Sadness Remember That Funny Movie Where the Dog Died

I have to admit, I'm not your biggest Pixar fan. Honestly, I'm not your biggest movie fan whatsoever.

But this summer, I saw a movie that changed my perspective on life, and I got the chance to watch it again this week. This movie was Pixar's "Inside Out".

The movie is all about Riley, an 11 year old girl. Not only is she the main character of the story, but she is also the location of the story. Inside of her mind are the characters that emulate her emotions: Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and my personal favorite, Sadness.

Together, these emotions control Riley and help her live her life each day. Most of her memories are joyous, as most children's are, with the occasional blip. But one day, Riley and her parents move to California, and Riley's life is turned upside down. Her emotions are put through new situations that they don't know how to handle. To make things worse, Sadness begins to touch happy memories, making them sad.

Once Sadness creates Riley's first sad core memory, Joy tries to fix it, but ends up getting herself, all of the core memories, and Sadness sent down to long-term memory, leaving Anger, Fear, and Disgust to control Riley's emotions. Joy and Sadness have to find a way to get back to headquarters, but with her core memories that control her personality gone and her inability to find joy in things, aspects of her personality begin to break down before Joy and Sadness can return.

I don't want to give away too much of the movie, but just know that there's a lot of mind exploration involved in this movie. Like, why do we get songs stuck in our heads at random times? Where does our imagination come from? Where do our imaginary friends go?

But I want to talk about something specific that I admire about this movie. This is the first children's movie I have seen that indirectly tackles the idea of depression.

As a person who was diagnosed with depression back in April of 2014, I was hesitant to see how Inside Out would handle this kind of topic with kids. I was terrified that it would be like "there's a time when you get very, very sad, and that's called depression". Which isn't wrong, but it's not descriptive enough. Then again, how can anything relating to a mental issue be descriptive enough?

Well, that's what this movie was. I saw a lot of my decomposing self from senior year in Riley. When my most joyous memories turned sad for no reason that I could recall. When I got angry for no reason. When I was literally anxious about everything, sometimes having panic attacks about 3 times a week. When being so depressed leads you to do crazy things. In Riley's case, it was to try to run away from home. For me, it was cutting myself off from all of my "friends" in high school and isolating myself for weeks at a time. It was almost scary how real this movie made depression.

One of the most upsetting parts of the movie for me is when Riley is on the floor in her sleeping bag, and her mom comes in to kiss her goodnight and says "throughout this entire move, you've still been our happy little girl. If we can keep smiling, it will be a big help. You can do that, can't you?"

You can't do that. You cannot hide your sadness behind a smile for a long period of time without going mad. Trying to pretend you're happy when you're really not is one of the most damaging things. You have to let your emotions out, otherwise you shut down and you can't feel anything.

With all of this, you would think the emotion of sadness is just completely useless. But this movie also proves that wrong. In a scene where Riley's imaginary friend seeing all of Riley's youthful imaginative ideas get bulldozed away, he is upset over the idea that he is now becoming obsolete. Joy tries to help him by forcing him to be happy. But Sadness sits down next to him and says "I understand. They took something that you loved. That's sad. But I bet you had wonderful memories together." And as the imaginary friend begins to recall these adventures with Riley, Joy (and the audience) start to realize Sadness' purpose. Sadness is the tool that helps us recall joy.

And that's something to remember. Throughout the sadness, we can still find joy. Throughout the fear, we can find joy. All of our emotions are essential to the way we live our lives.

But what's also important is to have the ability to express our feelings. Through clear and fluid expression, we are able to speak through the sadness and fear and eventually find the joy. The happiest times of my life were when I was able to have one person that when something went wrong, or I was just feeling terrible, I could talk to them and they would lead me through the process of finding the joy.

As an adult away from home, I don't have that anymore. I've had to learn how to talk myself through the process. Sometimes I wish more than anything that I still had someone. But it's okay, it's all a part of growing up.

That's my lesson to you today: be there for someone who needs you. And hopefully, if you pick the right person, they'll be there for you when you need them. Just sit and listen. Don't make their problem about you. Just listen to them. Empathize. If you've been though it before, let them know that they aren't alone.

Because no one is alone. We all have our own Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger living inside of us. The important thing is to help all of them work together.

And look out for this Halloween when my friends and I pay tribute to these characters! (My title gives you a hint as to which one I am.) 🙂

Here's my week in picture review!