Can you or do you cry?

[Healing&Hopeful]

Might sound like a bizarre question, but I can't cry.  If I think about stuff that has happened I feel like crying and a little tear might escape, however I can't sit down and sob which is what I feel like I need.

I cry at movies, again the odd tear.  I used to be really proud that I didn't cry.... that I'd never cried over a guy and that I didn't break down in tears like other people.

So how do you cry?

[Marta]

H&H,

I used to be a big cry baby, but for the last few years it seems that I had lost my ability to shed tears. I have been working on this one too, not so much crying per se, but just letting my true feelings surface. For me, it involves doing something that feels true and sacred to me, like walking through a forest or reading poems I love. It also means not faking any emotions, and being true to myself.

In order to be able to sob, I suspect that you first have to intellectually deal with the usual defenses you grew up with, like being proud that you never cried, and then experience your feelings. If you are drawn to this board, even at a time in your life when you are not desperate or breaking down (I presume, since you are about to get married! ) then it means that you are already slowly chipping away at your defenses. If may be helpful if you talk more about that, like under what circumstances you feel you should cry but are unable to? What is your thought process at the time? How do you react, like do you just quickly get up after the cry moment and make tea or clean up the kitchen?   

[Brigid]

H & H,
For me, the more appropriate question would be, "How do I keep myself from crying?"  My entire life, I have always cried very easily when sad, hurt, lonely--didn't really need a reason.  When I watched a movie that involved animals in any kind of distress, I sobbed through the entire thing--even knowing they will usually be OK in the end.  I eventually stopped watching any movies with animals unless my kids had previewed them and determined the animal had no problems (i.e., "Seabiscuit").  This is not something over which I have any control or can pragmatically talk myself through.  And no, I have never seen "Old Yeller" and never intend to.  "Black Beauty" nearly did me in.

When my xh left me, I wasn't sure I would ever stop crying. I did try to get it under control for the sake of the kids and would hide in my bedroom if I felt a bout of sadness coming on.  The last tears I shed on his behalf was last Christmas when I hung only 3 stockings on the fireplace and the reality that that would always be the case really set in.

I know that I am extremely sensitive.  My feelings are easily hurt, but I am also easily touched by someone treating me kindly.  Both situations will bring tears to my eyes.

I don't know how to tell someone else to cry.  I think you either do or you don't.  I don't think it's an indication of whether you feel or not, but just how you process those feelings.  I'm not sure it will make you feel any better either.  Just my opinion.

Brigid

[mum]

jeez, we always want what we don't have.
I'm with you, Brigid. I'd like to know how NOT to cry so much.  My mom used to say I wore my emotions on my sleeve. I have always been extremely sensitive and  emotive and wished my entire childhood to NOT cry so much. Now I embrace it, it's who I am.  I really don't care WHO thinks I need to cry less!!  I also have learned to process the pain that gets me crying so I know when I do cry that it won't be forever....it's a cleansing so to speak...then I will move on.
Now, ironically enough, I don't find the need to cry so often. Maybe because I don't supress it and I don't care what others judgements are on it. 
Maybe that would also work  for those who don't cry so much. Perhaps the feeling that you need to cry MORE is coming from external judgements. What do you think?  If you are ok with it....embrace who you are.  Who knows, maybe letting go of the feeling that you SHOULD cry more...will have the opposite effect...you will start to let it flow.
emotive/stoic.....it's all good.

[Plucky]

Hi H&H,
If you feel you need to cry and can't, that is not a good thing.  I was like this.  I felt like things were just piling up inside and I didn't have a way to release them.  I could not let go.  I was afraid that if I relaxed my defence, I would fall apart.  And there would be no one to pick up the pieces.
Things finally got so bad that I did cry, but only alone.  Never, EVER in front of anyone.  I sobbed intensely alone at night.  I felt like crying wasn't enough to release my pain, but it was all I had.  Once on a trip I had an accident and injured myself and the pain was enormous.  My friends were amazed that I did not cry.  I didn't even think about it.
I think what started me off was to cry over things that were not close to me, or even that upsetting.  Such as, forgive me Brigid, animal movies.  Seeing a little dog lost was just touching enough to allow me to shed some tears, but not close enough to my own situation to be frighteningly painful.
I do think that it is right to be concerned.  Crying is a normal release and if you don't have it, that need does not go away.
Plucky

[Dawning]

H&H,

For the past 5 years, it has been very, very difficult -sometimes impossible- for me to cry.  However, whenever I read a children's book - esp one designed to help parents *parent* more effectively or help their children when a divorce or death happens, I cry.  I see, in these books, what a caring parent is; parents I never had.  And I cry.  Well, I think it is the little girl in me that cries and I let her.  I feel much better afterwards.

hth.
xxoo, Dawning.

