I cannot cry without watching/reading something sad first
emotion regulation and trauma dump(?)
The title already said it.
I cannot cry by myself.
For the past year I have noticed a significant change in myself and that is I cannot cry by myself when I am sad. I cannot cry without watching or reading something sad first.
I could be extremely sad or frustrated, which usually led to me letting out some tears but it’s been a while since I started needing some extra push to let out my emotions, i.e. to cry. It’s honestly not a good feeling. Not being able to express my emotions I mean, and I am a very expressive person, or used to be at least.
I cried publicly more than once because I was going through some academic downfall.
Crying always came easy to me. In fact if someone asked my sister and cousins they might describe me as a crybaby, which I actually was. I used to cry about small things and laugh at people’s unfunny jokes.
Recently, I cannot do that anymore. In order for me to cry I have to sit down in the middle of the night watch or read something so painful that I end up crying about it, and then cry about my actual problem. I don’t know when it started, but with each passing day it’s getting harder for me to cry, to regulate my emotions. Watching or reading something sad or painful is when I can truly let out my tears and process my own emotions.
And I hate doing this.
Because most of the time I cannot even find something that makes me cry, and if I don’t cry or regulate my emotions I either become crankier or quite down more than necessary.
I tried to figure out why is this happening to me, so I googled it and google it said it’s probably a sign of emotional numbness or psychological defense mechanism. And I think it is that psychological defense mechanism.
As I mentioned earlier, as a child I was very expressive. I would laugh and cry without any restraints and most of my family members did not like that.
My mother even told me once that “Crying is a sign of weakness, even for girls.”
My cousins and I used to play Ludo to pass our time, and like the crybaby I was, I would cry every time I lost a match.
“It was funny at first, but it’s annoying now,” my cousin said to me one night. As if I could control whether I’m crying or not. As time went by, he started finding some sadistic pleasure in making me cry. He would make me lose the ludo matches on purpose, make fun of my appearance, my hair, my hobbies or anything that I liked- he hated. He bullied me till all I did was cry.
I never understood why. He was so much older than me. By the time I became a teenager, he was already a working adult, so, I really don’t know what a miserable corporate guy would get from bullying his younger cousin sister.
He did it anyway. He made sure my other cousins and my sister would join too. To this day, I have no idea why. But I don’t think he is the reason I am unable to cry, he might have contributed to it.
Even after he stopped bullying me I was still able to cry, to express my options. I would cry in front of my friends, family, colleagues or anyone who was ready to listen to me honestly. Nowadays I just cannot do that. Even when I am alone, crying has become too hard for me. It’s like I physically cannot make myself cry unless there’s an external pressure.
So here I am, hunting down sad stories to read and movies to watch so that I can just cry and then get over whatever is bothering me.
Drop some recommendations if you can ;)
So I googled some ways to get over this, and am currently trying them out.
The first and foremost thing that needs to be done is to acknowledge. Acknowledging the fact that I am sad or frustrated. In that way my body and brain would understand that my emotions are in turmoil and need to be settled down.
Next is to engage in meaningful activities or activities that force me to be present in the moment. The best example would be journaling; writing about my day in great detail might help. (I have not tried this one out yet).
Third is to draw clear boundaries with people that drains energy the most. Most of the time emotional numbness or burnout happens because of hanging out often with energy vultures, who literally (okay maybe figuratively) suck the life out of me.
Maybe doing all these will help me get over it, maybe not. I don’t really know. If it works out on me all good, if it doesn’t then maybe I have to keep on outsourcing sadness in order to feel my own.
- skiwi <3
Reference: https://medium.com/@thedrowsymind/feeling-numb-heres-how-to-feel-again-gently-b24eac91490e