How This 'Sexy Man' Learned How to Face His Sadness

Look at the sexy devil in this pic!

He’s proper sexy! Smiling up all deadly way, thinking he’s real solid without a care in the world and working that camera like he’s the male version of Samantha Harris (probably because he is). He’s totally, utterly and undeniably happy, you’d think. Well he’s mostly happy. Just like everybody else he has his days where he feels like crap. When he wants to disappear from the world and go bush, which he may very well have if it wasn’t for his sexiness demanding he struts his sexy, sexy self in front of the nearest camera at every opportunity he gets.

In all honesty though, there was a time last year when his days were becoming weeks and then months until it seemed it might be a lifetime. He was disconnecting himself from people who cared about him. He wasn’t returning calls, text messages, emails or Facebook messages. He knew that speaking about it might open a floodgate of emotion and he didn’t want others to worry about him. How could he tell anybody who loves him dearly that he was having these thoughts where he’s falling from great heights and listening to the wind before the silence all in an attempt to block out the noise of the world. He couldn’t, so he either immersed himself in his career or hid away from the world so he could distract himself from what he was feeling.

If he ignored the worry, and numbed himself to every concern, then it would go away, even though deep down he knew better. He also knew it wasn’t his decision, concerning what people felt for him. If they wanted to worry then he should’ve let them instead of denying them the ability to be a support for him, instead of putting up this façade that all he needed was time when what he really needed was help. Inevitably it all came to a head one night when friendships were questioned. In his sadness he believed his silence spoke of his pain. He ignored the fact that it spoke to others that he no longer cared for them.

When faced with the question of friendship, he at first felt anger, but then his heart broke. See over the course of the last year, he had let what he was going through turn everything into a weakness that he needed to be ashamed about. But in an effort to keep his sadness at bay, he inevitably kept at bay people he loved. People reached out to him, but it was always too hard to deal with it. He was worried that if he faced it, he would collapse into a crumpled heap on the floor, letting his worry blind him to the fact that he needn’t face things alone.

He hid away in his room that night and cried for so many things. He cried for his friends, his family, every shitty thing that happened in the year and finally he cried for himself. He cried so hard and long it seemed he’d fall asleep in a puddle of tears but finally, he faced that which he had been scared of for so long — his sadness.

Despite the heartbreak that only a cry of that magnitude could bring, though, it also brought with it a relief, as though his tears were rain that had washed away this profound sadness he had clung to. This isn’t to say he woke up to a ray of sunshine, skipped down the street and found himself Prince Charming (though truthfully, he’d prefer Prince Sexy), but he did find that once he’d let go of this heaviness he had carried, his days got better.

There’s still work to be done, things to be mended and stuff to be talked about, but he’s not sad about it anymore. And when you consider there was a time last year when he wondered if his sadness would ever go away, well that’s a pretty good outcome. Actually, now that he thinks about it, it’s a bloody awesome outcome. He just remembered his session with a psychiatrist that cost $200 for an appointment and $400 for a diagnosis, $600 for 45 minutes of his sadness! Thank the universe for bulk billing! Not that he’s saying you shouldn’t see a psychiatrist and just have a good cry to fix yourself, just that it’s even more depressing knowing people are being charged that much for their misery.

It’s strange when he thinks about it, but he supposes that’s the balance of life. We couldn’t truly enjoy the heights of happiness without knowing the depths of sadness.

Maybe we need to look at the way we view sadness and the way we’re so easily ready to deny ourselves this very valid emotion, how we push it to the back of our “things to do” because nobody likes being sad. How we have to get on with it and through the day because time is money and bills need to be paid and there’s a thousand and one things to be done so we avoid it at every cost. Fooling ourselves to believe that our defiance and refusal of it is what makes us strong, while forgetting that our vulnerability to it and our acceptance of it, is what makes us human.

To be sad has somehow come to mistakenly mean that we’re no good, that we’re broken, that we’re weak. Truthfully though, if somebody should ask us if we’re OK and we have the ability to be honest, to look them in the eye and be fearless in our response and say, “No, I’m not. I need your help.” Then that’s undeniably strength right there. Don’t do what the sexy man in the pic did. He ended up wasting time that he’s still trying to make up for. Lucky for him he’s friends are still around, lucky for them he’s so sexy.

Steven Oliver starred in and co-wrote the Australian sketch comedy ‘Black Comedy,’ on ABC TV. Steven seen below in a popular sketch, ‘The Tiddas.’

As a poet, Steven explains the struggles of reconciliation and acceptance in his poem entitled; ‘Hate He Said.’ Filmed by Kindred SurPrize.

For more information on how to help family and friends who might be struggling go to –>.

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Lead image via contributor