[Healing&Hopeful]

Many thanks Marta, Brigid, Mum, Plucky and Dawning for replying... it really means a lot.

it means that you are already slowly chipping away at your defenses. If may be helpful if you talk more about that, like under what circumstances you feel you should cry but are unable to? What is your thought process at the time? How do you react, like do you just quickly get up after the cry moment and make tea or clean up the kitchen?   

Marta.... I feel I should be able to cry about my past... when I wrote My Story, there was no emotion there, it was like I was talking about some other girl (which I suppose in a way I was because I am totally different now).  If I'm on my own I sit there and think about things and I do feel like crying, tears well up in my eyes and then go away again.  I just can't let go.  On the plus side though, at least at our wedding I didn't cry once


I don't know how to tell someone else to cry.  I think you either do or you don't.  I don't think it's an indication of whether you feel or not, but just how you process those feelings.  I'm not sure it will make you feel any better either.  Just my opinion.

Brigid.... I suppose I have got it into my head that I will feel better if I can cry, that it will make it all go away.


Maybe that would also work  for those who don't cry so much. Perhaps the feeling that you need to cry MORE is coming from external judgements. What do you think?  If you are ok with it....embrace who you are.  Who knows, maybe letting go of the feeling that you SHOULD cry more...will have the opposite effect...you will start to let it flow.

Mum... very interesting concept and I feel could be very true.  It's not external judgements as such (though my friends used to say that they blubbed like a baby over guys etc), more that I kind of know I should be upset but I'm not. 


If you feel you need to cry and can't, that is not a good thing.  I was like this.  I felt like things were just piling up inside and I didn't have a way to release them.  I could not let go.  I was afraid that if I relaxed my defence, I would fall apart. 

Plucky.... You have hit the nail on the head.... this is it exactly!


However, whenever I read a children's book - esp one designed to help parents *parent* more effectively or help their children when a divorce or death happens, I cry.  I see, in these books, what a caring parent is; parents I never had.

Dawning.... this is interesting... do you think this is you grieving for your childhood?


I feel such a fraud because I know people on here have had it so much worse than I have and I feel like crying when I read a lot of stuff on here.  I always wish when anything goes horribly wrong or bad for someone that I had a magic wand to make everything alright again but obviously this isn't the case.  For me, I feel I'm in this fog that I can't make any sense of anything in the past.  The present is fine.  In most senses I am really happy with myself and what kind of person I am, but I just need a bit of tweaking if that makes any sense.  It's funny, my n-dad always used to say "Treat others as you yourself would want to be treated" in this really preacher-ish, stern voice.  For him, this meant for me to be like him, take on his values, beliefs etc, but I interpreted this differently.  I am truly amazed I've turned into the person I have, it's like I've took everything from them, binned it and started over.  Coming from the background I came from, I have no idea how I've turned into the person I have.

The bits that I feel need tweaking though are:-

1.  The crying issue

2.  The anger issue... not so much me being angry (although I am which is another I hide), however if someone get's angry with me, my first reaction is to shoot out of the room, away from the angry person.

I remember when I was 18, one of my first boyfriends got angry with me, I was curled up in a ball in terror because I was sure he was going to hit me.  I have come a long way from that moment.

Thanks again for listening.... I really wish I could offer you all as much advice and wisdom as you're offering me.

H&H xx

[spyralle]

Hi H&H,

I guess the fact that you want to cry is a start.  It means that you have identified that you are feeling pain.  i used to have a client who could not even recognise that.  He knew no names for any of his feelings or even how they affected him.  His behaviour was just symptomatic and out of control.  I think Mum has a point when she talks about letting go of the feeling that you need to cry.  It's like sometimes I feel if I start crying I will cry myself to death, so my brain defends against that and blocks of that release.  There are other ways of releasing that valve though.  Writing... drawing........ stamping etc.  Talking is a great thing.  Certainly it has taken me a little way outof a very very dark place recently. 

Spyralle x

[Brigid]

Dawning,

 

I see, in these books, what a caring parent is; parents I never had.  And I cry.

Me too!!  I'm sure it comes from the longing to have been loved and cared for as a child. 

Interestingly enough, I was the only member of my family who cried.  In my entire life, I only saw my mother cry once and never saw my father or brother cry. 

H & H,
One thing you might try is to find an environment where your senses are all engaged.  For me, that would be anywhere near water--preferably the ocean, but lakes, creeks or even a pool will do.  You may not know what that environment is, but I think it might be important for you to find it.  It could be inspired by certain music, mountains, while being creative, whatever.  Be alone in that environment and allow yourself to be absorbed by it.  Then allow your mind to go to all those painful places and feel them as much as you can.  Remember how it felt during those painful times and then try to release some of that hurt.  Who knows--maybe those tears will come and cleanse away some of that buried pain.  Something to consider, anyway.

