Why Is Nostalgia So Painful?

Why is nostalgia so painful? Do you find yourself longing for the past or past experiences that don’t seem obtainable anymore? I’ve had bouts of nostalgia in the past that seemed more painful than warm and fuzzy. It seems every time I’m low, I can’t help but look back on happier times (or at least what I remember as being happy.)

More often than not, past memories seem much better and more comfortable than they really were. For example, I often think back to my time at school, primarily primary school, and remember that time very fondly. It was a time of sheer comfort; I was looked after, I had no responsibility, my days were spent talking with my friends and playing. When I think back to this time, I feel a little saddened instead of warm and fuzzy.

It can be addicting to look back but it’s also painful to dwell on these memories sometimes. So why is that? I believe it’s due to the fact that I look back on what I remember as “better” or “easier” times and quickly realise that part of my life is long gone and no longer obtainable. In fact, those days were so long ago that it often feels like I’m reflecting on someone else’s past experiences instead of mine. However, even recent memories can be painful to look back on. Even times that I didn’t enjoy a whole lot can be painful to look back on when i look back at them with nostalgia.

For example, my teenage years were difficult in terms of my mental health. I enjoyed the fairly carefree nature of those years and hanging around with my friends but the truth is, I still had a dark cloud over me for a long time. Nevertheless, I sometimes get nostalgic when I think about the good parts of those days like going out for drinks or simply having everyone over to play video games. For the most part, the nostalgia ends up being painful because I end up missing those times.

It’s painful because I often want to relive those days but I know I’ll never be able to. Sometimes a smell will take me right back to a certain time in my life and I end up remembering things I’d completely forgotten. For example, I tried a toffee apple recently for the first time in years. It took me right back to after school club when I was seven years old. It was a buried memory that came to the surface because of a simple smell. I began to delve deeper into that time in my life and I started to remember more and more things that I hadn’t thought of in decades. I suddenly remembered quite vividly how I felt sitting in the assembly hall, walking the corridors of my school and playing sports on the school field.

The memories were warm to begin with until I started to feel a longing for those days of innocence back. They were also painful because I remembered a strong feeling of not knowing anything and having my future ahead of me, a future with endless possibilities. I felt that way to some degree for a long time, even decades into my late twenties. Even though those days seem like a lifetime ago, the feeling of uncertainty and possibility connecting me to those days at the same time doesn’t seem all that long ago.

Painful nostalgia and regrets

When I looked back on those days in the playground I not only felt a sense of sadness that my pure, innocent mind was long gone, I also felt sad about the things I regret from those days like making fun of other people, throwing the lunches my parents had made and paid for in the bins and not holding onto friendships I could have tried to keep.

My painful nostalgia of those times forced me to reflect on not only how I behaved and worked at primary school but also in high school. As I walked through my history with a fresh sense of clarity, I analysed myself through each year up until the present. I evaluated what I’d done well and what I could have done better. Painful nostalgic regrets multiplied over schoolwork, relationships and missed opportunities. And all of this came from the smell of a toffee apple.

The truth is, there are an endless amount of things that I see, taste and hear that take me back to a time that always seems better than the present. Seeing clips of an old TV show from the nineties for the first time in years drags me back to being a nervous child within the blink of an eye. And it’s not just the memory of watching those shows as a child. Once again, these experiences make me think about other things related to those times like remembering how I used to feel on a Friday afternoon at school, knowing that the weekend was only a couple of hours away where I could go outside and play or sit in the comfort of my room and play games until Monday morning.

If I meditate on those years long enough I can see vivid images of the stains on my bedroom carpet, the crayon scribbles on my closet and the many thoughts of how I wanted to rearrange my room.

Nostalgia and forgotten feelings

I not only think about the occasions related to the year a smell or taste reminds me of but a whole host of forgotten feelings that I haven’t felt in decades. I cannot put a name on it but every year of my life has been associated with a different feeling or a combination of several. Each memory is tied to a different smell, a habit and a feeling about that particular time in my life. It can make the painful nostalgia worse as further things come to the surface.

For example, there may be a certain year where a favourite album of mine was released that I used to listen to as I played a certain game at a time where I felt as if everything was just perfect. When I listen to an album from 1999 I feel the same feelings I once did when I was ten years old and it makes me feel warm and yet sad at the same time. I think it’s because I remember those days fondly yet I also feel sad for that boy because he didn’t know those feelings wouldn’t last forever.

Each nostalgic element of a specific time is interwoven with a multitude of others, making it feel as if past memories were much happier times than they probably really were. Still, the sense of losing that time can be painful.

Painful nostalgia and a sense of loss

The painful nostalgia comes from a sense of loss of a time that seemed better than the present moment. I felt a sense of loss when I smelt and tasted that toffee apple. I found myself mourning the loss of that innocent, shy, sweet little boy. When you live your life year by year, you don’t see yourself changing. You don’t see your child-like innocence disappear because there’s little time to reflect. It’s only when a song plays on the radio or you find an old book. If you let yourself, you can go down a nostalgic rabbit hole in your own mind and just like I did, bring up lost feelings and memories of the different parts of your history.

