Title: Obviously, Justin.
Image: A copy of a Rene Magritte I painted for a college class.
When I was a kid; I was sensitive to just about everything from food texture to slight inconveniences. I was called a primadonna, which if you look at the definition it’s kind of a weird thing to call a child who just hasn’t learned to communicate their feelings yet.
I went on antidepressants when I was 14 as the ‘last straw’ of my inconvenient distress. I had too many feelings and they needed to be tamped down by whatever means necessary.
And they worked I guess? I don’t remember crying much between 15 and 22. I would cry when my ex-boyfriend would yell at me, and everything else didn’t really phase me in comparison. I had quickly figured out how to gray-rock. And when I started gray-rocking, he started crying his manipulative, crocodile tears because it kicked in my empathy even when I didn’t want it to. I learned that crying was either a sign of weakness, or a manipulative tactic.
In the final two months of that relationship, I was a camp counselor for 5 year old boys. He did not like that I was busy and unreachable, and so I got to look forward to after work was a barrage of texts. I was not a happy camper. Halfway through the summer we got a “review” where I was told I didn’t smile enough. (18 year old depressed Andria, who was being abused in her free time, trying to clothe 10 naked 5 year old boys after swimming in the pond for $6.80 an hour, wasn’t smiling enough? Shocker.) I began to weep. The woman giving my review looked uncomfortable, and tried to console me that I was being given a second chance to make 6.80 an hour and moved me to the 9 year old girls group. I wanted to explain that I wasn’t upset about my job, fuck your $6.80 an hour, I was upset that the reason was because I was too sad. I then was embarrassed for showing how weak I was.
After the breakup, I cried so infrequently that I used to watch sad movies to force a cry, to unclog my ducts and get that cathartic release of a fat tear rolling down my cheeks. I’d let them sit on my skin, as nature intended. I don’t remember crying naturally until age 25, when everything I had been building up for myself came crashing down. Years of pent up frustrations, anger, and sadness, all came back with a force. Everything became overwhelming. Everything made me cry. Now I cry nearly every day. Pain and fatigue will do that to you; the hurricane barrier keeping my emotions at bay is faulty because all my little maintenance men are off on other projects and there’s no room in the budget to hire any more.
I can no longer talk through conflict without tears forming. And I apologize for it, profusely. I tell them my tears don’t actually mean anything and to ignore them. I tell them that these are not manipulative tears, it just happens when I think too much, or have any emotion in high volume. I tell them they are not hurting me as much as it appears they are hurting me (even if that is not true).
I can feel tears welling in even some of the most normal of conversations. I can tell when they are spotted as people start to backtrack their words, or remind me that everything is going to be fine. I tend to joke through the tears or otherwise undermine myself for the sake of making people less uncomfortable. Speaking through tears is often hard, and so I tend to not actually get “heard”, just pitied, or worse, seen as dramatic.
Talking about my illness brings me to tears pretty much every time, too, no matter who I am speaking to. This past week, after asking my doctor to write me an ADA accommodation letter, I bawled when she asked why I wanted it. I bawled telling her I was falling asleep behind the wheel. I bawled telling her how overwhelming the pain and fatigue was. I had begun to panic thinking I was not going to be able to describe my suffering in a way that was coherent and believable. I repeatedly apologized to my doctor because I could see she was uncomfortable.
We are born crying; it was our first form of communication. It can signal to others that we need help. It can signal that we have empathy. It can come from anger, sadness, happiness – it can show that our feelings are real and tangible. Crying is morally neutral; it does not mean you’re bad, good, weak, or manipulative. A three year old having a tantrum isn’t trying to manipulate you, it just doesn’t have the communication skills or emotional regulation to fix what the issue is. I cry for similar reasons; my emotional regulation has been shot because my body is overwhelmed just trying to stay awake and mitigate pain signals. It’s like taking the batteries out of your vibrator to put into the TV remote because you only have so many batteries and right now your favorite show is on. We’ll put them back when we get more batteries, or when we don’t need them for the TV anymore.
Crying is a release. It releases hormones that can help mask physical and emotional pain. If you want to cry, maybe you should. Holding back tears is only withholding yourself from free drugs, free oxytocin. If you think not crying or forcefully keeping yourself from crying is some sort of feat of strength, then maybe look inward a bit. Especially if you’re keeping yourself from crying even when you’re alone.
Now, should you cry at work? Morally, there’s no reason you shouldn’t, but because of capitalism, probably hold it in. Should you cry at the grocery store because the lights are too bright and there’s too many granola bar options? Honestly, who cares, maybe just be quiet about it; maybe it will help get some post-cry-clarity on the granola bar situation. Sometimes you gotta cry in public, even if it makes a bunch of people in a Wawa REALLY uncomfortable.*
Now go watch a sad movie.
Bonus Content:
*Crying at the Wawa by Chris Gethard and Mal Blum.
Movies that make me cry:
All of them
As well as off the top of my head:
Lars and the Real Girl
Call Me By Your Name
Little Miss Sunshine
Instant Family
Carol & the End of the World (series)
Fleabag (series
Damn, That's Crazy 