tears
.
crying is not one of my talents.
i heard that. you're thinking that that's one of those weird things to say right? that crying isn't a talent or a skill.
that crying is something that just happens when you're sad.
easy for those people to say.
when i was seventeen i had a really shitty time for a while and that came after like fourteen years of shit before that so you know it didn't take much [or that it took a hell of a lot]. so a whole pile of shit happened in the space of three or four days and at the end of it all my crying was gone.
and not because i cried.
because eventually the weight of those days got so heavy that it somehow blocked the tears unshed.
and i've never really gotten them back.
when my motorcycle was stolen i cried for two hours straight [i was hrm... twenty five or twenty six] and when athena died i cried my face off a lot. but a lot of that was for her more than me because i felt so terrible for her.
there she was dying and going blind and no one had a clue what was wrong with her including her. what a way to go with grace and dignity though. she was such a darling and she did NOT deserve her death. (brain tumour)
i never felt as bad about sappho because we knew she was dying before you could see that she was. with athena it was the other way around, no one had any fucking clue what was wrong until the day that she died and then i had to choose to do it. i think she knew though because she slept the whole night before with her head on my shoulder.
something she had never once done in all her life.
no, never.
also athena was the first pet that was *mine* that ever i lost so i think it was extra nasty.
and that's about it. i shed tears for long distance commercials and movies and television but a lot of that is learned response from the music and the scene. we're sort of trained to have a typical emotional response to those triggers. and none of it is about me really.
i'm crying for them.
so i can feel for other people and pets just fine. but it sure makes me wonder why i can't cry for me.
i wish that i could, i feel this giant ball of unshed tears inside myself. for that girl and for that young woman and for me. there are things we need to cry about my tears and i but we don't know how to find them.
or maybe i should say but we don't know how to let them out.
the people really, really close to me (my family, othercat, hubris and princess valium) have seen me well up but not cry. i'm not sure anyone has seen me actually shed tears for myself. my family saw a LOT of crying while athena was dying but i maintain that most of that was on her behalf.
crying for myself? no idea how to do that.
i only know that it's something important and that i must learn to do it. i only know that no matter how grief stricken or sad or wounded i am the tears only make it to my eyes.
never to my cheeks.
and i have friends who complain that they're always crying. that they feel like they have no control over their tears. that they worry that people think less of them for crying so often.
maybe *some* people do but i for one am pretty envious. it is not a power that is within my arsenal but oh do i ever need it to be.
imagine being able to let feelings out of you?
imagine that giant ball of unshed tears in the middle of your chest actually being released.
imagine not carrying around feelings you should have let out years ago?
imagine your current feelings letting go AS you have them!
imagine the freedom that follows that kind or release.
man that would be so awesome.
but for me it's like every tear that doesn't fall adds a little more weight to the ones that are already there. that little ball gets heavier and heavier and the floodgates get more and more impossible to open.
i can feel it there when i tear up. it's like a big giant tease. it's worse that the worst player who ever played me it's that bad.
it goes 'maybe i'll let you cry'
'hmmm........' *thinking thinking*
'nope, DE-NIED!!!'
and you're left sitting there going 'but please, please, please, can't i just cry? come on, just this once?'
imagine that, those of you with the power of crying. imagine wishing and wishing you could cry... and never managing it. never once actually letting your feelings leave your body as you're having them. always feeling them growing inside you like some kind of cancer...
bet suddenly all those tears sound a lot less irritating ne?
======================================================
also in case you didn't get the fantastic news yesterday?
PAT QUINN GOT CANNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*clears throat*
yeah i'm not excited by that at all.
really not in the slightest.
i swear i'm over it already.