The nostalgia was painful when I thought of playing with my friends as I grew up because it’s only upon reflection that I understood how short and how fragile those years were. I struggle to put a year on the different birthday parties I had as a child because they felt as if I was doing them forever, each and every year. The truth is however, there were probably only five of six years where I remember the birthdays that we would go to the cinema or swimming before people got older and moved to different schools or changed towns.

Coping with nostalgia

The funny thing about nostalgia though, is that it’s a double-edged sword. Although the memories that flooded back were largely positive which ironically caused the pain, I was also reminded of the negative feelings in my school days the more I reflected. As a young child, I was very shy and struggled to put myself forward, even in primary school with nothing to lose. Although most children are shy, I was at the extreme end of that scale. I was very awkward and unsure of myself for many years. Nostalgia reminds me of how far I’ve come.

I think that’s the best way to cope with nostalgia that seems painful. You have to look at both sides of the coin. Even though I had some of the best times in my teenage years playing video games and simply hanging around with my friends, those were also some of the hardest times. It was during those years that I suffered the most from anxiety and depression.

My brain will try to make me long for “better days” when I get in a rut but in reality, I’ve never had perfect days weeks or years. My teenage years were good but they were also difficult in terms of my mental health. It’s only having gone through those years that I can now deal with my mental health better than ever. As a child, I had no toolbox or outlet or any way of understanding the complex nature of mental health. Even though I sometimes long for the days of my childhood back, and I’m sure that will never change, I am where I am because of those days. I may have mourned the loss of my younger self and the carefree years he experienced but it’s important to also be proud of myself now.

I will no doubt feel nostalgia for the person I am right now one day. With more time to look back on, there will always be more space for nostalgic memories connected to sights, smells, tastes and songs.

Nostalgia VS the present

With many mental wellbeing issues, I’ve learnt that they either get worse or exist in the first place because the present day is being neglected or because you don’t like being present. Nostalgia can be warm or painful but dwelling on it for too long has no useful purpose, in my opinion. The more the present day is neglected, the worse nostalgia can be and the easier it is to overly romanticise past experiences.

Being mindful is one way to stay present. The best way to be mindful is to engage in activities that put you in a state of flow and that have your full attention. If your past feels like it was always better than your present, finding things to create new positive memories is important. Experiencing painful nostalgia is often a result of sitting around and worrying. If you find something to be engaged in, you’re less likely to spend time dreaming about the past or convincing yourself it was any more comfortable than the present.

The truth is, the present moment is all you have so you may as well make the best of it.

Nostalgia VS gratitude

Probably the best way to overcome painful nostalgia is to practise gratitude as if you mean it. I say “mean it” because it’s very easy to think about what you’re grateful for but it can be harder to enter that frame of mind without doing it on a regular basis. It’s much easier to fall into nostalgic pain than be present and positive about where you are right now. Gratitude is a term thrown around more and more these days but I do think that it is an underrated way of improving your mood. What you have right now is nothing to be sniffed at.

Whilst it can be easy to dwell on the past, that’s all it is, the past. You could use memories to teach you lessons but they cannot be changed and so dwelling on the past whether good or bad is not useful and will never have a helpful outcome. Instead, I think being more present is the answer. I’d go as far as saying that dwelling on the past can often be mental self-torture. There is never a conclusion that makes you feel better so it’s best to accept you may be tempted to do it from time to time but when those times come, use that time to practise gratitude instead.

Practising gratitude doesn’t need to be some kind of long drawn out process you do each day. Instead, it can be a simple case of jotting down what you are grateful for no matter how big or small. Intern, you’ll find it easier to be grateful for the smaller things.

Painful nostalgia in conclusion

I do believe that painful nostalgia that surrounds what you may think of as “better times” is usually a result of not being comfortable with where you are right now. I know I drift right back to being the seven-year-old boy where everything seemed lighter and brighter when I don’t feel like facing the day. However, I still am that boy, somewhere inside. I have just had more experiences than he had at that time. They have shaped and moulded me for better or worse. I see involuntary glimpses of him sometimes that I don’t expect for better or worse and that’s okay.

Whilst the nostalgia can be painful, I know I am overly romanticising the times I think I want back. It is a mechanism my brain uses to try and make me feel more comfortable because I don’t feel comfortable in the present from time to time. Even though it does provide me with some comfort at first, it is largely a lie that serves me little purpose. The challenge is always to get better at being more comfortable with who I am right now and ironically that only comes with time and being able to look back at how far I’ve come and the person I develop into without spending too much time dwelling on the years I think were better.

So enjoy the memories of years gone by but don’t dwell on them because you likely won’t find anything helpful or conclusive that will help you in the present day.