POZ Community Forums
Meds, Mind, Body & Benefits => Mental Health & HIV => Topic started by: shadowfluid on June 07, 2008, 09:44:05 pm
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There always seems to be a disconnect when I feel like crying. Something in my brain happens where I'm about to start crying and it just stops it from progressing. I've always been like this. Should I just rent Bambi and keep practicing?
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You know...for much of my life I had the same sort of deal with laughter. I couldn't really laugh. A quiet chuckle or a snicker maybe - but not a full out laugh. I was aware of it for some time, and tried and tried to just let go and let it out. It wouldn't happen. It sounded forced, fake. It was a good many years later when I had an awakening to what that really was. I wasn't able to laugh full out because part of me had convinced myself long ago that I didn't deserve to. This might sound silly to some people, pathetic or whatever - I don't care. That's what it was. And it wasn't until I came to that realization and taught myself that I did have just as much right to the emotion as anyone else had that the barrier broke down and the true laughter flowed.
I don't know if that will mean anything to you or anyone else, if it will help or not. But there you have it anyway.
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Well... in a way it is the opposite to me, i am the sort of guy who feels like crying often... if i see someone poor on the street begging for money... i feel like crying... if i see a touching movie... feel like crying.... if i see an animal hurt... feel like crying.... sometimes i feel like if i go through life with my heart in my hand openned to be hurt by anyone.
I decided i can't control everything in my life... so i just let them flow... if i want to cry... i cry, if i don't want or can't... i let it be. I believe life teaches us and model us... i think you shouldn't stress much for not being able to cry... one day it will happen.
On the other site, tears itself are not real sign of grief... i know lot of people who cry often but feel nothing when doing it. So i would feel happy for being able to experiment feelings internally... despite their external signs are there or not.
hugs,
Juan Carlos
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Hey
Yes I have the same problem. I'm much better at dealing with other people's tears on a professional level, but crap when people I care about in my personal life cry - it makes me seriously uncomfortable. I find it extremely hard to cry even when I'm alone in a room, let alone when there is somebody else there. Like you, I feel like I want to cry but stop myself.
I find talking therapy (analysis in my case) is helping. I'm nowhere near as open to my own emotions as I'd like to be yet, but it's helping me identify the thoughts that come in and stop my from "letting go": a feeling of disgust at myself for being weak and self-pitying or that my feelings have been manipulated by the other person in the room if there is one. Shame and embarrassment too.
I think you used the word "disconnect" and I think that's very true - if you feel an emotion and cannot express or feel it fully it then I think there is something quite dangerous going on that has definitely led me into patterns of behaviour where I've ignored my feelings and been quite self-destructive. I try to think that when I cry, I'm acknowledging that something is important to me: my health, my studies, my family or my work. Acknowledging it helps me protect it.
Matt.
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I could suggest watching "Old Yeller" as well, but it probably goes a bit deeper. I think Matt has stated something very important: if you feel an emotion, you should generally express that emotion in an appropriate way. Otherwise, it can build up, and eventually, one way or another, it will be expressed in other ways you may not prefer (e.g. destructive behavior). Hard for me to say what is going on in your case: the reason for you may be societal ("big boys don't cry"), personal ("If I cry, I am weak"), something else along those lines, or something entirely different. A therapist could really help you with something like this, if you feel so inclined.
I don't generally have problems crying. I probably do so too often. But that still doesn't mean I express what I am thinking or feeling appropriately, so I think for me it too often gets expressed through tears. Again, that's just me.
Regards,
Henry
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It took me a few years of therapy, and some time in the Mankind Project (which is kinda new agey, but not too much and is pretty effective), but now I am able to cry.
Most of the time, I cry when I realize how pure and perfect something is - like a son forgiving a father, or a mother fighting to save her child... just pure, beautiful, raw humanity. Especially around themes of forgiving someone, or appreciating what is right under your nose, or finding freedom from something that was holding you down.
