Humans 101
When Feeling Bad Starts to Feel Good
Five ways to get unstuck and reclaim your mojo
It’s easy to feel down these days, especially with the pandemic looming over us with no clear end in sight.
I’ve had bouts of situational depression brought on by deaths, breakups, job loss, and divorce. Like most people, I’ve gone through what psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross deemed the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
And, like many people, I had times where I wallowed in depression longer than necessary — soaking in it like warm bathwater. I invented good reasons to linger in the negativity. I could plan revenge, write heartwrenching songs, torture myself with guilt, and keep myself busy digging deeper into my sad little hole.
It was a convenient excuse to do nothing. This depressing place welcomed me. I could shut out the world and feel the weight of grief pressing down on me, holding me like a dark angel.
It’s not uncommon for people to experience some solace in feeling down. According to David Sack, MD:
There is a theory that people like negative feelings. A study by Eduardo Andrade and Joel Cohen, which evaluated why people enjoy horror movies, concluded that some viewers are happy…