*dances in her seat like a three year old who has to go potty RIGHT NOW!*
[coach of the toronto maple leafs hockey club]
crying is not one of my talents.
i heard that. you're thinking that that's one of those weird things to say right? that crying isn't a talent or a skill.
that crying is something that just happens when you're sad.
easy for those people to say.
when i was seventeen i had a really shitty time for a while and that came after like fourteen years of shit before that so you know it didn't take much [or that it took a hell of a lot]. so a whole pile of shit happened in the space of three or four days and at the end of it all my crying was gone.
and not because i cried.
because eventually the weight of those days got so heavy that it somehow blocked the tears unshed.
and i've never really gotten them back.
when my motorcycle was stolen i cried for two hours straight [i was hrm... twenty five or twenty six] and when athena died i cried my face off a lot. but a lot of that was for her more than me because i felt so terrible for her.
there she was dying and going blind and no one had a clue what was wrong with her including her. what a way to go with grace and dignity though. she was such a darling and she did NOT deserve her death. (brain tumour)
i never felt as bad about sappho because we knew she was dying before you could see that she was. with athena it was the other way around, no one had any fucking clue what was wrong until the day that she died and then i had to choose to do it. i think she knew though because she slept the whole night before with her head on my shoulder.
something she had never once done in all her life.
no, never.
also athena was the first pet that was *mine* that ever i lost so i think it was extra nasty.
and that's about it. i shed tears for long distance commercials and movies and television but a lot of that is learned response from the music and the scene. we're sort of trained to have a typical emotional response to those triggers. and none of it is about me really.
i'm crying for them.
so i can feel for other people and pets just fine. but it sure makes me wonder why i can't cry for me.
i wish that i could, i feel this giant ball of unshed tears inside myself. for that girl and for that young woman and for me. there are things we need to cry about my tears and i but we don't know how to find them.
or maybe i should say but we don't know how to let them out.
the people really, really close to me (my family, othercat, hubris and princess valium) have seen me well up but not cry. i'm not sure anyone has seen me actually shed tears for myself. my family saw a LOT of crying while athena was dying but i maintain that most of that was on her behalf.
crying for myself? no idea how to do that.
i only know that it's something important and that i must learn to do it. i only know that no matter how grief stricken or sad or wounded i am the tears only make it to my eyes.
never to my cheeks.
and i have friends who complain that they're always crying. that they feel like they have no control over their tears. that they worry that people think less of them for crying so often.
maybe *some* people do but i for one am pretty envious. it is not a power that is within my arsenal but oh do i ever need it to be.
imagine being able to let feelings out of you?
imagine that giant ball of unshed tears in the middle of your chest actually being released.
imagine not carrying around feelings you should have let out years ago?
imagine your current feelings letting go AS you have them!
imagine the freedom that follows that kind or release.
man that would be so awesome.
but for me it's like every tear that doesn't fall adds a little more weight to the ones that are already there. that little ball gets heavier and heavier and the floodgates get more and more impossible to open.
i can feel it there when i tear up. it's like a big giant tease. it's worse that the worst player who ever played me it's that bad.
it goes 'maybe i'll let you cry'
'hmmm........' *thinking thinking*
'nope, DE-NIED!!!'
and you're left sitting there going 'but please, please, please, can't i just cry? come on, just this once?'
imagine that, those of you with the power of crying. imagine wishing and wishing you could cry... and never managing it. never once actually letting your feelings leave your body as you're having them. always feeling them growing inside you like some kind of cancer...
bet suddenly all those tears sound a lot less irritating ne?
======================================================
also in case you didn't get the fantastic news yesterday?
PAT QUINN GOT CANNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*clears throat*
yeah i'm not excited by that at all.
really not in the slightest.
i swear i'm over it already.
*dances in her seat like a three year old who has to go potty RIGHT NOW!*
[coach of the toronto maple leafs hockey club]
posted by sassinak | 5:05 PM
36 Comments:
IM FIRST!!! IM FIRST!!!
SORRY, okay now I'll read...
I couldn't imagine the pain of not being able to cry. I cry well, not easily, but well.
Honestly I think that if I couldn't cry it would be an issue for certain.
Maybe you can hammer your finger when you feel like that, just to aid the initial release?
see now that just sounds bad and impathetic to your plight.
But, Im trying to be creative... I care about you crying.
And god DAMN those long distance commercials SUCK!
^5 em!
hee i've done that before *SnickeR*
it's totally an issue i can't even really put it into words. they're there and i can feel them but nothing gets them to come out. they just sit there in my chest.
it's okay when i'm feeling good but when i have the blues? or something i want to let go of? fucking sucks yo.
i didn't think that sounded bad, it's not a bad idea except i know i won't do it :)
those long distance commercials are worse than long lost family reunification shows!
