Contrary to what you might see in Hollywood movies, life can be a dreary, sad place. 

Death, debt, poverty, harsh capitalism, mental illness, culture wars, real wars–I think it’s safe to say that the world (and the people in it) has its fair share of flaws. 

Flaws that can slowly chip away at you and your perception of life. 

If you aren’t mentally and emotionally ready to deal with it, you can be in for some serious unhappiness and discontent. 

Many people in your life may be deeply unhappy, without you ever even knowing it. 

In this article, I’ll walk you through the signs someone is unhappy in life, even if they hide it well. 

Once you know the signs, you can deal with them accordingly. Let’s get to it!

1) They’ve withdrawn socially 

Maybe you know someone who used to cherish being social. 

They’d regularly make plans and spend time with friends and loved ones, laughing and smiling for the near entirety of their outings. 

When a person suddenly drops off the grid, this can be a red flag. 

Sure, they could be busy or tired from work–but they could also simply be unhappy. 

You see, unhappy people tend to lose motivation for things they once enjoyed. 

Perhaps, they were once the life of the party but have suddenly become a hermit. 

Withdrawing from social events, and isolating themselves from the outside world, from close friends and family, can therefore be cause for concern. 

You’ve heard it before, so let me repeat for emphasis: make it a point to check up on your friends. 

You never know what they may be going through. 

2) Their sleep patterns have changed

Things like insomnia or oversleeping are often ultimately rooted in emotional distress. 

So if you know someone who usually sleeps like a log but has been having bouts of insomnia, try to probe a bit more; they could be unhappy. 

Conversely, if that “morning person” in your life has been suddenly sleeping in regularly, tossing and turning til the wee hours, while the rest of the world gets ready for their day, this can point to an underlying dissatisfaction with life. 

You’d be surprised how much a person’s sleep patterns can tell you about the state of their soul. 

3) They’ve lost a general interest in things 

Our interests, hobbies, and friendships–these represent spaces that bring us joy, and provide us with a respite from the grind of daily life. 

As mentioned, a decline in interest in activities that once brought someone fulfillment suggests that something could be off. 

Maybe rather than hang out with friends or go to the gym, that person might opt to stay in bed, lacking sufficient motivation levels and assertiveness to get up and do things. 

Their existence becomes essentially purposeless, and they feel a perpetual lack of direction.

They’re breathing, but they’re not really living. 

When you’re unhappy, you become apathetic to many things. 

The hobbies and interests that once brought you happiness? They’ll start to feel more like chores than anything else. 

4) They’re irritable and moody 

Do you know a ‘Karen’? I.e. someone who will not hesitate to complain and berate the manager for the slightest of infractions. 

Karens, by definition, are unhappy people because of their deep dissatisfaction and unhappiness with the world. 

As you probably know, they tend to take out their frustrations on anyone in their path. 

Like many people in the pandemic, I went through a particularly dark period due to my failing business, which rapidly accumulated debt. 

Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I took my frustrations out on people: I was irritable and mean to my girlfriend, I was insulting to store clerks; I was a bit of a dick to everyone. 

I got so caught up with my issues that I didn’t realize the negative effect I was having on people; people who, for the most part, were just trying to get by in their own right. 

Sudden irritability, frustration, unpredictable mood swings–these are all telltale signs of unhappiness. 

So if you know someone who has been displaying some Karen-like behavior of late, they may be going through something. 

5) They look (and smell) different 

Chronically unhappy people often stop caring about their appearance. 

They stop caring about the public’s perception of them, sometimes to an unhealthy and extreme degree. 

In short, they’ll start looking a lot more unkept and untidy than usual. 

Perhaps they’ll neglect personal hygiene, emitting a number of foul bodily odors; or maybe they’ll stop shaving, or brushing their hair. 

Maybe they’ll be sporting stained pajamas if you run into them in the grocery. 

Maybe they’ll lose an unsettling amount of weight (or gain it.) 

If they’re a man, maybe they’ll resemble Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away–which is not a great look frankly. 

6) They’re always tired

When the mind is tired, the body will respond in kind. This can mean a host of negative, unexplained physical manifestations. 

Perhaps you’ll get more headaches, bouts of stomach discomfort, chronic fatigue–the works. 

Chronic tiredness, in particular, is quite common among unhappy people. 

Day-to-day life becomes a genuinely seriously tough undertaking (in part because of the aforementioned inconsistent sleep patterns.) 

When you’re happy, you have a spring in your step. 

And when you’re unhappy and emotionally exhausted, you tend to have a variety of ailments.

7) They engage in escapist behavior 

Sometimes, life seems so hopeless, that we turn to escapist behaviors like abusing alcohol or drugs or seeking refuge in unproductive habits like binge-watching and overeating. 

In my early twenties, I broke up with my first real girlfriend. I was distraught. 

And being the rather juvenile ‘tween’ I was, I coped the only way I knew how: getting excessively drunk. 

For a rough period of a couple of months, I was regularly going out, getting inebriated to oblivion (often til the sunlight came out), blacking out, then becoming incredibly hungover and anxious the next day. 

It was reckless behavior that, thankfully, I eventually overcame. 

Moral of the story? 

Unhappy people will often become so overwhelmed that they’ll try to escape their problems through whatever means they can. The more accessible, the better.  

For me, and countless other people in the world, that escape was through booze. 

Growing pains. 

Final words 

We all get a little down from time to time. 

This is part of the human experience. 

But if you or someone you know displays the above behaviors for prolonged periods, this could be worth looking into a bit more. 

You’d be surprised–talking and airing out grievances to someone you trust can go a long way. 

So whether that person is a friend, a family member, or a professional, what matters is the ball is rolling. 

For most of us, happiness is always around the corner. We just need to have the will to go out and get it.