Thread: When i am recovering from overwhelming sadness...

Lmao, I've noticed that too. The more you cry, the better you feel afterward. When I was little and I scraped my knees or whatever, I'd start crying a little and then start thinking of random things that would make me sad just so I could cry harder.

lol

It's called euphoria. It usually manifests itself as exaggerated reactions and higher tendency to find things funny or likeable. It happens in many situations.

It could be that the relief from stress provokes the feeling.

Or it could be that the brain uses euphoria to get rid of its previous emotional state. Curious fact: many people who suffer of depression exhibit an 'Euphoric defense', in which they overreact, laugh at minimal things, and make megalomaniac plans. It's also the basis of the Bipolar disorder, in which a person swings between depression and euphoria. The thing is, sadness has an effect in our brain just as pain has: we are programmed to avoid things that make us sad just like we avoid things that hurt. Avoiding sadness can happen in many ways, but usually building yourself a delusion is what works best. Fun fact: euphoria is also why the evil tyrantt laughs madly when he is about to be finished (aka his moment of desperation), again as a defense.

Heck, I can't believe I'm posting again on Dreamviews...

Usually after I blow up (I kind of consider it the same thing as overwhelming sadness since sometimes I get angry enough that it's really just an explosion of negative emotion--sadness, anger, frustration, etc. Although, it does not happen often), I feel almost emotionally numb. Things do not make me happy, sad, angry, etc. I'm placid, but not quite even that because I feel nothing rather than calmness. It isn't bad really, but I do not experience euphoria or anything like that, just numbness. It's kind of cool, now that I think about it.

Originally Posted by snoop

Usually after I blow up (I kind of consider it the same thing as overwhelming sadness since sometimes I get angry enough that it's really just an explosion of negative emotion--sadness, anger, frustration, etc. Although, it does not happen often), I feel almost emotionally numb. Things do not make me happy, sad, angry, etc. I'm placid, but not quite even that because I feel nothing rather than calmness. It isn't bad really, but I do not experience euphoria or anything like that, just numbness. It's kind of cool, now that I think about it.

I can relate to this. Oddly enough, it's the situation when I tend to get things done most easily because there's no inner critic anymore. The appraisal functions have shut down, and I can just do things without considering anything other than their physical component.