Often I feel stupid & weak when I cry. I've always hated it but what I've never done is see it from the prespective of one who can't. Very wierd for me if you count the fact that it never even occurred to me that people couldn't. I just thought they had the strength to choose not to and let it out later when no one is around with their head buried deep in a pillow. Now there is yet another Sass-induced re-analysis to do on a facet of me.
Your readers love to see you express these things. I notice how they use it for their own lives like I do. But I get to see it in front of my face.
There is something there that's keeping them back, like...something that happened a long time ago and you've learned to protect yourself, by not letting the emotion out in that form. I'm not saying it right. Your body has has developed it as a way of self defense, your lack of crying. You need to come to terms, by remembering and dealing with it, with whatever it was in your past.
Don't ask how I know these things...and I could be completely off base.
Love you though.
hubris: well i think if you remember that flaws and strengths are just flip sides of the same coin it helps. like it's good to be detail oriented but bad to get so lost in the details you can't move on when you need to.
or good to be able to cry when you need to but bad to have absolutely no control over when it happens.
plus and minus but ultimately equal.
i like that i make people think about their inner selves.
i use their comments and their blogs for my life too... it's fully mutual.
kathi: you're totally right but i haven't figured out what it is. i know that it's way before that weekend when i was seventeen though.
it's for sure an old old defense mechanism but i sure would like to let go of it. i think it's coming sooner rather than later but i'm not there yet.
i'm pretty sure you know these things because you lived them yourself.
The thing that often blocks us from feeling our feelings all the way - is fear. Fear of losing control, fear of being looked down on...
...fear of letting go of something that may just be easier to hold on to than go through the pain of letting go of.
I choke up at that song by Clapton written for his toddler son who died falling out a hotel window... something about "Heaven" in the title I think.
But I can't switch the radio station when it comes on. Why?
yup.
In my family's culture growing up, one of the "rules" was that boys don't cry. It wasn't seemly or masculine. I stopped crying somewhere in adolescence — I refused to cry no matter what. I channeled it elsewhere, usually in anger, and bottled it in.
This lasted pretty much until my dad died. Then, it seemed as if the tears wouldn't stop. I think the only time I wasn't crying was when I was sleeping. I still tear up thinking about his death and that time ... and have been free and able to cry about other things since then.
I hope that it doesn't take something tragic before you're allowed to open up, sass ...
oh, man, sass... i'm such a crier that i'm welling up now, thinking how awful it must be to carry that all around with youm with no release. because i know how awful it feels when i try to fight it when it needs to come out. that feeling in your chest is like a big ball of pain.
and i even sometimes think it's silly that my tears come so readily whenever i'm reminded of my father's death -- there was even a sopranos episode this season that had me bawling (you know, part two of the dream/near death sequence, when he heard meadow calling him back).
but then i remember that it's a wound that will never completely heal, so fuck it. i'll cry over it as long as i live.
i wonder how you go about unblocking those tears.
You and I talked about crying not too long ago. I'm like you-- I cry for animals and real people and TV people, I cry when Olympians see their national flag hoisted for their efforts, when the team I'm rooting for on Family Feud wins, or when Maury brings together long-lost relatives.
But I rarely cry for me, and if I do, it's sure as hell not in front of others. I can't actually remember the last time I cried for me, but I know it only happens when I'm at an emotional breaking point, when things are getting so bad that it's almost at the 'seek help' stage. My inability to cry even when faced with extreme situations shocks (and fascinates) my shrink.
I don't like crying in front of others because it's embarrassing and far too intimate. Not like I expect them to mock me or look down on me, it just makes me insanely uncomfortable. Crying in front of others makes me feel like a weakling and a crazy person, which is odd because I don't think that when others cry that they are odd or crazy.
So instead of crying I self-medicate with whatever is handy and appropriate-- be it drugs, food, exercise, keeping extremely busy or working 12 hours a day. And when those things don't work, I find myself being quite moody and cranky. Unconsciously, I must have decided that being angry was preferable to being vulnerable. Not that I ever hit things or yell or threaten, I just turn it inward for the far more destructive emotional violence. I am trying to retrain myself out of this, but it's hard going, because I've lost the ability to cry for myself. I just can't, even if I want to. But I am doing better at not reacting with anger. Maybe one day the tears will come. I'm totally afraid of that day, by the way.
