Patient Share on Sadness

I got sadness from Pixar’s Inside Out movie tattooed on me. Why? Because over the years I’ve conditioned myself to not feel sadness or accept sadness as an emotion. Because feeling sadness has caused me such trauma, loss & emptiness. I put up walls and retreat behind them when anything scary and sad happens. Because that’s what I’ve always done and I’m trying to make myself feel emotions and not bottle them up anymore. It’s easier said then done sometimes though.

Example: I am the manager where I work and sustained bad smoke damage a week ago. I didn’t know what was going to happen because of it. I’ve been used to my daily routine for almost a year now and that had all just been ripped away from me. I was scared and sad for my store. But since I’m the manager, I tried to play it “cool.” But I was barely holding it together, so I retreated behind my wall, and was trying not to feel my emotions or mourn the loss of my store. Which is what I really needed to do. When I finally was forced into that place, I cried and I sobbed about the loss of my store afterwards. I felt so much better. Like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It made me think of the scene from Inside Out when Joy realizes what Sadness’ purpose is and that you can’t have Joy without sadness. So this tattoo is a symbol of that for me, without sadness there would be no joy. Accepting sadness is hard, but I’ll get there.  

– Patient Danielle