I don't feel anything. ever. a part of me wishes I could feel what others feel but I've convinced myself I'm better off not.
I've thought alot about why and how people feel and I could be wrong but I think it's because they have a certain level of expectancy and when that is met they have a reaction such as happy or joy.
I think to feel a 'purpose' you would need to feel your expectancies are being met or exceeded.

Don't accuse me of experting, but I only believe my own feelings of sadness are catalyzed by the sorrows of my life. No shortage of those in my personal baggage car.

Continued support while you form your own theories, ET.

secretly dash, i think you do feel. but i know your answer is honest. i know i don't feel any of the feelings i want all too often. but my benefit that way is also my curse i think. "better off not" is a strange concept. perhaps it is more that your feelings have been diverted into the deeper parts of the river where the the flow is actually quite fierce, but you can't detect it from above. just a passing thought.

arfie, stop experting! just kidding. so do you then think when i wake up and my dreams so quickly are gone, that i was reviewing the sad things of my life that i still after so much time cannot face?

My favorite definition of "Expert" is: An "ex" is a has-been and a "spurt" is a drip under pressure.

One of my greater certainties is that dreams are one of the most mysterious of all the human traits. I only believe that reviewing and/or filing the facts of my life, past, present and future, are one of the more pragmatic aspects of my dreams, whether I consciously remember the dream or knot. Traumas, sorrows and disappointments included.

ha ha ha, my driver's ed teacher in LA always used to say that. he explained that that is what happens to drivers who don't pay attention in his class. thats what we would become.

Paying attention in driver's ed matters less than paying attention on the road...just saying.

What makes me sad?
.....when my kids struggle...by far number one
.....thinking of my childhood...
.....the news
.....the headache that I'm trying to shake
.....computer issues....((I can think up some creative things to do with recalcitrant hardware))

Depression is real and a big part of PTSD..... It's a crappy part to!!... I do believe we are in 'pursuit of happiness' and some of us have to pursue it with a cement backpack on unfortunately..... I think it's a great thing that you are pursuing it..... Big hug.....xo

Sadness is easy ... it's like a default setting.

Lack of ability to control the mind brings on sadness.

Is sadness the same as depression? This matters to me because I've had a career as a literature professor and a literary critic. It matters to me now as I teach grief work in death and dying classes to nurses from my second career as a hospital chaplain with terminal patients.

I ask because I enjoy lots of literature and music that speaks of sadness from tragedy (Shakespeare, Greek tragedy, the blues) but I don't equate those with disease like I do my depression.

There are lessons to learn from the sadness of Shakespeare, the blues, and Greek tragedy. In psychology they use Greek tragedy's language to teach us, like Oedipus Rex. The lessons from the sadness of Shakespeare, the blues, and Greek tragedy are shared, too, by audiences in theaters and music venues. The sadness of Shakespeare, the blues, and Greek tragedy, then, does not isolate me. It does the opposite--it brings me closer to others in the human condition.

But there's nothing for me to learn from my depression disease. Just speaking for myself, it isolates me in my house such that I can't even go outside. Inside my house it renders me unable to relate to anyone, even myself.

So there's a difference between sadness and depression disease to me. I don't fear sadness because engaging it intellectually works for me to feel engaged with others. I learn lessons from Shakespeare and Greek tragedy I share in common with the world.

Depression disease I do fear so much that I go to the doctor for it. I just saw my psychiatrist last week, and I take the medication he prescribed me.

I think I agree there is a difference between sadness and depression.
I think the sadness I am talking about is something specific I am sad about. I don't know what that is. If I were to take medication for this sadness, might I be putting that specific thing that is making me sad, out of my reach? Might I that way be preventing my own healing? I am sure it is a real thing that I've been hiding from myself for years. I want it to come out.

For Me, my mom, knowing I won't ever be talking with her again, hearing her laugh, her pushing me to try harder, her showing me interesting things she saw online she thought I might like, bothering me with simple computer problems baffling her, her pointing out job sites that are obviously scams. Its hard not to get depressed when the person you want to go to with how good the day went or how bad the day went is never going to answer the phone again because Heaven doesn't allow outgoing calls. I have my first anniversary of our last conversation coming up Saturday.

all i can say is, yes, it is sad. i can see that. i hope you can see what is happy too. that you did have all those things you now miss. so much of that which we get - in any way - is so temporary it may be just a matter of duration. and i hope you remember all those things you had, with happiness and appreciation also. my mother died when i was about 22. my mother was very dissociated i believe and i believe that much of my life was spent in a great deal of dissociation as well. maybe it was my missing happiness that now floats in and out of my sleeping and waking moments and leaves me feeling sad. you had what you now miss. i think i missed what i had at the time. i just don't know. maybe i should spend some time trying to remember with happiness. be happy.