I do cry sentimentally- when saying goodbye to friends overseas when they depart (or I do) from a visit, when I remember my grandfather weeping silently when he first heard Andrea Bocelli's voice, when I look back on the summer of 1992, the purest and most simple two months I've ever known.
And if I'm physically hurt, I'll cry a bit too, but usually that's just because I'm startled or scared.
But never will I just sit down and weep because my day sucked. I haven't cried over a breakup since I was 22. I didn't cry when I got fired, I didn't cry when my family imploded, and I didn't cry when the electricity and phone were cut and I lived like a squatter for months. It's like I just didn't see the point of 'crying over spilt milk'. Of course, the point is to vent it and move on as best you can, but I can't get past that. Maybe because when I do cry, it wipes me out physically and emotionally for at least 24 hours afterwards.
I wish I could be normal and cry for the things that have earned the tears and trust myself and others not to think less of me for it.
matt: totally dude. but i have literally been welling up with tears alone in my bed and said to myself that i had permission. it's safe now, there's nothing on tomorrow and it doesn't matter how long it lasts and whatever and still? they well up and they don't fall.
i have utter certainty that there's something i haven't let go of but i don't know what it is... i do know that it's dragged a lot of shit after it over the years.
punk: i do that sometimes depending on the post and the blog.
i can cry for any of those things where my own personal self isn't involved. at the drop of a hat. it's easy. i cry at movies ALL the time.
but tears for me? damm feel free to shed any of them that will let themselves out. my gratitude with them.
dom: me too.
well, i can tell you that sometimes i read a book that i've already read because i know it will give me just what i want. the correct amount of funny/plot/romance/dialogue/wit/fancy for that particular moment in my life.
maybe it's a bit comforting?
(tears in heaven)
kathi *hug*
dzer: i totally used to refuse to cry. many an event transpired in my youth where i just would not give whomever was tormenting me the satisfaction.
i got so good at squelching that now i can't find anything.
man dzer what a shitty way to get your tears back. i hope it doesn't happen that way with me. i am glad for you though that you got them back... i think that's really important.
it's shitty what they do to little boys with crying...
terry: yeah that's it exactly. with breathwork and drumming i can let go of the stressball but the tears somehow seem to live there.
i didn't actually watch the sopranos... but i've cried at gilmore girls and house and and and :)
i like that you've given yourself permission to cry for your dad for as long as you live. i think that's really cool and healthy.
i am so afraid of the day that might happen to me.
and dude? wish i knew.
PV: yup, yup yup etc... :)
well you have my permission to tell your shrink that i'm the same as you. i can well up all the time but even when i tell the tears that they're welcome they still disappear again.
even when i'm convinced that i'm about to break? no crying.
insanely uncomfortable. yeah that's it. and it's not about feeling crazy. i cried one other time but someone else is intimately in the story so it's no one's business but theirs... anyway that was rage and fear and grief all together. and i hated it. hated that i was doing that where someone could see.
and yet? when other people cry i almost welcome it.
i have to say that i feel like i could have written this comment in a lot of ways. i am fully on the self medication train... these days it's exercise and weed and my blog. i think i went with insane positivity over vulnerability though.
it's the hardest thing in the world this rewiring your brain, it wouldn't be worth it if it didn't feel so good.
i cry sentimentally as well. but not over my grandfather's death. more like when i say ... no you know what? i don't think i do. yeah... i don't cry sentimentally either.
i think i've cried from pain before. but not the long term slow pain, the fast and unexpected one... that one gets some tears.
but that's a physical response right? not the same thing?
yeah, me too... i didn't cry so many times when any sane person would have... and now like you i just wish i could do it.
i wonder why the thinking less of oneself part happens.
That's the problem with defense mechanisms - they work. And over time they get to where they're effective (and working) whether we like it or not.
