Hi spirit x, like this thread.

I cry differently depending on what it is I am crying about and how safe I feel, in doing so. Here at home, I cry over sad events in other people's lives and awful injustices or misfortune and loss, I both witness in the community, and/or watch in true-life movies and on film. When I read a diary here within the forum, I cry. Chiefly I cry over others and mine deep pain, injustices, grief and loss.

When I'm in a lot of emotional pain I cry!

When or if, I believe or feel a loved one, is being seriously indifferent or irrational with or toward me I cry; This type of cry is different however, if ongoing, after too much, I end up sobbing loudly until it hurts, and it's so hard if not impossible to stop crying then; and I can then get so upset with myself and feeling seriously depressed. I can't help but cry with indifference. I know not to pretend and suck it up anymore, it hurts to much and I give myself permission to be natural and let it out. I like to feel alive, connected, and human. I like the hope, insight and clear thinking I find on the other side of a good cry.

I sometimes cry when I'm really, really afraid for someone else, and feel helpless.

When I go on retreats, I pay for a safe opportunity to share with, to be open to and with others, emotionally honest with myself and then I will cry, mostly as much as I need to and can. There, I also witness a great deal of others pain and trauma, and with this I will cry silent tears, because to do otherwise would unfairly create a distraction.

I believe I have developed a great deal of self-control within myself regarding this emotion. Permitting it when it is necessary, acceptable and safe and disallowing it, or regaining control over it when perhaps I would feel humiliated or I have reason to fear others would likely capitalize on, or feel a sense of satisfaction, accomplishment or even empowerment with me and my deep sense of emotional pain and sadness.

I would do everything within my willpower still, ......even feel as if I were choking to death on tears, ......if I had too, and this has been true now for many, many yrs., ......before I'd cry in front of one single member of my family of origin.

The times in which I cannot always cry, only sometimes, and I accept the times in which I can, as a gift half the time, and half the time I'm hard on myself for it, is when I'm wading and wandering all alone in my trauma unable to communicate, having flashbacks or reliving trauma; then to cry in my mind is equal to an invitation to doom; Almost as if someone could and might suddenly appear and remark, "What are you crying about, for ******'s sake, you have nothing to cry about. You want something to cry about. I'll give you something to cry about. You selfish, spoiled, rotten f'n brat, you."
Hey, it sounds like my mother just got her quarter of a cent in.

Anyhow, back to crying. Crying is a wonderful release and a very healthy, normal, natural response to pain!