For a long time I unknowingly held back my emotions.

If I hurt myself I would internalise the pain. If I was hurting emotionally I would hold it all back.

Eventually, all of that holding back became a sea of swallowed up emotions, which settled deep down inside of me. I became as barren as the arid desert.

However, although at times my crying is still a delayed reaction to an emotion or event I can and do cry. I guess the strange thing is that this 'crying game' takes me over at inopportune moments. It feels uncomfortable to be walking down the street and feel overwhelmed by the urgency of oncoming tears. Sometimes I cry so hard that it physically hurts.

I think I am grieving, grieving for lost innocence, lost opportunities, a lost life!

I am grieving, but I am also crying for what I can see ahead of me, I can taste it, smell it and all of my senses are alerted to what is out there, a future perhaps? I just want this 'future' that I never dreamed of, so bad that it makes me cry.

Can you cry? And what do you cry over?

Spirit x

I tend to cry more over other people's hurt more than I do my own. I was thinking about this today as I watched the news. I started crying over a story I heard about a family that was killed in a fire yesterday. I always seem to get really emotional over hearing such things, but for some reason, when I think of things that happened to me, I get more numb than anything else.

Hi Spirit. Yesterday my mom told me my step-sister is coming to visit and she is bringing a friend. That triggered me and made me cry. I was afraid and I wanted to get myself a motel room in order to avoid a stranger in my home... my "safe" place. I cried because I was hurt that my mom said yes knowing I don't do strangers very well. I cried cause I felt like nobody understands me. And I cried cause I just didn't want to deal with it all.

Today my step-sister called and said her friend is not coming. Thank God. It seems I cried for nothing.

I used to pride myself on the fact that I could hold it together so well...I think my emotions were somewhat shut off. Although as a kid my mother would scream "STOP CRYING" My father had just died and I was raped by a stranger.....damn who wouldn't cry at 15. Today I cry when i see my son hurting or having a hard time due to his aspergers and tourettes.....today i cried because i feel so alone, abandoned and hurt by people in my life.

I cry when I see horrible things happen to people on the news or in movies. Especially kids. I rarely cry over my pain. I've been trying to make myself cry when I feel pain because it would be releasing a lot of anxiety as apposed to internalizing it.

I'm still working on this like I'm working on trusting my T. Neither of these will happen over night but I've been putting forth the effort. It's not as easy for me to cry in front of people or trust them.

But I believe in time with all of the hard work I'm doing I will over come these obstacles.

Peace
Tammy

I can really relate to you all crying at others peoples' musfortune.
I am also trerrible for crying while I am watching moveis. I watched 'King Kong', the remake with my ex. I cried, sobbed actually so hard that he had to hold me until I settled. he said, 'I don't think we shall be watching that again'. I felt silly for having such an emotional reaction to a story.

It really had an adverse effect on me! I think it was because he was misunderstood and the world responded badly to him, perhaps rather like I feel at times?

Spirit x

I could not cry for many many years. I think I was around 42 when I regained the ability to do so. These days many things will bring me to tears. I have a lot of grieving to do, but it is still hard to allow myself sometimes. I know that if I have not cried for more than a few days I am shut down somehow and will deliberately try to reconnect with myself. Music can be the quickest path back to myself and my tender heart.

Not all tears are tears of pain and sorrow. Sometimes a just the blueness of the sky, or the sparkle of new snow will remind me of a lost awareness that the world is in fact a benevolent place, full of wonders. That can leave me sobbing as well....

I have learned not to cry. At my dad's funeral my mother stated "Nobody is crying at this funeral." and we didn't; not even her and they had been married 58 years.

Sometimes I cry if I am angry or extremely embarrassed, but I try to hide so nobody knows.

I think a good cry is a good release. There have been many times I wished I could cry rather than be so depressed. But honestly, I rarely cry. I think this is normal for us, WE HAVE ALL HAD TO DISCONNECT FROM OUR EMOTIONS FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER.

Reconnecting with our emotions first with other's situations (movie, newspaper, news) I think is the beginning of the emotions returning on test runs.

No cry is a wasted cry, it is releasing something even if we don't know what.

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!