It's not depression or anxiety that keeps me up at night. It's nostalgia.
The most underrated of all emotions.
It's wingspan is so large that it stretches across the two emotional extremes, happiness and sadness. Emotions are generalized into two categories; positive and negative. It's easy to distinguish from the two with a simple question; which emotions do you actually want to feel?
Anger -
Excitement +
Confusion -
Sadness -
Joy +
... Nostalgia N/A?
Nostalgia is described as a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past. Particularly pertaining to periods of happiness. So why is it so conflicting? When people experience nostalgia it may seem positive because we are thinking back to good times, but those thoughts often bring with them so much pain These are the thoughts that often appear to us at our lowest, at our most depressed or sad. As humans, our memories are long, but faltering, because we remember the good times, but we can't quite grasp and recreate how good they felt and, oh, we wish we could.
So is nostalgia positive or negative? I suppose it depends if the sweetness of the memories overpower the price in which they come.
Just something to think about.