The Kind of Sadness We Don’t Name

Maybe it’s the change of seasons that made me think of this specific topic.
Sadness.

And how present it can be in the room, even when it isn’t named out loud.
I’ve noticed how even in therapy, people don’t always say “I’m sad.”
They’ll say “I’m angry,” “I’m anxious,” “I’m depressed.”
Sometimes they cry, sometimes they go quiet.
And yet, acknowledging it can be such an important first step.

Sometimes sadness just shows up and doesn’t leave.
Even when things are technically getting better.
You’re sleeping more, eating again, showing up for work, laughing a bit.
And yet, underneath it all, there’s still that heaviness. It’s almost like a quiet weight behind the ribs that doesn’t move easily.

We don’t always know what it’s about. And that can be the hardest part.
We start to look for reasons, to make sense of it, but sometimes there aren’t any.

The world doesn’t make much space for that kind of sadness either.
We’re told to work on ourselves, to stay positive, to find the lesson.
But what if it’s not about fixing anything?
What if sadness is just part of being alive.

I think about how often we try to escape it.
The endless scrolling, the binge-watching, the background noise. Basically, anything to fill the pause.
I wonder if a part of us is simply afraid that if we stop,
if we actually let ourselves feel it, the sadness will swallow us whole.
But it usually doesn’t.
Most of the time, when we stop running, it softens just a little.

In therapy, the work isn’t always to get rid of sadness.
Sometimes it’s just learning how to sit with it without panicking.
To notice the small things.
How it feels in the body, what it might be trying to say.
To remember that it won’t erase you if you let it be there.

We don’t need to romanticize it.
But we also don’t need to rush past it.
Sadness is part of being human.
It doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
It just means you’re feeling something real.

And maybe, for now, that’s enough.