Sitting with sadness doesn’t mean giving in to the sadness
By Dr. Joy Ippolito, American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact Investment Director
In the darkness of night, it’s not just about surviving until morning. It’s about learning what the darkness teaches us that the dawn does not.
I wrote these words to myself about a year ago, as I reflected on all I had learned, as I healed from years of trauma and built a new way of life for myself. While I had devoted a large portion of my life to understanding mental health and trauma through my clinical and academic training, it was the personal experiences that made it more than just something I read about in a book or learned through a training video.
I have experienced many difficult moments over the last decade. While I often felt driven to just get through it, some of the most valuable lessons I learned about myself, and life in general, seemingly were during the darkest times. These lessons have not always come easily. Learning to care for your mental health is very much a lifelong marathon to keep your heart and mind in peak shape.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that taking care of your mental health is not simply about re-framing everything positively. It’s about confronting the difficult moments, too. To be sure, taking breaks from work (and your family!), going for walks, eating healthy, finding creative ways to socially connect with others, and getting enough sleep are all very important actions we need to take for ourselves — now more than ever. But it is just as important to be mindful of the sadness and anxiety you might be feeling.
Sometimes going for a walk or talking to a friend will dispel the negativity, but sometimes it won’t. When that happens, it doesn’t mean we are deficient in some way; it just means we are human. Even if you are just going about your business and not feeling any negativity, our bodies are pretty good at giving us signals when we are stressed. We just need to be prepared to listen to them.
Last week, my left eye was involuntarily twitching for several hours. Ignoring it didn’t make it go away. I stepped away from my computer — and the news. It still didn’t stop. Taking my dog for a long walk didn’t end the annoying twitching either.
What finally stopped it was sitting down and recognizing that I was worried about my family and friends. My father was moved to hospice last month, a product of his progressing dementia and a near fatal case of septic shock. The new restrictions on nursing homes and the stay-at-home orders of several states mean that I can’t visit with him or my family.
Earlier that day, I learned that my uncle and beloved godfather was also moved to hospice several states away. I would not be able to see him either. My mother has only recently beaten breast cancer but remains on numerous drug therapies to keep it from returning; she reported feeling unwell and my mind went racing.
I have extended family and friends in healthcare, who now find themselves on the COVID-19 front lines of an invisible battle against a virus wreaking havoc on people and markets. I was concerned for them, too.
Several of my artist and service industry friends were posting on social media about their dire financial situations. I felt their pain. I recalled my own struggles of living paycheck to paycheck to survive throughout my 20s and into my mid-30s, realizing I would very likely be in a similar place if this had all happened a decade earlier.
My anxieties may not be yours. You can replace any one of them with your own personal realities. Some are wondering how they are going to survive another meltdown with their child while they are trying to fumble through leading a meeting on a slow Zoom connection. Some are trying to figure out how to add “teacher” to the multiple hats they wear as parents every day while not burning breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Some are shifting around priorities and bills, figuring out how to make ends meet without any sense of when this will end.
Some are heartbroken over having to let their staff members go, not knowing if their small business will survive this pandemic.
Some are isolated and unable to have someone to hold their hand or give them a hug when they feel down.
Some are mourning the loss of family and friends and are unable to engage in the ritual of memorials and funerals that many of us find comforting. And so many other unspoken anxieties about where this pandemic will take each one of us.
During my clinical training, we often talked about sitting with silence. The intent was not to try and fill up the silent moments of a therapy session simply because the client wasn’t talking. Sometimes there isn’t anything to say that will make the situation better. Sometimes it’s simply about giving time and holding space for an emotion to be said, heard, and felt.
Over time I’ve adapted that to my own personal mantra of “sitting with sadness”.
Sitting with sadness doesn’t mean giving in to the sadness.
Sometimes we just need to stop what we are doing, sit down, and acknowledge that it is there. Whether that’s on your couch or escaping into the bathroom for five minutes so you can be alone, it’s important that we feel the sad feelings as much as relish the happy ones.
It’s okay to cry and get angry — so long as you can let those emotions out without hurting yourself or others. And if you feel like they are too strong to let out, if you are afraid that once they are out you can’t put them back in, then reach out and talk to a professional who can help you work through them.
If someone was having chest pains, we would tell them to go to a doctor, because ignoring those symptoms could have dire consequences. Likewise, we cannot disregard the symptoms in our heads. Our mental health is just as important as our physical health, and there are all sorts of tools, coaches, and clinical professionals to help us through it.
After sitting with and acknowledging the things that were weighing on my mind and getting a good night’s sleep, the eye twitching went away. The reality of the situation is still there. My family members are still sick. There is still a pandemic raging about. I still need to isolate and maintain six feet of social distance when I walk my dog. But giving a name and a voice to what I was feeling was enough to get back up and keep going.
By the end of the week, I paid it forward by showing up to my team’s daily morning check-in wearing a cotton-candy colored wig, much to their amusement. At lunchtime I threw a Facebook live dance-party-of-one for my friends, to bring them some carefree happiness. By evening I was catching up with multiple friends over FaceTime and virtually clinking a glass of wine. I went to bed feeling content.
The darkness and the light will continue to coexist. We all very much need to train for a mental health marathon in the coming days, weeks, and months and not underestimate the toll this will have on how we live.
Whether we go back to the way things were before, all our lives in some way will have changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There will be days that feel overwhelming. There will be days that feel amazing. And most days will be somewhere in-between.
The most important thing is to be kind to yourself and others; even if it’s only for a brief few minutes, take the time to feel what you’re feeling each day. Lean on your friends and family when you need to and be there for them in return. And never be afraid to reach out to a professional if what you are feeling and experiencing feels too overwhelming to handle on your own.
We’re all in this together. And we’ll survive it, together.
Dr. Joy Ippolito is a Social Impact Investment Director for the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact looking for innovative mental health companies that help youth thrive.
She was the first Anti-Human Trafficking Coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families and has nearly two decades of experience as a former clinical social worker and academic researcher at Harvard and the University of Chicago.