What do I do after a good cry (which I haven't needed to do for some time, thank goodness)?  I don't know that there is anything one thing--probably just calm myself, then find something mindless to do, go for a long walk, or call a friend to chat.

Brigid

[jordanspeeps]

I have always been a crybaby.  My siblings teased me for crying as a kid, at all the little holiday cartoon specials and Disney movies as a kid.  The childhood ridicule made me quite self-conscious about crying as an adult.  Whenever I had the urge to cry, I would escape the situation, turn my head as the tears fell, etc.  I am a master at camaflouging my emotions, but quite emotional nonetheless.  I also have a very high threshold for pain.  I recall the nurse's constantly telling me I did not HAVE to pretend to endure the pain of contractions with my daughter, that I could have the epidural at any moment.  I remember feeling pressured to get the epidural at the last moments of the childbirth, having had endured the worst of the discomfort, without meds.  I have been raped twice in my life, the first took my virginity and the other was an anal rape where there was blood and I never experienced or recalled the pain they must have caused.  I think this odd to this day.

My most recent crying bit was yesterday.  I woke up, the day after suffering some devastating actions perpetrated by my Nmother feeling DEPRESSED as hell.  I can say on this morning, I felt deep psychic pain.  I was so filled from within with despair and emotional angst.  It occured to me that it would be necessary to rid myself of this feeling or I would explode.  In it's intensity, I felt the feelings to be the stuff of vengeful acts, angry dis-placement, cancer-causing, even.  My latest method of dealing with my mother is to use the polite, distant approach.  But no one prepares you for the crap you shoulder as your own, while the N in your life traipses around spitting venom and wreaking havoc.  Anyway, although I have been trying to maintain a vow of not letting her see/hear/feel me upset or affected by her evil deeds and hurtful intentions, I still feel super-angry and extremely hurt.  What a burden! 

My husband, who witnessed the recent events unfold, was telling me how proud he was of how strong I was being this time around with my mom, so I didn't want to break down completely in front of him.  I go to my shower, take a long hot one, and get all of the random ickiness out, somewhat quietly, I think, but when my hubby, who's entered the bathroom unbeknownst, reaches his hand through the curtain to rub my back, I feel totally better.  It feels good to cry, to sob even.  It feels even better to have some support in your life.  A couple of slices of cucumbers for the puffy eyes after, and you may be on to something!

Hopes this helps.  Best of luck to you.
Tiffany

[Healing&Hopeful]

Tiffany hon... thanks for sharing that.  It's lovely that you have a supportive husband, the kind of man you deserve xx

[bliz]

Having grown up in a household where strong emotions were shunned, I learned to control my emotions at any cost. The cost was usually to me.  After much work on myself,the feelings are closer to the surface.  The oddest things make me cry sometimes:  a good song on the radio, a happy story on T V, a beautiful scene in nature.  I will say it again: "Depression is the damning of the river of emotions."  Fpr many of us, we have to learn that it is okay to express our emotions, especially the ones we may not be that comfortable with.

I recently had a conversation with my Mother about some of her current frustrations with my father's health.  He is having frustrations also.  I asked if they had talked about their feelings.  I had to repeat that question several times as she did not seem to hear or understand the question.  WHen she did, she just laughed.  LIke you have to be kidding?  How sad that you cant discuss your feelings with your partner of 50+ years.   

[Healing&Hopeful]

  How sad that you cant discuss your feelings with your partner of 50+ years.   

Very true and considering how you were brought up, I feel it's very good that you say this. xx

[Sallying Forth]

I was the emotional outlet for my family. They would tease, abuse, ridicule, put down, etc. me until I cried and then leave me alone to cry my eyes out. My stomach would ache for hours afterwards.

When I began my healing journey I cried a lot but didn't know why. Then I basically stopped showing emotions except anger for many years. I had a lot of anger because of what was done to me. Releasing it was part of my healing, part of getting my voice back. But as for crying I felt stuck. I just didn't.

I have since realized I needed to find my own voice. I never had my own voice for crying. I had my entire family's voice but never mine. I am only now beginning to cry with a healthy voice. My emotions come and go gradually and taper off. They used to suddenly coming out of nowhere, full blown, then be gone and at the same level, full blown. I cry when there is something to cry about. My emotions come from within me, not outside of me.

[Healing&Hopeful]

Thank you to everyone for sharing your stories, actually stories is a rubbish word, for sharing your lives with me.  I have found it really helpful.  I think maybe I'm making too much of an issue out of it, that when the anger subsides, then I will be able to cry.

Take care all

H&H xx