Digging back out, that's a trick. Sometimes we can do it on our own, sometimes we need help to do it.
i'm the same way.
i can cry for other people, and situations (ex: movies), or even from just laughing too hard or being physically injured
but when it comes to crying to release something? for my own purpose? yea, doesn't generally happen.
i don't think crying is a sign of weakness, but when it comes to my own crying..i can't not think it's just me being a total pussy over something.
that? and i think i cried out all my alloted tears when i was a depressed, nomadic teenager. i was a miserable human back then.
isn't it a shame that we've all had the experience of fighting something that is completely normal and human?
matt: word uncle matt. fucking word.
i've wanted this one to get the hell out of my life for going on seven or eight years now. it's possible it's actually ready to let go... feels like it might. my tummy thinks it will.
if not soon some counselling maybe.
elle: i definetely agree that crying isn't a sign of weakness, but at the same time there's that feeling of being a wuss. i wonder if part of it is the pressure for women to be less 'feminine' in a lot of our current culture. the eighties were a lot about the masculinisation (is that a word) of women and we got sorta formed from that...
dunno.
i didn't cry when i was young really either. that's just when i lost it for good.
terry: fucking word.
word.
word.
yes.
it's also tough to see that there's something about yourself that you'd like to see go another way. you've cleared the first hurdle already.
matt: tragically i knew about this problem hrm... 14 or 15 years ago.
and it's still there.
no reason to be down on yourself - you still know about it and you want to change.
it's still possible, and the desire is still there.
Does crying AT ALL help you? I mean, maybe you can get some mini release out of crying for other things or other people...?
I dunno, I'm one of those people who cries at everything. I've never really deciphered what or who I'm crying over, I just know I do it a lot.
Grass is always greener, I think. I have a feeling that you saying it at all, no matter how often you do it, gets you a baby step closer to it happening. One day, Sass.
okay, here's a thought that occurred to me while i was catching up on the last couple of weeks of my fave tv shows tonight, and (yes, i am a dork) was moved to tears by something in an episode of "lost..."
it dawned on me that the tears came from my own pain. that what i was seeing on the show mirrored or at least resembled something i had experienced or felt.
and i realized that this is what's usually happening when i cry over a movie or book or tv show or even a song lyric. (is this what empathy stems from? or am i completely self-centered??)
my point? maybe when you do the same thing, you really ARE shedding a tear or two for yourself. that it really IS about you and your own feelings. it's just hard to tell because it's triggered by something outside of you.
and you're not getting the release you need, but maybe you're censoring that because the trigger came from outside you.
just a thought.
i think why i never do is because it shows i'm vulnerable...which..shockingly, is something i never want to let people to know.
for some reason...
i like to hide the chinks in my armor. figures.
Dude...Elle..new pic :)
And dude crying is vial for me. If I am happy or sad or upset or need release. I cry with songs, movies...I try not to stop myself from crying. I think it's unhealthy to hold stuff in and it's imporant to let yourself feel stuff. Of course there are places where crying might seem inappropriate and certainly there are people who cannot cope with you crying.
But yes I had a a few non-crying spells as well...and those were hard.
Dunno...I take the tears :)
-N
matt: fair enough... and i'm feeling quite high on myself at the moment.
that's true, and i feel it will come.
teresa: well i really enjoy crying if that's what you mean. i certainly don't mind crying at movies, in fact i rather like it.
and i think i definetely get some release from that but not the same as the real kind.
i think you're right t, i think that the more i talk about it the closer it gets. feels that way anyway.
terry: i love doing that. tomorrow i have cued up this week's ncis, house, gilmore girls, survivor, charmed and er. i'm sure at least two will be reruns but that's enough.
i cry over tv shows a lot, and it's fun. wow that dawned on you while you were watching lost? impressive. is this season worth renting? i've seen season one...
anyway i think that's really interesting that you cry for your own sort of emotional ghosts. i'm sure that i do that to some extent but i'm also an empath which makes me cry for others really easily.
no i think it's exactly what empathy comes from. teh willingness to emotionally put yourself in someone else's shoes.
dude that's a really interesting thought and one i must consider long and well.
thanks.
why not make a soundtrack for your sadness? (i'm a nerd..i have a playlist on my itunes that's full of all the songs that make me sad)
there are always songs that just..for lack of a better word...fit. they mirror our emotions--good, or bad. maybe hearing someone else explicate the woes of your heart, will take the pressure off you thinking about them and not being able to react to them, and just let the tears roll?
this season of "lost" is definitely worth renting. i don't think i've been bored by a single episode. and it keeps getting better and better.
ooh, i like elle's idea of a sadness soundtrack...
