INSIDE OUT: Why Sadness Matters, Especially After Trauma

Sadness matters. Especially after trauma. Every feeling matters—all the time. Feelings are normal and human. We all have them. Yet, do you – Fight them? Hide them? Feel Shame about them? Want to crawl under a table if they show? Peter Doctor’s Inside Out isn’t just a children’s movie. It’s for everyone who struggles with feelings.

The film begins as Inside Out introduces us to animated personifications we know as Joy. Sadness. Anger. Fear. And, Disgust.

For anyone who doesn’t like these feelings, you have reasons.

Were your feelings rejected as a child? That’s one reason. Shame is another. Shame is what Riley felt in Inside Out when she cried in class on her first day of school in San Francisco, and everyone noticed.

Joy wasn’t in charge anymore. Sadness took over. Riley thought she was doing something wrong.

Why Shame?

Why shame, though? Riley wasn’t “supposed to” feel sad. At least, that’s what she thought. Joy was “supposed to” be her main feeling. Riley’s a Happy Girl, after all. Sadness was relegated to Sadness’s circle and told not to come out, as if sadness was the wrong feeling. But, as Riley (and we) find out, that is far from the truth.

Let’s start at the beginning. Riley had lots of feelings. Normal feelings. As all babies (and humans do.) Yet, there are those messages we get about what feelings are wanted and what feelings are not. Sometimes, those messages are subtle, as in Riley’s case. She had well-meaning and loving parents.

But her parents liked their happy girl, which wasn’t a big problem in Minnesota because she was happy. Joy was her biggest feeling. Her other feelings came and went, but they didn’t take over, only momentarily. She had her home. Friends. Hockey. Things she loved. And, all the ways she felt secure.

That all changed. Abruptly. Unexpectedly. Without Warning. And, San Francisco wasn’t like home.

Riley’s Traumatic (Sad) Move

Trauma is loss. Loss is trauma. Trauma often means many losses, one piled on top of the other.

Moving at age 11 isn’t easy. You have your life set. Know what to expect. Enough physical and emotional changes are already on the way. Like puberty. Can any 11-year-old deal with being uprooted on top of that?

Plus, Dad is stressed, and Riley needs to help Dad out. That’s what Mom says: be their “happy girl” and keep smiling. Ok?

That’s Joy’s job, and Joy tries to gear up for it. And, of course, Riley loves her dad, but …

What’s Riley supposed to do with her Sadness?

There’s a lot of sadness about a big move across the country to a strange, alien city like San Francisco. Moving means a lot of loss. That’s sad. Very sad. Children (adults, too) need someone who welcomes their feelings and wants to listen. To all of them.

Sometimes that’s not easy to find.

And Riley didn’t have anyone who noticed. So, Joy (the one in charge) tries to keep Sadness in her circle, walled off and quiet. But when the teacher asks Riley to tell the class about her old home?

Well … trying to pretend she’s not sad wasn’t possible anymore. And the tears flowed. They needed to.

But that didn’t stop her shame and only made her loneliness worse.

Plus… all of her feelings started to go haywire.

When Joy isn’t in her “headquarters,” Riley can’t be happy. But then again, other feelings need to be heard. Since they’ve been pushed aside, Riley doesn’t know what to do with them. So, she blocks them.

What Happens to Blocked Feelings?

Why does one feeling get center stage while others are banished and told to be quiet or go away as if they don’t exist?

You’ve likely had experiences or trauma that made you shut your feelings down. At least some of your feelings. Those feelings get detached from your awareness. Both Joy and Sadness become disconnected and closed out of Riley’s mind.

This happens after the Shame she felt at school. But, also, because Mom and Dad don’t see her.

Dad asks what happened to his “happy girl” and wrongly assumes she needs some Alone Time. That is the last thing Riley needs. She needs him (and Mom) to see that she is Sad. Lonely. Suffering.

When they don’t notice her feelings and don’t ask, what is she to do? She has to block her feelings out.

Because of that, Joy and Sadness are far away from Riley’s awareness, trying to get back and reconnect. If they can’t, all Riley feels is her Anger. Or Fear. And the wish to run away from them all.

Riley hates broccoli. That’s her major, Disgust. But now, it seems that Disgust is mainly directed toward her feelings.

Riley needs her feelings to move on so that her Core Memories (the good ones, the happy ones, and the sad ones) aren’t lost in a depression that is beginning to take Riley over.

