Do you cry easily?

Zehava

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 3:10 pm

nchr wrote:

Oh no, are you crying?
I know people who cry feel different about crying and they shouldn't care if I don't like crying... unless they are married to me. Definitely not judging the criers it is just not my thing!

No lol. But I feel really sad for whatever it is that was done to you to give you such a twisted view of healthy emotional expression.
And even more sad for your children that are taught early on to suppress their emotional expression.

amother

Plum

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 3:12 pm

nchr wrote:

I very tough on myself and I think crying is one of the most disgusting acts. I feel the same way about children crying. I cannot imagine allowing myself to cry, and if it did happen, I wouldn't want to deal with the self disappointment so to say. Crying is completely useless and solves nothing. BH my children don't cry unless they are infants who need a feeding etc. because I don't know how I'd deal with that personality before the age of reason when you can teach them how irrational crying is. It doesn't solve problems, doesn't make you gain experience, doesn't offer solutions, is not appealing, etc.

Oof. What a scary and unsettling post.
Crying is self soothing.

nchr

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 3:31 pm

thunderstorm wrote:

This post makes me so sad. Crying is good for you. When I can’t cry , is when I know that I am emotionally blocked somewhere and I need to work on it. Your children should have the choice to cry or not to and if you shame them and teach them that crying is something to be ashamed of this can cause major issues for them down the line. But you do you and I’ll do me and I won’t judge you. I just don’t relate to your point of view .

I really want to understand the first portion of your post. You sit yourself down and think "Hm. I need to cry now but for some reason I'm not so it means I'm blocked?" Why would you want to force yourself to lose control? Isn't it asking for trouble like asking yourself "I should be mad now. I should be sad now"?

In regard to the second portion, I haven't ever shamed my children. We don't really talk about crying. It's a non issue. More like "why would you be crying right now? It is a pretty unreasonable illogical behavior. Would you please think if it makes sense or if sitting down and figuring out a solution or figuring out what is going would be a better idea." Obviously they will choose to figure out how to solve their problem or to think about how they ended up in their problem than just waste time and harass everyone including themselves with crying.

Zehava

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 3:34 pm

nchr wrote:

So you turn your little kids with their little hearts and underdeveloped brains into unfeeling robots who just solve problems.
It has a name. It’s called emotional neglect. They will grow up with a deficit for the rest of their lives.

thunderstorm

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 3:44 pm

nchr wrote:

I don’t think crying is a form of losing control. Crying is a healthy release of emotion. The word emotion means “Energy in motion”. There is energy within each one of us that needs to move through us and out . Crying is one way of releasing that energy in motion.
If we don’t release those emotions and we keep it locked up within us , it will one day force itself out in unhealthy ways. Often this results in depression, physical ailments etc.
Expression of emotion is very important, for your mental AND physical health.
I know that on a day that I am feeling sad and I can’t cry when I know that a good cry would release all that negative energy , I do self reflect and see why I have such a hard time.
Sometimes , it’s because it’s too painful to let myself feel, so I deny the feelings. Other times , it was depression setting in and it was a sign I needed to get help.
Every child should be able to express their emotions in healthy ways. One of those ways is through crying. And validating and comforting your child while they are crying is what needs to be done. They should not feel like that they must solve their problems instead of crying. Once they feel validated and comforted then they can move on to the next step of problem solving. Making a child feel like there is something wrong with expressing emotions (which is often with crying) is stunting them emotionally. And ignoring a crying child does the same. (Not referring to terrible twos tantrums)

nchr

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 3:48 pm

thunderstorm wrote:

So let's say that emotions are "energy in motion" that needs to be released. Who is to say that exercising, cooking, singing or problem solving are not better "motions" than crying? Problem solving means there is a solution to the problem that started the crying to begin with so it makes the crying moot. Do you mean to say crying is physically stimulating to you?

In regard to the deficit comment, I hope the problem solving skills will let them eliminate the deficit if they ever have one from not crying enough.

thunderstorm

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 3:53 pm

nchr wrote:

I feel a difference physically after I cry. Here’s just one of many articles that discuss the benefits of crying.
https://www.thehealthy.com/men.....ying/

lilies

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 4:05 pm

nchr wrote:

In the same way that exercising releases an excess of physical energy, and singing is probably a result of joy and positive feelings, crying would be the appropriate form of expression of sadness.

To teach children to help themselves and fix things without first allowing a good cry, is to stifle an emotion. Why would you do that?
That's like telling a child, don't sing and dance when hearing good news. Just go 'fix' it.

silverlining3

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 4:13 pm

lilies wrote:

Great explanation!

Laiya

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 4:37 pm

nchr wrote:

I don't think there's anything wrong if you never feel the need to cry.

