What is that sad feeling?

[AnonyMouseToday]

You know, a kind of weird empty feeling when you just feel sad for no reason? I have it now. My son gets it sometimes. There doesn't seem to be a reason. I'm not actually feeling sad about anything. It's more a physical sadness.

Do u ever experience this and know what I'm talking about? Could there b a physical reason? Like low iron or blood sugar or something?

I hate it!!

Actually here is a link: www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-languishing-5181172

My very earliest memory is sitting on the stairs, trying to tie my shoelace, and feeling this way.

Sadness, emptiness... I think I was genuinely just very sad. Childhood experiences definitely have a physical effect on brain development.

Yes that heavy melancholy feeling where you're not sure what would actually help you feel better. I get this and take myself off to bed like a sickly Victorian and cry/gaze out the window. DH is confused by it so I think some people never really experience it. I also have bipolar but it's not like an episode of proper depression is it? Doesn't last as long.

I always think of it as melancholy. I’m not sure if that’s the right word but it’s the one I always use for this feeling.

Annoyingly I sometimes get it on holidays even if I’m having a lovely time

My lay persons theory is that it must be related to serotonin drops and surges (I also get sudden feelings of warmth and contentment out of nowhere too) A bit like how drugs alter the chemical balance, some people's naturally fluctuates. That would explain why exercise helps some people.

The sad times make the happy times feel so much better. I try not to over analyse the down days and just ride them out until the good days come around again. Exercise really helps me so I know it’s just a chemical lack of endorphins.

I can identify with what all the other posters are saying. But that fact you say your son gets it too Immediately makes me think of the icky sadness…. Not the limbo of what I think of as hormonal sadness. Which is definitely something that isn’t spoken about enough and seems to effect most of us even if we don’t talk about it.

Eurgh, I hate that feeling. I get it when change happens, even if I desperately wanted the bloody change! So first day of holidays, when furniture is put back after a redecoration, coming home from a long but lovely day out, always on Christmas evening and often on my birthday, like what the hell? I'm Welsh so I've always known it as hiraeth but mostly due to having no other explanation.

Melancholy. The Romantics had great regard for it - Keats wrote about it and suggested revelling in it, or at least rolling with it, which isn't bad advice, really. I love Ode on Melancholy.

Yes! Had this my entire life. The strangest things will set it off. As a child if I was lying in bed and I heard an aeroplane fly overhead I would feel this sadness in the very pit of my stomach. I do also get strong feelings of contentment/love that come from out of nowhere.

I get this too, since I was a teenager (post menopausal now). Tended to think it was a hormonal/ blood sugar/ energy crash. Feels like true existential dread/ loneliness. It is horrible - makes me feel vulnerable and sad. Reading this makes me think, perhaps we really are all connected, and we feel waves of pain washing through the universe? To be fair, I get joy as well.

@theshadeofgreen me too, always feel so sad on any special occasion when it actually comes

I have this feeling right now, I never really thought about it before, it's just a weird uneasy feeling of being unable to concentrate or find any enjoyment in anything. Always in the evening and can never pinpoint any cause.

I get the deja vu thing even now. It used to freak me out but they're fairly infrequent and I've got used to them now.

The feeling that there's something missing, restlessness and being under a cloud is awful.

I think I get this.. like deep sympathy/empathy, sadness and guilt all in one. As if you can see that deep down everyone is struggling, we’re all just trying our best, but inevitably getting it wrong…

Like you see how precious and pure life is and it makes you want to weep. Somehow strips you back.

Christmas, last day of a holiday, sleeping at someone else’s house, old people… all triggers for me.

The word I know to describe this feeling of melancholy is ‘Saudade’ - I’ve only experienced it a couple of times but unfortunately my DD feels it more often.

YY to birthdays too and totally know that pit of stomach feeling.

This is really interesting, and I can identify with this myself, it is hard to pinpoint when it would most likely happen, but I think maybe when I have been looking forward to a day off and then the day arrives, and I start feeling worried that I aren't making the most of it. Sometimes it stems from procrastination which I then feel guilty about and it becomes a vicious circle.

Used to get it on Sunday evenings when the 'open all hours' music came on' - I hated school.

I join with others in recognising this too.

It's often linked to actual events that are causes for sadness, but the deep despairing feeling is often exacerbated by tiredness, overwork, and isolation - and hormones (yes to perimenopause!) too.

A possible (tho not strong enough) term is ennui

Thank you for that. How interesting. Language is amazing.

I can identify with this too. Apparently low vitamin D levels can exacerbate the feeling.

Meloncholy

Melancholy moments. I quite like that. Might use it (partly because my Welsh accent is rubbish so I can't say the Welsh word from upthread!)

I wonder if it is connected to our body sensing loss of someone/ something but our brain isn’t aware of it /has blocked it out of our current awareness?

I get that too. I tend to find me it’s when my routine is off. I’m a person who loves routine. I find annual leave hard unless I go away, I crave my routine to be back to normal