When Nemo realizes that his dad, who wasn't brave and would never come and save him, actually took on three sharks to rescue him, I WAIL. When I see someone realize how special they really are, especially if they didn't think so at all, I always cry.
I didn't cry for years, not until I was 25 or so. Now, at 29, I cry at most movies :)
Oh, and I was dumped a couple of months ago, and I swear I lost 5 pounds through tears alone. Okay maybe this last one isn't great advice :P
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For me thoughts of loss, past and present, always pierce my tear ducts and cause them to shed.
I hope you find an emotion, memory, smell or something that pierces for you and know the wonderful experience of a GOOD CRY!
Be careful what you wish for ... Yaka
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I always cry at the end of Gorillas in the Mist -- WITHOUT FAIL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy_7OeoZCQY
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There always seems to be a disconnect when I feel like crying. Something in my brain happens where I'm about to start crying and it just stops it from progressing. I've always been like this. Should I just rent Bambi and keep practicing?
Start chopping onions........ :P
or should I say :'(
I've found it's a lot easier for me to cry since becoming poz. I'm a lot more sensitive to things now, emotionally. I actually think I tend to cry too easily/too much. Maybe we could trade for awhile.
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I always cry at the end of Gorillas in the Mist -- WITHOUT FAIL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy_7OeoZCQY
The same thing happens to me with Showgirls.
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I find it hard to cry too, well until recently....the funny thing though is that I cry easy when something touches me, usually beautiful things...something like when I see humans behaving with kindness and compassion.
I didn't cry about my HIV, ever, nor do I think I ever will.
I finally broke my "dry spell" during AIDS/LifeCycle... I expected to cry (hopped I would) but I didn't cry when I thought I would (for example the opening and closing ceremony). I cried all day on day 3, just did...out of the blue... I cried when I learned the story of an 8 year old boy who was dying of AIDS 8 years ago and because of the services provided by the money raised during AIDS/LifeCycle he is now a healthy 16 year old.
The happy stories touch me and make me cry ( a good cry).
The only time I cry out of sadness/anger is when I think/read about the early years of the epidemic and the horrors our "pioneers" went through with the fear and discrimination of the older days.
On Day 6 of the ride we have a candle light memorial held on the beach in Ventura...I knew I was going to cry, and I did, but not because I was sad, it was because I was so touched by seeing over 3000 people united for this cause and the goodness and kindness of all those who were there..not just because they were poz, knew someone who was poz or who had passed from AIDS..many there did not know anyone personally affected by HIV until the did the ride...that really touch me.
I think the crying blockage had a lot to do with the fact that I still lived in shame of contracting HIV, not because of society, but because I knew better... Riding in AIDS/LifeCycle made me finally forgive myself and I can cry again...it feels good.
I hope you can find that which is causing you not to be able to cry.
RIch
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I'm a weeper (if you took your Adderall you'd know that :-* ), but that's mostly the depression, I think.
If Bambi doesn't do it, Dancer In The Dark will.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_6iW6Szi9A&feature=related
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For some reason I read that as Dancer from the Dance and perked up.
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Even amongst all us old, buggy queens I doubt that book would be remembered by more than, say, ten members here, darling ;D
Dancer In The Dark is extra-strength sob-inducement.
Brent
(Who at one point had autographed first editions of City Of Night and A Boy's Life)
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Since I have started Celexa, I can't seem to cry. I can't get to the release point very easliy (be it crying, cumming, bursting out laughing). I have become quite boring but it is better then being suicidal
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Since I have started Celexa, I can't seem to cry. I can't get to the release point very easliy (be it crying, cumming, bursting out laughing). I have become quite boring but it is better then being suicidal
Yes pete Celexa does stop the good things in life ! :o
I f I stop taking Celexa for a while I cry my eye balls out :'(
Oh and sex is gone :'(
I am thinking of changing when I see my V.A. doctor ! :-\
I am at my wits end , Celexa is not stopping the feelings of dispair AT ALL ! >:(
I want feelings and to be happy !
Karl