Seven Ways to De-emo

Emo. It's the kind of feeling you feel when you sit down alone finally after a crazy party is over. It's the kind of feeling you feel when you thought of a meaningful memory when it rains. It's the kind of feeling you feel when you just got hurt by a friend's insensitive words, but you find no way to express your feelings.

Almost all of us dislike feeling emo. It draws us down, it makes us vulnerable, it makes us feeling lonely.

To lead a positive life, we would have to think of ways to cope with emo. And it differs between people and people in their ways of over-coming emo.

As a person who emo quite frequently, I have discovered seven ways to help me out of emo through all these years of in-and-out-of-emo experience.


1. Watch informative documentaries

Surprisingly, watching TV programmes such as National Geographic, Discovery Channel, and History Channel put me at ease easily. Whether it's the awe of new technology or the surprising fact about history, or even the firm voice of the narrator in most documentaries, documentaries have always been successful in drawing me out of the black hole of emo-ness.



2. Watch humourous movies/dramas

This works just as amazing as documentaries on me, but it's just that it's a little harder to get access to movies and dramas I want to watch than documentaries sometimes. Though, watching a light-hearted movie such as Bridget Jones' Diary, 101 Dalmatians, and Madagascar, I feel better having a laugh. And of course, some black humour in dramas such as Desperate Housewives or Gossip Girl entertains as well too.



3. Blog

Sometimes I get so emo that I couldn't even drag myself to be couch potato, so I stay in front of the cold hard monitor and start typing out my feelings into my poor grey blog. It feels a lot better after you get to pour your feelings out. Even though it's just writing out your feelings for no one to read.

But anyway, blogs are great because of its ambiguity - you write things there because you don't want to make your friends worried by telling them, but by posting in blogs, your friends have possibilities of finding out and might just come and console you some time later. However, regardless of the motive of blogging, it's really one of the great ways to de-emo.



4. Try out something new within the interested areas

For instant, I try out new ways of playing a certain bass line, or experiment on writing lines on my own with my bass. And I think by plotting out a whole new kind of story in my mind also helps to de-emo. These kind of things excites, thus the mind would go more positive relatively.


5. Sleep

One of the effective ways for me to overcome emo is to sleep, if my mind isn't too restless. It seems that with enough sleep, people could feel happier. I probably have the emo cycle frequently due to my sleep-deprived lifestyle. Feeling emo is one of the ways my body is telling me it needs rest probably. :P



6. Get out of the house with friends


This solution could be the best and also the worst of all. Sometimes by getting out, my mind is allowed to sway into other fun stuffs with friends. But sometimes getting out in a state of mind that is emo, friends not only didn't make me feel better, but I make them down as well. And that is the worst of all situations. So it's a risky decision to make when I'm emo.

7. Chat with friends on instant messenger


Although I put this one as the last in the list, but it doesn't mean it's not important. In fact, I clicked on to this option like 90% of the time when I was emo. However, equally risky as the 6th option, chatting with friends on IM could lead to disastrous situation sometimes, too. You may just end up being hurt more or hurting yet another person because of your inconsiderate words or the other person's inconsiderate words.

You never know how sensitive you could be, or your friend could be at the moment. And not to mention you never know how busy/messy your friend's mind is at the moment. Though nevertheless, when it works, a few words from your friend could just happened to be your salvation of the day.


People are complicated animals, we could never really predict what we would get or what we wouldn't get. That is why the key to de-emo, I would advised, is to change the "mode" of your mind without having to rely on another person's reactions to help.

It is no doubt friends really help a lot, when they are capable of helping. Most of the time we can only self-help. And anyway, you may never know, maybe by doing more self-helping, you could then become a more independent and reliable person for others.

Emo could slow you down, make you stay. However we can always discover ways for ourselves to de-emo, to start running and to start moving on. You may never know, the good things in life might be already on their way to your doorstep!