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I wish to discuss the methods in which to deal with sadness or grief. Many people believe sadness would best be met with a positive outlook, of course, but what is truly the best way to deal with these feelings?

Take death for example. A friend or family member passes away and you are standing there aimlessly in the hall with other people you know awaiting the beginning of the funeral services. You know everyone there is sad.

Then, you pay closer attention to the people there. Some are aloof in the corner without a tear stain in sight. Some are moving about the crowds hugging and repeating over and over to deaf ears "It's ok. . .", and some merely appear like victims with uncotrollable tears and heavy breathing.

What is the best way to deal? And then there is the aftermath.
Many people write their feelings out, or express themselves by involving themselves into social situations, or releasing the pressure through physical pain/activity.

So, I ask, weigh the pros and the cons of different strategies. Yes, all people are different and handle pain differently, but what I'm asking is for you to make a well-educated guess.

So discuss please:
-the pros and cons of different approaches {your opinion on which is best}
-anything to do with your theories/opinions on the phsycological influence of deep sorrow, guilt, or grief.

heart heart heart
Be nice, this is my first ED worthy topic.

Well, I'm going through a very sad situation in my life right now, and I have different ways of coping.
1.Whenever there's other people around, like my mom or dad, because it's a family issue, I keep a straight, emotionless face. I let my sadness stew until I can get it out on my own. The good thing for me about that is because I'm generally not a person to cry infront of people. I have a pride issue. I have cried many times before infront of people, because sometimes it just HAS to come out, but I always feel really bad about doing so. The negative is that it doesn't last. I will eventually have to bring down the floodgates, I can't just keep a straight face for too long. It's only a momentary state, and it doesn't really count as a solution to sadness because the sadness still boils within me.
2.I break down and sob my eyes out. I just cry and cry until there's no more will inside me to cry. Hopefully, I do this alone, but if the sadness is too great, then I'll break down like this infront of people and afterwards I'll feel crappy. The good thing about crying is that it usually gets out a good amount of emotional build up. The bad thing about just crying is that I'm not guaranteed to feel better afterwards. I don't usually cry my eyes out and then go, "Ok, I'm better now biggrin ". After crying I'm always left with something still hanging around in my system.
3.Once and while, depending on the situation, I'll talk it over. For example, I was talking to my friends (this was in 9th grade), and we had discovered some deep drama going on in livejournal. I had put my trust in this one girl and this one guy and they were talking crap and judging me adn my friends. My one friend always gets angry and not sad, but I always react with sadness. It got so intense that I started sobbing over the phone. After I was done sobbing I was filled with a passionate rage. I ranted and ranted and ranted about everything! I got everything I was thinking out on the telephone! I was walking back and forth and preaching about every evil of gossip that was in my mind! The good thing about this was, I got to express what my mind was thinking (not just my emotions, but my actual thoughts) without leaving the thoughts to spoil in my head. The bad thing about this was that while my friends were listening, there's times when I want to do this, but can't because of the circumstances.
4.I'll draw my emotions on paper. I'm an artist, so this is a natural response for me. Even before I was really good at drawing; before I wanted to be an artist, whenever I got sad I would always draw tears on any sheet of paper I could get my hands on. Since I was depressed in 9th grade, whenever I look back on worksheets, tests, and notes, there's always little tears drawn in, people crying, or sad lyrics drawn in fancy typography. Now that I'm better at art, there can be full pieces showing sadness, anger, or whatever emotion I'm feeling. I started an angry picture today because I was feeling really upset at myself. The good thing about this is that I can get out whatever emotion is left in my system after crying, and it usually makes a nice piece of art. There is no negative to this method for me.
5. I'll listen to music. The music usually fits my mood. I just feel better listening to music that expresses what I'm feeling inside of me. I think it's nice to hear my emotions musically. I hardly ever listen to happy music when I'm sad. Happy music just makes me feel annoyed when I'm sad. If someone else plays happy music while I'm sad, I always feel like saying, "Shut that crap off!" because it just starts to irritate me. The good thing about this is that I get to connect wiht something, and while that doesn't always make me feel happy, it puts me into a calm state where I can try and go on without having the sadness tear away at me. the negative is that it doesn't make me feel happy, but that's an okay negative for me, because it's usually impossible for me to feel happy anyway after a period of extreme sadness.
6. I used to pray. Praying always gets me through sadness. It take that whole burden off my shoulders. I said, "used to" because the last time I was really sad I didn't pray. I used to be on fire for God, but I 've kinda slipped away recently. I might pray the next time I get sad, if I think to pray, but if the idea slips out my mind, then I might not. But as I remember, prayer was the one thing that I could almost feel happy after. It gave me a deep sense of peace. After sadness, I always look for the feeling of peace. Drawing and music takes longer for me to get the peace, and whenever I do the peace, it feels more shallow than the peace of God. Now that I think about it, I should pray more often, but I'm a pretty lazy Christian, so I can't count on myself to remember to pray. The postives are the nice peaceful feeling that always follows and the joy I get from being closer to God. I never pray in a bad way, so there's never any negatives to when I pray. Never.
I think the drawing thing is my favorite, since I can do it where ever I go, and it's a quick fix for me to let all of my emotions out. (I can do it where ever because I always carry a small pad of paper and a pencil everywhere with me.) Usually I'll listen to music while I'm drawing, if the music's available. If it's a really sad situation, I'll cry alone, then once my tears have dried, I'll put on some music and start drawing, and if I remember, I might pray after crying my eyes out. There's nothing like a really hopeless situation to get me closer to God.
-I'm not a psychology major, so I don't think I have any good insight on the psychological influence of sadness. Sorry.

