What It Feels Like To Be a Melancholist
According to Greek physician Hippocrates, there’s 4 temperaments of Humans: Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric and Melancholic.
To make it simple to remember:
- Sanguine: The Happy One
- Phlegmatic: The Peaceful One
- Choleric: The Passionate One
- Melancholic: The Sensitive One
I know there’s so many personality types out there in modern psychology world. But for me, having only 4 of them made it easier to categorise human kind (Seriously, memorising 16 are too overwhelming!).
And it’s not that intangible to see it too. I mean, it’s easy to judge a guy to be Choleric when he go full Hell Boy if he gets the wrong order. (Well, if not, he’s just having a bad day)
At first, I thought I’m hands-down a Sanguine. Because on the surface, I’m so cheerful and yellow, and always trying to make people around me laugh.
But when I was stepping up to the adult game, at the age of 22, I realized something: for some reason, I never can stand to be happy.
It’s odd, I understand. Who wouldn’t wanna be happy? Isn’t that what everybody wants to feel? Isn’t that all our final goal, to have happy ending?
Nope, you can spare me on that one!
My friends went all crazy when they heard that. Being judgmental and all. But one best friend whom I’ve known since we’re 11 years old. Pointed out that it doesn’t surprise her, she had always known that I’m a bit Melancholic. That’s the first time I had a validation of who I truly am.
To get rid of all the judgments out there, I would like to give you a little view from a real-life Melancholist.
1. What you called Sadness, I called it Happiness
For me, sadness works the same way as how you feel happiness within you. If you feel comfortable to be happy, it’s the same thing for me, only replace it with sadness. I love being sad. I love listening to a remix of sad song with rain sound when I fall asleep. I love watching doomed romance than happily ever after.
Case study: Last year, on my 22th birthday, I was so happy, my friends celebrated it on our campus and I got a load of cash-present from my parents. I could just end it that way, call it a day from a perfect birthday. But you know what I did?
I called a guy that has been torturing me emotionally, my unrequited crush— who never like me back and for some reason kinda antagonistic. Why? Just so I can get my heart broken! This is no joke. I was trying to make me feel sad, on purpose! I know that guy never nice to me, I know that I would feel annoyed after our phone call. But I still go through it anyway. And that’s not even the only case. There’s still a load of this on my archives.
Maybe for some reason, being sad made me stay humble so I wouldn’t go all big headed about happiness. Happiness not gonna last forever anyway isn’t it, might as well get it over sooner than later. As depressing as it sounds, it’s not as bad as you think. Being sad brings out my empathetic-ness to other people. It made me understand when my friends feel sad and it made me know how to deal with them. One thing that I’m trying to fix is to not let others have my sad energy from me when they didn’t want one. That’s a real trouble there.
2. Pessimist is My Ninja Way
Yes, between the two spectrum, it’s much more healthier to be optimist. But hear me out. Melancholy often identified as a pessimist. Because, well, of how sad and blue they are. And it’s true that I constantly worry that things will go wrong. Even when I know it’s not. But on my defense, I’d rather see all the worst scenario of what could possibly happen, analyse it all and create some strategies. I no longer put on a blind eye and hope that things will all be perfect, like maybe an optimist would do.
Being a pessimist — or I prefer the term “Realist” — drives me more. It made me all mentally prepared. And it decreased the chance of getting disappointed! If I could have one ticket on that train, I would get the first class.
For instance, once I was only one step away to achieve my goal: to write and direct my own short film with a proper production. And when I arrived on the door mat, I kept thinking, “Is this real? Isn’t this too good to be true? Am I ready? What if I screwed this up?”
All that thinking, might be so toxic for some people, how it could consummate your well being. But if we see it in a different eye, it creates humility. If we change the narrative upside down, I’d sound like an arrogant bastard instead, “Finally my time has come, people will know how great I am. Move away, I am the best!”
The same rule apply for whenever I’m doing an examination test. If I feel nervous and anxious about it, in the end I usually will nailed it. But when I’m all caught up on being optimist and confident, I usually failed. Coincidence? I think not…
3. Positivity are too Annoying
At this point, you might think I’m just getting out of hand. And it might anxious you to see how miserable and pathetic I am. But, let me remind you again. We just have different wiring in our brain.
Positivity, sounds like my neighbour’s lawn mower. Disturbing and unwanted. Stop telling us to be positive all the time! We’re not a naive kid who can change once you told us to be. My biggest pet peeve is when someone told me not to cry when I’m sad. Like, what the damn hell? Crying is a physiological response of sad emotions. And by the way, tears are good for you.
And don’t even get me started on that one guy who told us to wake up early in the morning, get a fresh air, exercise and avoid sugar in take. I mean, it’s understandable to have a healthy life style. But the problem is, when those people whose obsessed with it too much, become so judgmental about those who doesn’t. Some people suffered from anxiety because they couldn’t keep up with that positivity. And of all people, Melancholist are the ones who are more prone to anxiety cause how sensitive they are. Just so you know…
We all have our own style to live, I mean at this rate, just living is already good enough. Like I said, Melancholist may be in contrast to others and has their own way to be positive. It depends on where you’re standing, really.
Okay to sum it up, the 3 of them is enough to describe the main idea of being a Melancholist; sad, pessimist and negative. It sounds so bad on the surface, I know. I mean it’s not the traits you wanna see on your new employee recruitment’s CV.
But I hope my explanation can give you some insight on how to view it differently. People are born with different kind of temperaments, that is what makes human kind has a beautiful union of diversity. I hope now you can understand yourself or your loved ones better!
