What is the sadness trap and how does it prevent you from leading a fulfilling life?

Alpina Publisher published the book “Emotions that control us” - about fear, sadness, anger, disgust, guilt, shame and happiness. Its author, practicing clinical psychologist Lawrence Howells, talks in detail about each emotion and explains that sometimes they can cause discomfort and lead to traps that interfere with life.

We are publishing an excerpt from the chapter “Sadness”, which describes the difficulties that can be experienced due to this emotion.

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The most common reaction to sadness is withdrawal. When we are sad, our energy disappears and decreases. motivation, we often want to be alone. This state performs an important vital function, helping to redefine priorities, strengthen connections with others and begin to lead a full and happy life. However, if we are not careful enough, we run the risk of becoming too distant, isolating ourselves from others, and cutting off all the threads leading to other people. Excessive detachment can lead to an increase in feelings of loss and awareness of one's own limitations through two processes: catastrophizing and generalization.

Catastrophization

Sadness seriously affects our thinking. When we feel sad, we more often remember negative events from the past, becoming pessimistic. looking to the future and are skeptical about our abilities. If you withdraw too much and spend too much time thinking, the losses will seem more serious and the limitations will seem more significant. Excessive detachment leads to catastrophizing of losses and limitations.

Generalization

Redundant moving away, we may end up losing more and limiting our options more than we otherwise would. When we distance ourselves from others because of the breakdown of one relationship, we lose not just one, but all connections. If we consider ourselves incapable of anything and stop trying to improve the situation, we become even less capable and generalize our limitations.

If left to chance, excessive detachment can trap us in a vicious cycle of constantly a growing sense of loss and a sense of one's own limitations, exacerbating the experience of sadness and desire pull away. We will call this cycle the sadness trap.

Let's look at some examples of how the sadness trap works. […]

Jenny lived with her mother and sister. She always had a very busy life, and she liked that she managed everything successfully and did not sit idle. Jenny had a job she loved, she regularly met with friends and was a member of the local hockey team: she attended practices and regularly participated in matches.

However, over the past few months, Jenny began to lose motivation, communicate less often and spend more time at home. A couple of times she asked to leave work, simply because she couldn’t bring herself to go there, but the next day everything was getting better. Her feeling of depression gradually grew, and she became increasingly isolated from those around her. Even when she was invited somewhere, Jenny preferred to refuse, believing that she would not bring anyone joy with her sour appearance.

Over time, Jenny began to neglect her usual activities more often, met less with friends and missed hockey practices, and her manager began to worry about her frequent sick days. Jenny “lost faith in herself” and often thought that she had stopped coping with things at work and was no longer able to achieve success in hockey. She felt that she had changed and that she had neither the strength nor the ability to do everything as before.

Jenny's problems do not stem from any specific major loss, but from a loss of motivation that led to an increasing withdrawal from those around her. At the same time, her sadness gradually became deeper, and the feeling of loss and limited opportunities became stronger. The more she felt like she had changed and could no longer handle things the way she used to, the more depressed she became and the more withdrawn she became.

If previously Jenny led an active lifestyle, now she has lost many social contacts, stopped considering herself a businesswoman and productive person and began to feel that her capabilities were limited and that she was no longer able to do what she could do before. It may be difficult for Jenny to explain what happened to herself and others because the reason does not seem compelling enough to the appearance of such experiences, but her sadness, detachment, losses and limitations do not become less real. This is shown in Jenny's sadness trap.

Let's look at another example.

After 10 years of marriage, Kwame's wife suddenly told him she was leaving. A week later she really left, and Kwame felt devastated: as if his whole life had turned upside down overnight. For a long time he did not know what to do with himself, because he spent all his free time with his wife. He often wondered why she left, and went over his possible mistakes in his memory. Kwame did not know how to explain what had happened to his friends, and constantly put off meeting with them until the thought of such a meeting began to seem almost unbearable to him. He pulled away from household chores: dirty dishes were piling up in the kitchen, the apartment was not tidy, and he felt embarrassed to invite guests home.

