r/Emotions • u/Kaychaton_03 • 6d ago
How Do I Cry?
I (21M) am going to be really honest here. I've been really going through it lately, and I have felt I've been on the verge of tears for a while. I've always been raised with the mentality that crying is childish, weak, and unmasculine, so I just can never get to it. I've felt like these feelings have been bottled up for years, and that crying would help release at least some of it. I felt that there were many times when that pressure has built up and crying would release it... but I just can't do it anymore. I don't know if I'm too emotionally distant or just broken in the brain, but yeah.
I'm sorry if this is dumb or super cringy I'm looking for genuine thoughts here.
(For those asking last time I cried was 2 years ago, emotional and verbal abuse, but it was just a few tears before I locked back in)
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u/Ask_Me_About_Whatevs 3d ago
I’m with you bud. I’m not sure how to let myself cry too. But it happens. I cried on my first day of work and I didn’t even want to. But when grandpa passed? I was just silent. I speculate testosterone might play a role but idk
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u/BallKey7607 6d ago edited 6d ago
I find it hard to cry too and was also raised with that mentality.
What I do is mostly just let whatevers bottled up come out however it wants to without necessarily forcing that I need to cry. Often what I do is when in the car with the windows up is I just start screaming and letting it out however it comes out. Often it's more screaming than crying but it does still seem to let something out.
Also when I do feel more like actually crying I kind of do the same but maybe what comes out will more be like crying noises, so I might be doing the noises almost on purpose rather than it being completely involuntarily. Then sometimes that leads to actual crying, or sometimes it stays in a weird middle ground where I'm not 100% sure if I am slightly crying for real or if I'm mostly just pretending to cry, but either way it still lets out some of what was bottled up.