If you figure out how to release you can use my shoulder to do it on.
tasha
S,
I can provide you a sure fire way to handle the crying/not crying. If you are even remotely thinking of counselling, try this first. E-mail if you're interested.
Tears to you,
Shy
Ok I was going to ask who Pat Quinn was so thanks for that little bracketed addendum at the bottom!
Also, I'm one of those who cries at everything. Commercials, movies, happy and sad endings, saying goodbye to loved ones, when my mom tells us how proud she is to have raised us... all of that.
In fact I feel I have dried tears at the corners of my eyes just now and I honestly can't remember what I was crying about. Oh yes I was watching a movie. The 2d Harry Potter. Which I've already seen like... ooooh I dunno. Nine and 3/4 times.
I hope (also I kinda don't hope at all) that something happens one of these days that will open your floodgates and that'll be that. I know I always feel better after a good cry. It's cathartic and kinda rejuvenating in a weird way.
Or else just call me, tell me the news and I'll cry on your behalf. God knows I have enough tears to go around. I'm such a sap.
grainne: wow.
i think that's amazing. i'm certain in my case that it will come along with the rest of my deep emotions as i continue to heal myself but it sure sounds nice to cry the way you do.
especially the orgasm one.
i learned that lesson about letting people see how you feel when i was so young that i didn't learn to differentiate wheni was alone. love to let that crap out when i'm lying in bed alone.
it's so shitty that people exploit deep emotion, i find it hard to comprehend.
oh i can't bear animal things grainne. i either cry or i get deeply wounded far inside myself and then i just can't even deal with it. unfortunately if i do cry for the animals i don't get the purge.
i agreee with you about men who can't cry and yet i'm a woman who doesn't.
*takes tissues and looks measuringly at them*
have tried i swear...
elle: that's so crazy that it might just work. if i had an ipod i would so have that playlist, but since i don't i'll have to make some kind of mixed tape. i definetely have songs like that though...
it's hard to know in advance what i'll want to hear next time i'm sad though...
terry: nice, i'm looking forward to it in august then :)
i like elle's idea too actually
tasha: thank you!
shy: okay i emailed you.
i'm very curious to see what your mysterious suggestion is.
and that was a terribly awesome pun!
jmai: you're welcome. i figure y'all aren't from my city so...
i cry for all but the last two. see what i mean? never when it's about me.
i've read that book i think but i don't remember if i bothered to see the movie. harry potter doesn't do it for me... which makes me unlike everyone else that i know :)
i'm with you. i hope and yet dread what it would be that would open the gates. i'm not sure i care to find out *wry smile*
i love crying i just don't really do it. wierd right?
well i never thought of having a designated crier. hrm...
I didn't cry for years. I had it beat outta me. Crying was shameful and caused a worse beating. So I just didn't do it. I didn't cry for about 14 years. I just stopped. I still can't cry without feeling uttelry humiliated, stupid and like I should die right now.
I made a decision one day that I needed to get myself crying again. I couldn't keep going around feeling not much and never really being sad. I kept telling myself I wasn't feeling sorry for myslef I was just letting my body have a release of it's energies. Crying is like laughing only wetter. It took years. I finally got there and once I started to feel that I had a hard time with it. I really felt like Data, I wanted the emotions and there they were - but where's the manual on dealing with them? I think crying make me doubt my sanity the most and I still resist it with much forcefulness but I can cry now - even for myself.
I think you can get there if you can figure out why you stopped. If you want to.
amber: me too. except crying wasn't shameful. but i refused to give any of my tormentors the satisfaction of seeing it.
i don't feel like i should die when i cry it just doesn't happen. i give it permission, there are even people i will willingly cry in front of.... if it ever comes out.
i know why i stopped, i can list off the factors that led to it... i just don't know how to unstop.
i'm so impressed with you for teaching yourself to do that i don't even have words!
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