*Edit*
I forgot to add that gorging on food makes me feel better. The postive of over eating is that it makes me feel happy if the food is good. The negative is that it's unhealthy for me, but since I'm young with an extremely fast metabolism, so it doens't hurt me that much.
Shopping also makes me feel better. The postive is getting new things, but the negative is the impact on my wallet!
But I don't always do these things, so drawing and prayer are my best solutions to sadness.

Good thread!
Sorry my post got so long, there was just a lot for me to talk about!

**Edits one more time**
I can't believe I forgot to put down playing the guitar! Whenever I'm sad and I play the guitar it calms me down. The postives are that I get that good peaceful feeling and I get to get better at playing the guitar. The negative is that sometimes I don't always get to play my guitar and it isnn't the deep peaceful feeling I get like when I'm praying.

There was a lot of personal experiences you mentioned that I tried to take into account but couldn't get a grip on (like gaining relief through prayer). You explained it very well biggrin , thank you.
Your personal views are wonderful though. You have many different methods, and that's good. They seem to be working for you. biggrin

Yeah, I know, it did seem kinda rude, but you have to take into an account that not everyone can reply to everything. Sometimes you just can't respond to some threads or don't have the time to. Like, I haven't responded to the one about Hispanics yet because I don't know what to say. He's offline right now, so if he didn't respond because of time, then htere's always a chance he'll repsond sometime later.
I don't think responding to two different posts with different posts is considered dounble posting, because there directed at two completely different things, which takes away the annoyance factor. But then again, I could be wrong.

Offer? (at the second post) This seems more like sharing, since in order to explain how one deals with emotions an example is typically used to illustrate the point. I know thats how I tend to explain myself when I have emotional moments.

To begin with, even though commonly considered bad emotions, are thought by some people to be completely bad for one's health I disagree. In my opinion expierences the deepest thralls of agony are essential to understand the highest good emotions. To talk a little abstractly, about love. Starting with the first time a person "falls in love" each consequetive time isn't that love feeling bigger? At first love starts small and isn't well understood, then as you progress and add more people to the 'have loved' list at some point in reflection I think you can understand what you were feeling with more clariety. Its like you learn to love more each time you fall (in love).

I think the same can be applied to negative emotions. A little kid may cry and cry about a skinned knee, but it takes more to make an adult cry and cry then a skinned knee (adult meaning here someone with emotional expeirences...). That kind of progress seems esential to me. I know I would think someone who was twenty years old and really crying over a skinned knee would be silly; or I might think they have been seriously deprived of expierences.

Being able to feel such deep agony must mean being able to feel joy just as deep. In my little theory anyway, that more emotional depth and expierences leads to stronger feelings. I must also add that the best way I have found with dealings with emotions too much for me was just cuddling with my cat or being hugged by my boyfriend. There is something about physical contact and trusting someone that feels so good. Before I had either my cat or my boyfriend it took me a lot longer to come to terms with any strong emotions I had.

(no matter how I tried I couldn't make this post short >.< I hope I wasn't redundant)

My reaction had nothing to do with you being captain, just being rude. sweatdrop Thank you for the advice though.
You don't have healthy ways of dealing? What would deem them unhealthy in your eyes? Just curious.

Thank you. The argument with most people on the worst of dealing is that physical [removed](such as cutting) is the worst deal. However, I agree with you.