When Kwame visited his mother, she accused him of being lazy and neglecting the house. She said it's time to stop mope and return to normal life, adding that she sees him less often because he upsets her. Kwame continued to work, but he began to feel like he was not doing well on his own. He began to think that perhaps he was lazy and not worth anyone's attention.

Events in Kwame's life left him despondent, and things only got worse from there. The sadness Kwame felt after his loss caused him to withdraw from his usual activities. Trying to understand the reason for the loss, he focused on his restrictions, catastrophizing them and increasing their sadness, which led to even greater withdrawal. This withdrawal into oneself provoked a generalization of losses, for example, a reduction in contacts with family and friends. His withdrawal from household chores supports the process of generalization of restrictions and fuels the feeling of helplessness.

The way Kwame sees himself and his limitations will likely cause him to experience shame: His wife abandoned him and he feels inferior. […]

In each of the above examples, the trap of sadness leads to a vicious circle: detachment increases, losses and restrictions become more and more, and the state of sadness worsens. Jenny and Kwame became too detached from everyday activities, and as a result, a process of catastrophizing and generalization of their losses and limitations began.

Jenny not only lost her close connection with friends and colleagues, but also strengthened her understanding of her own limitations, which began to affect all areas of her life. Kwame hasn't just lost his wife; trapped in grief, he feels he's lost friends, family, and self-confidence. In addition, he receives negative comments from others, for example from his mother.

Sadness becomes a problem when there is excessive detachment, which triggers processes of catastrophizing and generalization of our losses and limitations.

Exercise 2.4: Draw Your Sadness Trap

If you suspect you're stuck in a sadness trap, try drawing it.

Think about yours first losses. What prompted your condition? Have you lost something important? Or did you have to put up with something unwanted? If there is no specific reason, that's okay, move on to the next step.

Think about what you have lost over time? What do you not have now that you had before? How has your life changed since you began to realize this?

What did you distance yourself from? Have you stopped doing something? Have you reduced the number of meetings or stopped seeing some people? Has your communication style with others: perhaps you have become more reserved or withdrawn? Have you quietly withdrawn into yourself, ceasing to be active, or are you waiting for people to turn to you instead of reaching out to people yourself?

Now think about your limitations. How do you feel about yourself? Has your assessment of your abilities changed for the worse? What qualities or abilities are you lacking? What do you reproach yourself for and what shortcomings do you regret?

Think about how the different parts of the trap are connected so you don't miss anything.

How to get out of the sadness trap

The Sadness Trap shows what happens when we get caught in a vicious cycle. sadness, exclusion, losses and restrictions. It is necessary to understand this process in order to understand in what ways you can get out of the trap. The information presented here is based on the best available CBT evidence.

Reducing Excessive Disengagement: Getting More Active

The sadness trap demonstrates the connection between excessive detachment and increased losses and limitations. If we can reduce excessive suspension and become more active, the impact of this connection will decrease and we will gradually begin to emerge from the trap. Of course, this is much easier in theory than in practice, and becoming more active while trapped in sadness and in a terrible state of mind is incredibly difficult. Still, becoming more active is the most important way to feel better. This may not be enough without reinforcement in other ways, but it is a good start.

Increasing your activity is a key first step to breaking out of the sadness trap.

There are several stepsthings we can do to become more active, even if we don’t feel like doing it at all. This process is widely used CBT intervention, which showed good results and is known as behavioral activation. Exercise 2.5 will help you put these ideas into practice.

Exercise 2.5: Getting More Active

Keep a diary or chart to record their affairs during the week. It is best not to put off writing until later, since negative thinking in a state of sadness can distort memories of events for the worse. You can keep a diary or make a table with the days of the week and time of day (morning, afternoon, evening), or you can come up with another design method or use a special application.

Whatever you choose, be brief and write everything down as you go.

Take a look at your notes and analyze the number, categories, and order of your tasks. What do you need to work on? What needs to be done for change to happen? Think about whether you are doing too much or too little, [...] whether your time is structured enough.

