melancholy, yearning. | Dreary weather is music that instills melancholy or boredom. - a look of sadness and joylessness. The patient groans sadly. It's a sad tune. -ness, property, condition according to adj. A yearning person, -nitsa, yearning, -nya, who yearns greatly for a long time. | Toscugna, eagle. Kaluga Kryatun raven, Russian thief. Get bored old. (Academy Dictionary: strive, try; it seems more correct) to yearn for something, sadly, jealously seek something. It makes me sick to die for the Russian land, chronicle. To hang around, psk. impersonal to yearn, to be bored. Something makes me sad.

Timur: “Just in case, I said to the sun: “Farewell!”

“I ended up on the operating table after an unsuccessful sled ride as a child. A coat and T-shirt pierced on a living body, really bloody holes, pieces of wood that were behind the sled sticking out of my stomach, a state of shock and 7 hours of surgery. Nothing special, I remember before the operation they gave me an injection into a vein, I looked out the window and saw the sun. Just in case, I told him: “Goodbye” and began to wait for the effect of the anesthesia. It hurt, and I thought to myself: I’d rather be in the dark and not feel anything. Even now I’m afraid to ask how my parents felt.