I will openly admit that I bawled multiple times during the Pixar movie “Inside Out.” And I don’t just mean a little emotional tear here or there; I’m talking about huge, heaving sobs punctuated by dramatic gasps for air. I imagine the parents sitting near me were huddling to shield their 8-year-olds from the disruptive woman seemingly experiencing a mental break down while watching colorful animated figures swirl across the screen.
For those who haven’t seen the movie, “Inside Out” follows five characters — Anger, Disgust, Fear, Joy and Sadness — through the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley as she experiences major changes in her life. For the majority of the film, Joy is regarded as the adored leader of the emotions and Sadness as the unwelcome, burdensome downer. It is not until the end of the movie that Sadness is recognized as an integral and valued member of the group, playing a critical role in shaping Riley’s identity and ability to cope with the changes she is experiencing.
I have often found myself tearing up at movies before, even animated ones (Toy Story 3, anyone?). But something about “Inside Out” was different. I didn’t cry because the two main characters fell in love, there was a happy ending or even because Woody lost his lifelong friend when Andy left for college. No, I sobbed my way through “Inside Out” because everything it depicts is true, and it immediately hit home.
In the real world outside of Pixar, sadness is just as ostracized as its character was on screen. And I get it — unsettling feelings like sadness are, by their nature, unappealing. They cause us to feel emotions on the opposite end of the spectrum from joy. However, it seems as though we have come to misguidedly resent any emotions that cause us to dip from our typically chipper day-to-day dispositions and shame those who openly express these dour feelings as though they are weak to fall prey to their emotions.
Looking back on my own experiences at Duke, I have often been guilty of subconsciously repressing my own negative emotions and refusing to acknowledge any feeling that would upset me. I established what I now think of as an emotional baseline, which I dared not stray from for fear it would disrupt my daily life. I was determined to stay “fine.” But why? So I could continue using “fine” as a lame, generic answer to compulsory daily greetings of “how are you?”
I reverted to relying on my emotional baseline largely during freshmen and parts of sophomore year when I was still a bit lost, uncertain and pretending to seamlessly integrate into life at Duke. I maintained this baseline by preventing myself from recognizing when I felt sad, lonely, scared or confused. Not only did I do so to avoid the actual unpleasantness of these feelings, but I did so also to create a sense of happiness, comfort and safety in an initially unfamiliar environment. Acknowledging negative emotions would have forced me to address them, and when I was simply trying to feel at home in a new place, I was hesitant to go out on a limb and truly question who and what I was choosing to engage with or how it made me feel. I believed I constantly needed to be happy at a place like Duke, which was a lofty and very unrealistic expectation.
My spates of subconscious emotional repression left me with a build-up of stifled emotions, which, as one might suspect, became unavoidable. I hit a wall sophomore year and was faced with what seemed like an obvious realization: of course I couldn’t go on ignoring half of my emotions. I began to find that repressing my negative feelings was more exhausting and anxiety inducing than actually acknowledging them. When I shoved them to the back of my mind, they only stuck around longer.
To put this seemingly minor revelation in perspective, I have never considered myself a particularly emotional person. I can hardly remember a time I cried in high school, and the thought of publicly bawling like I did during “Inside Out” beyond of the confines of a movie theater is my worst nightmare. So it was incredibly surprising that, once I started truly paying attention to my everyday feelings, I discovered that emotion is freeing. In particular, embracing unsettling emotions is extraordinarily relieving. As the scientists behind "Inside Out" note, emotion can equip us to clarify our identities and values and to arm us so that we can effectively respond to any issues we may face. I now find this true.
At Duke, I believe many of us stress ourselves out trying to stay “fine” and stick to an imaginary standard we think we should, and others do, maintain. But, realistically, we all struggle with sadness, confusion, frustration, fear, hurt, shame and anger from time to time, regardless of how often people say they’re “fine” when you pass them on the quad. I’m not necessarily advocating that everyone share their emotions freely or let unsettling feelings become the focal point of their lives. From my own experience as an emotionally stoic person, I know that honest and open sharing is measured and selective. I also understand that, for some, trying to mitigate the influence of overwhelmingly negative feelings is another struggle in itself. Rather, my hope is that we are able to honestly evaluate our emotions for ourselves and sever the connotation that negative emotions are “bad” or indicative of weakness or failure.
In “Inside Out,” Joy learns to stop icing out her fellow emotions and appreciate the unique role Fear, Sadness, Disgust and Anger all play, ultimately making Riley better off. If the fictitious, blue, gawky children’s character Joy can learn to do it, maybe we can give it a try too.
Erica Becker is a Trinity senior. This column is the second installment in a semester-long series of biweekly Thursday columns written by members of Peer for You. Message a peer responder anytime and receive a response within 24 hours.
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