Depression happens when you lose your feelings, your hope, and your interest in what you used to love.

We watch as Joy and Sadness arrive in the Subconscious, that place “they” send the “troublemakers.” But who are the troublemakers? Those troublemakers, we find, are mostly Riley’s worst fears.

So, don’t we have to ask: What is Riley’s very worst fear?

Her worst fear seems to be Sadness.

Sadness or Grief Aren’t Depression

When Joy falls, Riley loses contact with her feelings. That’s when she goes into her depression. Riley is depressed because she hasn’t been able to feel Sadness and Grief for all her losses. If she could, she wouldn’t be depressed.

Depressed is when you feel numb, flat, dead, and hopeless. Sadness and Grief are hard to feel. There’s no question about that. But at least they make you know you are alive.

You can get stuck in depression if you don’t grieve – and you can’t usually do that alone. Sadness and Grief need to be heard by someone who cares. Someone who welcomes your feelings.

Joy has been banned from headquarters because Riley needs a chance to feel her Sadness and Grief. But with Sadness not having her rightful place, which means being valued and accepted, we see what happens.

Joy and Sadness conflict with each other. Sadness annoys Joy.

But then, Joy sees something that makes her think.

She sees Sadness talk to Bing Bong, Riley’s old Imaginary Friend who has lost his place of importance in Riley’s life. Just like Riley has lost what’s important to her. Sadness doesn’t tell Bing Bong to “get over it” or to “be a happy girl.” No. Sadness asks.

And, Sadness listens.

Listening to Sadness in Inside Out

Sadness takes Bing Bong’s sadness seriously and wants to know. Most importantly, Sadness lets Bing Bong cry.

Sadness encourages and welcomes Bing Bong’s tears. Joy wouldn’t and couldn’t do that. And, it seems “miraculously” (but really, not), Bing Bong is now “ok.”

Even if he can’t return to having what he had, he’s ok because his feelings matter to Sadness.

Joy asks, in a perplexed voice: “How did you do that?” Sadness replies: “He was sad.” Simply that. Sadness accepts Sadness. That’s a major message in Inside Out. That’s what Riley needs. She’s still stuck in her Anger. She’s depressed.

And Riley’s depression is because Joy tries to reject Sadness.

Rejecting Sadness happened a long time ago with being Mom and Dad’s “happy girl.” Now, Joy finds her way back.

But in a new way …

Why Your Sadness Matters

There’s nothing wrong with Sadness. Sadness Matters. Sadness needs to be expressed.

When Sadness helps Bing Bong cry, and Bing Bong feels “ok,” it’s because blocking Sadness hurts you. We see that clearly in Peter Doctor’s Inside Out. Here’s the fact of the matter:

Feeling all of your feelings helps. They are what’s real. Feelings connect you to your authentic self.

Fighting your feelings makes you numb.

Grieving your losses heals you, helps you, and lets you move on.

If you can’t feel your Grief, you’re either stuck or have to run away in one way or another. Luckily, something in Riley’s mind stops her, and she returns home. What’s that something?

Joy doesn’t have to be so Joyful anymore. It turns out that being a “happy girl” isn’t the end-all and be-all of Riley’s life. Joy does get back to “headquarters,” but Joy cries. And, Joy isn’t stuck in Joy anymore.

Joy befriends Sadness and sees her value. After all, Joy has blue eyes and blue hair. They’ve been connected all along. Sadness just needed to be allowed. And, felt. But not with Shame.

Grieving Heals & Lets You Move On

Feeling Sadness is part of Grief. And, part of Grief is gathering your Core Memories to hold on to.

For Riley, those memories include times when Mom and Dad and her Hockey team comforted her (they welcomed her Sadness) and let her cry when she lost a game.

See? Riley didn’t always have to be such a happy girl. It wasn’t so cut and dry.

Maybe it was how she interpreted (sure, with sometimes a little too much pressure) being their “happy girl.” Maybe other feelings were allowed all along.

Some kids aren’t so lucky, though. Some kids don’t ever have their feelings welcomed or heard. If you were one of them, your trust is shaky. Or not there at all. That makes it hard to be open.

Yet, some people can and want to hear you. It’s a matter of finding them and seeing who they are.

You need trust to do that, though, and if you don’t trust easily and believe your feelings will humiliate you, trust is hard to feel.

But, as Riley found in Inside Out, feelings and Sadness matter.

They are essential to healing and moving on.

Stay Tuned for more about feelings in my next post on Inside Out 2.