The sad returned.
It took me a few days of being anxious around my family and quietly seeking isolation before I realized that I was sad. I know that sounds a little silly, but if you’ve been here for a while, you’ll know that I can accidentally disconnect from myself pretty easily.
That means I’ve had to learn how to recognize my emotions on purpose. Most of the time, they aren’t loud enough to notice until they’re too loud. I’m still learning that, even a year and a half later. I still have to pause and check in to make sure I’m awake inside my own skin.
It didn’t surprise me when it came back. One of the hardest truths about healing is that some things do not disappear for good. You do not graduate from them. You do not wake up one day untouched.
What really happens is quieter than that.
You strengthen your ability to hold it. To move through it. To make your way back to steady again.
So what will I do about this round of sadness?
I will go back to what I learned in the hospital.
I will sit with the feeling safely. I will try to find where it lives in my body. Behind my collarbone this time. I will check what thoughts are sitting beside it. Usually, my mind is quiet at first, but I still look.
Then I refocus on what is around me. The sounds in the room. The weight of my feet on the floor. The warmth in my hands.
I am not disconnecting from the emotion. I am staying in the world while I let it exist.
It will not be easy this time. I can feel that already.
I will need my grounding ritual. Tea. Hands wrapped around the mug. I might curl up with my weighted bee and blanket. I will need to notice the pull toward isolation and find the balance between healthy alone time and staying supported.
I will spend more time in my Bible and in prayer. Not to make the feeling disappear or to force it into something holy, but to support myself while I move through it.
Eventually, my thoughts will tell me why I am sad.
When they do, I will check the facts. Not to argue with myself. Not to shame the thoughts. Just to offer context. My mind can slip into self-pity. It can anxiously assume what everyone else is feeling. Sometimes evidence helps. Sometimes it does not. But the practice still matters.
I usually do that part in my journal. Sometimes I pull Scripture that steadies me.
Life does not pause while I am doing all this. The only way I know how to live through it is with self-awareness. Making sure I am okay while I keep showing up to my life.
Sometimes that means more bodily check-ins.
Sometimes it means music that keeps me grounded.
Mostly, it means lowering my expectations of myself and allowing myself to rest.
This stage of healing is work. Carrying the weight instead of shoving it away takes energy.
An episode like this might last a day. It might last a month. There is no real way to predict it.
We cannot force feelings to leave.
We cannot label them as bad and expect that to help.
We learn to feel.
And we learn to live.
I have shared a lot about healing lately. In my post on feeling your feelings, I explored what healing really requires. This is what that looks like outside of crisis.
This is my day-to-day.
Sometimes I get long stretches of light before the sad returns. Sometimes it circles back sooner than I would like.
But I know how to stay grounded now.
And the pain no longer gets to define my world.
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