There's the idea that if we don't validate and accept feelings, feelings can be buried but they won't disappear, they'll come out in other ways that aren't healthy, like depression, anger, self-loathing etc. With children, we want to teach them to validate themselves by showing them validation.

nchr

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 5:45 pm

Laiya wrote:

I really disagree with this. It's as if this concept was made up to justify poor behavior or outbursts. Anger or any emotion dissipates when you don't focus on it or when you move on, except for something extremely disfunctional or abusive. Even if you're suppression theory was right why dont all the suppressed positive emotions also come out to counter the negative ones? I really don't think that sadness lr anxiety that is counteracted by doing something positive and productive instead of crying does anything more than disappear. Feelings you don't want are only there if you let them be there (unless there is something else at play which shouldn't be common).

bigsis144

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 5:54 pm

nchr wrote:

How many descriptions do we have of the Avos or Nevi’im “weeping” and “wailing”? SO MANY.

Just like we have pain receptors in our physical bodies to at us know something is wrong, we have “negative” emotions like sadness and anger to let us know that something, internally or externally, is wrong.

But I believe that feelings have inherent meaning and value besides their usefulness in pushing us to “do something about it”. And physical manifestations of those feelings - laughter, crying, etc. - are cathartic and necessary. HaShem doesn’t want us to be robots or malachim.

I personally feel more human and alive after I’ve cried, whether it’s from sadness or joy/relief. I don’t necessarily wallow in those feelings, but I don’t believe shutting them down completely is heathy at all.

amother

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 5:56 pm

nchr wrote:

Feelings you don't want are only there if you let them be there (unless there is
something else at play which shouldn't be common).

So not true for me. I tried for over two decades to force myself to feel differently than I truly did. Some people can "think" their way into feeling differently, but many many many people cannot. I wish I could just "not let" hurt, fear, depression, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, self-hatred, anger, etc. be there. But they are there and they need to be dealt with, not denied.

Genuinely curious nchr - what do you do if you or your kids get hurt c"v? Crying from physical pain cannot always be soothed by problem-solving. Or what about when the problem has no solution, such as grieving a loss r"l? Not attacking you - I am interested in your reply.

newcomer

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 6:00 pm

nchr wrote:

Disgusting is an interesting word choice here. Do you mean it literally, like actual revulsion?

BTW there is a lot of research about babies who were left in overcrowded orphanages and learned not to cry because nobody came when they did. Even after adoption at a fairly young age, in stable, loving families, they had a lot of emotional and behavioral problems.

Obviously it is a good idea to learn to regulate your emotions, but the act of crying itself is not unhealthy or bad. It's a release of sorts. And it's ok to take a few minutes to feel disappointment of whatever, before you work on a solution to your problem, imo. For kids, it's a part of growing up. Isn't there a famous story about Rav Schwab, I think, who said that if a kid is crying because his paper boat capsized and got ruined in a puddle and is crying as a result, shouldn't be admonished, but empathized with?

amother

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 6:04 pm

newcomer wrote:

Good point. Although I heard that that story was said about R' Wolbe but maybe I'm misremembering. The version I heard extended the metaphor further - the child's feelings of loss, disappointment, etc. are as real, valid and powerful to him as the feelings of an adult man who lost his yacht, are to him.

Zehava

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 6:10 pm

Nchr I won’t try to prove this to you logically because I have a feeling your own emotions are so deeply hidden you don’t even know where to look, nor do you see a reason to. I will just say that I helped someone like you, an INTJ, Access her emotions, and it changed her life. Yes I needed to do a bit of breaking through. Because at the beginning she had no idea what I wanted. But once I got through an entire universe opened up before her and she’d never go back to that existence if you paid her. She describes it as seeing in black n white her entire life and suddenly being introduced to color.
I hope you find yourself one day. It’s really sad to have an entire dimension of the world and yourself be so inaccessible.

mommy3b2c

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 6:18 pm

nchr wrote:

Wow. You are a harsh person. And crying most certainly serves a purpose. It releases hormones that allow a person to feel better. It allows people to express their pain. I honestly feel bad for your children. They don’t cry, because they know their mother will think they are disgusting if they cry.

nchr

Fri, Jul 17 2020, 6:41 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Genuinely curious nchr - what do you do if you or your kids get hurt c"v? Crying from physical pain cannot always be soothed by problem-solving. Or what about when the problem has no solution, such as grieving a loss r"l? Not attacking you - I am interested in your reply.

Little kids I would just say it's ok, shah shah, that's enough, you're fine. Older kids I'd ask them if they think crying is going to be beneficial in any way or help out with the cut and obviously they know it will only make it worse by working them up so it usually stops the crying. My 6 yr old just had stitches on his leg and DH told him the dr was so proud of him for not crying and my son didn't understand why because he said that crying would have only made it harder for him to stay still. BH it wasn't serious. I also had tremendous pressure (from myself) to quietly give birth but after the first time it was no big deal. Once you realize it's not beneficial everything is different. But then again people are different too.

In regard to loss r"l and none of us should experience that I'm pretty sure everyone handles that differently and I don't think there is something wrong or disgusting about being calm, still, quiet, screaming, crying etc. unless it continues on excessively or maladaptively.