Now, in the same way, based on the already prepared table, write down everything you want to do next week. Do not forget set small goals - this could be one or two minor adjustments to what you managed to do last week. Don't forget also that your goals must be specific: when, where, how and with whom you will do it. […]

Look at the compiled list. How does it make you feel? If this is optimism, the thought that this is quite real, then everything is fine. If you have difficult feelings and you don’t want to do all this, then you have set the bar too high for yourself and you need to simplify everything.

Analyze your diary every week while you work on your condition.

Setting Expectations

Why do you need to become more active at all? To become more active. Sometimes we become more active in the hope that let's feel betterthat those around us will leave us behind or that our brokenness will disappear. All of the above are long-term goals, not short-term goals. When we try to become more active and we succeed right now, this is already a success. Imagine a train rushing along the tracks. We can only control the locomotive - the cars simply follow it. This locomotive is our behavior, and it is behavior that we try to change. Our feelings, bodily sensations, our thoughts and the thoughts of others are carriages, and they simply follow behavior. Therefore, trying to become more active is already half the battle. The rest will follow a little later.

Activity Tracking

The next step is to keep track of the actions we are already doing. Do you remember how the mind works when we are sad? We obsess over details, remember negative experiences, expect the worst, and are skeptical about our abilities. All this means is that we will tend to devalue our actions and not take them seriously.

If we have been trapped in sadness for a long time, it will lead to catastrophizing of our losses and limitations.

By clearly monitoring our activity, we will be able to resist catastrophizing, realizing, for example, that we are doing much more than we think.

Problem solving

Once we understand what we are wasting our time on, the next task is to recognize our main problems. Most likely, we are withdrawn from various activities, but we need to understand all the details. Three things can help with this basic principles.

Optimal volume of activity

Usually, by being too detached, we do too little. However, the opposite can also happen: we immerse ourselves in work, leaving ourselves no time for other important things. There is a happy medium when we feel busy enough and at the same time find time for unplanned things or for possible rearrangements and changes in plans.

Balance of activities

Not all activities are created equal, and different activities meet different needs. Activities can be divided into three categories (RSU for short): those that bring Result (R); those that connect us with others (C); those that give us Pleasure (P). Performing actions that bring Result, not necessarily pleasant, but we feel satisfied afterwards. This can include a wide variety of activities: from washing dishes and cleaning before going to work. Actions that Tied up us with those around us, involve the involvement of other people: you can exchange a few words with someone in the store, chat with family or go to a party. Actions that bring Pleasure, we tend to perform to experience joy in the process. This could be walking, watching TV, reading or playing sports.

Of course, some activities can fall into several categories at once (for example, sports training can be classified into all three). In daily life, a balance between different activities is necessary.

Daily Routine

People value order and routine routine. The chaotic, unexpected world is beyond our control, but by following a routine and performing regular, repetitive actions, we feel that we can influence and control something. The sadness trap is associated with feeling limited, so sticking to a routine can help us feel more effective and competent. However, a balance is also needed here: following too strict routine, we may feel that we are suffocating and losing the freedom and joy of being.

Scheduling

By analyzing our daily activities and considering all three principles described above, we can understand what needs to be changed to improve the situation. If we are not active enough, we should try to become more active. However, at the same time, we must try to ensure that these are actions that give results, connect us with others and give us pleasure. If we do not find the right balance between them, behavioral activation will not be within our power.

The sadness trap catastrophizes our limitations and deprives us. faith in your abilities. Therefore, as we become more active, we must set small goals for ourselves so that we can achieve them. With some success, we can calibrate our beliefs about our abilities and reduce our sense of limitations.

It's better to set the bar too low and succeed than to set it too high and feel like a failure.

We also need to set ourselves specific goals: what exactly and when we want to do. Becoming more active is not easy, so granularity and clarity of goals and expectations play a very important role in achieving results.

A great way to see how balanced our to-do list is is to understand how it makes us feel. These feelings should be fairly positive, along the lines of “I think I can do it” or “This looks good.” If, when we look at this list, we feel depressed and give up, it means that we have overdone it and it needs to be adjusted or shortened.

The book “Emotions that Rule Us” will teach you how to cope with various uncomfortable emotional states. The author suggests using special exercises for this that will help get rid of feelings of guilt, tame fear and teach you to understand and accept your other emotions without unnecessary stress.

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