I feel sad all the time.

emi39 — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 04:45:52 GMT

I'm 21, I feel sad, and panicky, and stressed and sick all the time. My family shrugs it off because 'mental health doesn't exist, we didn't have it back in my day.' I get dismissed because it's not physical. I've been struggling for the past 10+ years. It's been worse right now. I try everyday to get better and I do everything I can, but they always say I never do enough. They just watch me, but then say 'it's unfair if you kill yourself because you're not thinking about the people around you.' They never think of how I feel. I've been in so much pain, it hurts all the time and no one listens.

I'm trying to so hard, but so hard is never enough. Especially when you're stuck with people who only care about themselves. Every time they have a problem, I make it my problem too, so they don't have to carry a burden, but when it's me, they just give me more problems that they make me deal with alone.

I just wish one good thing would happen, but everything always goes wrong or gets worse.

Re: I feel sad all the time.

therising — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 14:10:21 GMT

Hi emi39

My heart goes out to you so much as you try so hard to manage being the 'feeler' of the family or the 'sensitive'.

Just about every family has their key 'feeler' or 'sensitive'. It's the person who feels and senses the most. They're typically labeled as 'The black sheep of the family' or 'The odd one out'. In fact, they are the person who has one of the greatest abilities of the family. I think a lot of the problems can come down to how to manage and master such an ability. It definitely pays to connect with other feelers/sensitives. This way, you're not feeling or sensing alone. You can start to realise 'I'm not imagining all this'. For example, you could have someone say something thoroughly degrading to you and you can feel the putdown. Someone who's a feeler will say 'Did you feel that?!', whereas another person may say 'You're just too sensitive. You're just imagining things'. When you find people who can feel/sense as easily and as strongly as you can, it's a definite confidence booster. You become a part of a group of people with the same ability.

When someone says 'Mental health doesn't exist, we didn't have it back in my day', my response to that would be 'Yes, you did have mental challenges but you were perhaps conditioned to become desensitised to them, something you've possibly forgotten'. You could be super cheeky and add 'Perhaps this helps explain your insensitivity now. Have you ever stopped to wonder why you can't feel for me? Do you think it's because you're emotionally switched off?'.

Staying switched on does come with a huge number of challenges. Managing the volume of what you're feeling can require mastering the volume dial, knowing how to dial emotions or feelings down or even up when you need to. Frequency becomes another thing to manage. How often we feel becomes a factor that can lead to overwhelm. If we're feeling all the time, there's no break. This can wreak havoc on our nervous system, as we feel largely through that system, a system connected to other energy systems in the body (vascular, muscular, endocrine etc). We're an absolute powerhouse of energy. How we manage and master that energy can determine what kind of manager and master we become. Mental, emotional and physical are definitely tied in together, which can explain why our thoughts and feelings can give us a sense of dis-ease or eventual physical disease. Next time you think 'I'm sick of my family's attitude', throw a 'because' in there. 'I'm sick because of my family's attitude. They're part of the cause of my sickening level of unease'.

If you were to google 'The challenges of being an empath', I wonder how much you'd be able to relate to. I imagine quite a bit. I imagine you'd also be able to find some helpful tips when it comes to managing being able to feel/sense so much. You have a great ability that your family, by the sound of it, see as a fault. You're ability to feel/sense is not your fault. Their refusal to address your need for guidance, greater self understanding and self mastery is their fault or flaw. I should add that with greater confidence a feeler/sensitive can become rather challenging and sassy: 'You do realise I can feel exactly what you're saying to me. I can sense the shut down and the put down'. If that's met with 'What are you talking about? You're imagining things', to that I would say 'Oh no, I've learned to trust what I feel and I know a put down when I sense one. My question is 'Why can't you sense it?''😁

emi39, I sense your deep heartbreak and it's time to fully love yourself back to life. Finding the people who are going to help you do that is key to unlocking the way forward.❤️

topic I feel sad all the time. in Depression

I feel sad all the time.

Re: I feel sad all the time.