Yep, I said it. This is a lesson I was taught growing up. I know traditionally this is a lesson saved for young boys. Boys are not allowed to cry. Boys are tough. Boys do not show emotions. Boys fall down, and they get right back up. This is common culture.
However, I think more and more as we are expecting our young girls to grow up and compete in a man’s world (Yes, ladies I’m sorry but currently it still is a man's world.) we are expecting them to hide their emotions. We are told if we cry for any reason, appropriate or not appropriate, it shows a weakness. Women in a man’s world are not allowed to show weakness. Being brought up by 2 very strong independent women, I was 100% given this lesson growing up. I was taught crying is a weakness. Crying shows emotions, and if you show emotions your emotions can control you. Thus in the modern world, you can no longer be trusted. Additionally, my Mother and Godmother expected me to grow up to be a strong ass, independent hell-raising woman. From an early age, I was labeled a “Tom Boy”. I wanted dirt over dolls, and to play ball over being a ballerina. My sister was the “Girly Girl” I was not.
Only problem…I was a crier. I cried a lot as a kid. Mostly for the comfort. I knew if I cried, I would get attention. My Mother or Godmother would comfort me, at least for a little while.
I am still a crier. I cry in movies. I cry when a picture reminds me of someone I loved and who is no longer with me. I cry when life is extremely beautiful. I cry when I see people being utterly kind to someone else. I cry when I feel love for someone else. I cry when I get really fucking pissed off and I know it is completely inappropriate or unprofessional to tell that someone how I feel at the moment. I cry when my life overwhelms me. I cry because my emotions overwhelm inside my body.
I’ve fully accepted my label of being a crier now. I haven’t always that’s for sure. Why?
When I was younger, I distinctly remember the lessons from the elder women in my life. As I got older, I distinctly recall at some point my Bestie Best calling me a crier and laughing at me for it, and I fought her on this. I completely denied I was a crier because I thought it was a bad thing. Because other people thought it was a bad thing. It was something I could be rejected for, and I so feared rejection at that time in my life (Read why here). I decided to completely deny a core characteristic of who I was to please others. I betrayed myself to be accepted by the group.
So I toughened up. I toughened up to be accepted. I toughened up so my mother and Godmother would be proud of me. I toughened up the tender soft parts inside me to protect myself from this rough and tumble world outside.
It definitely worked. I distinctly remember in Middle and High school not crying in front of anyone minus one incident where my birth control got the best of me. Yes, I swear it was the damn birth control I was on to control my migraines, that outburst wasn’t the only one I had. I was on that pill for 2 months before I said “Fuck this. I’m an emotional roller coaster. This is not the solution.” If I wanted to cry, I would hold it in until I was alone. I remember walking slower to class than all my friends to compose myself or to let out a tear or two before straightening up. I remember rushing to the bathroom between class periods and getting to class late just because I needed time to let out some tears and hide the red all over my face.
I bottled it all up. I kept it somewhere deep inside. During this time my family was going through a lot. My sister developed an eating disorder somewhere between 2000-2002. To the point, by the end of 2002, she was looking at going to a rehabilitation center to help her.
We weren’t allowed to talk about this outside the family. To anyone. Coming from a small town, I’m sure my sister’s health was a topic in the town. A topic I was not allowed to discuss with my friends. Even when my best friend in school out rightly asked me “What’s wrong with your sister?” I was told to lie. I lied. I kept the truth inside. I was keeping the truth of my sister’s health and all my emotions inside at by this time.
By Sophomore year in High School, the weight of always being “fine”. The weight of always being the child no one had to worry about was building. It was heavy. I was looking for some sort of escape and I wasn’t sure where I would find it.
One afternoon hanging out with my neighborhood friend I found one. That day, she introduced me to cutting. Her family was less than perfect as well which we discussed regularly, and she had found relief through taking a pair of scissors to her wrists. She described the process of building up so much internal tension in her life, and it had nowhere to go until she found the relief of watching the blood seep out of her veins. Relief was a nice concept.
I distinctly remember rushing home from her house to try this concept out myself. I first went for the scissors…they didn’t work for me. Maybe they were too dull, maybe I didn’t exert enough pressure on my skin for them to work. I looked for something else sharper. I found a pack of razor blades in my dad’s tool area. I went directly up to my room. Sat on my bedroom floor with my legs crossed on the carpet, laid my left forearm in my lap and pressed the cold, hard, sharp blade into the underside of my forearm, and watched as the relief seeped from my arm.
That day started my most destructive coping mechanisms. I cut the rest of my High School career. Why did I do this? One it helped release the tension I had built up inside myself from all the tears I kept in. It was my new way to cry. It was a way to numb the pain of my life of my unhappiness. Two, I wanted so badly to have my parent’s attention. I used the cutting to try and get it. I used the cutting when they accepted the excuse that the cat has scratched me again. It was a therapeutic ritual for me. I couldn’t cry anymore for attention. Crying was for the weak, and I wasn’t weak. I didn’t cry.
I’d be upset, I’d cut, I’d clean up the mess left all over my arm, I’d lie to my parents, the healing began. I remember once in High School it got pretty bad. I wasn’t letting the last cut fully heal before a new one was necessary. I had a “come to Jesus” moment as us southerners like to call them and stopped cutting regularly. I was trying to deal with my feelings in other ways, but in all reality, I didn’t have examples of healthy coping strategies and I don’t recall how I tried to cope. And I do know when things got really bad and built up again…the relief found in the blade was the ultimate release.
I kept the coping mechanism into my Sophomore year of college. Why did I stop then? It stopped helping. I could feel the pain as the blade cut through the flesh on my arm. It wasn’t an effortless release anymore. The blade added to the pain I already had inside. It no longer took it away. This is the hardest thing for others to understand. When you are a cutter/cutting it doesn’t hurt. You can watch the blade go into your arm and you magically don’t feel a damn thing. I don’t understand it besides as an explanation of how powerful the human mind is at creating your reality.
I stopped. I tried a few times afterward randomly to see if it would help me again. But it never did. It had lost its power. I’m not sure what took over in college. Probably the socially accepted binge drinking I was partaking in at roughly 3 days a week. I’d say it helped numb the pain, but I know I wasn’t consciously doing it to numb my pain.
I’ve struggled with my identity of being a crier through college and after college. I’d say I never truly accepted it until after my depression hit. After I started turning it around, I was okay with being a crier. I know the alternative. Crying is my healthy release. Writing is my other.
I’ve accepted it. I don’t fight it for the most part. When the tears come, they come.
I cry when I’m happy.
I cry when I’m sad.
I cry when I’m angry.
I cry when I’m overwhelmed with multiple emotions.
I cry.
It’s okay. I’m okay with this. And you know what…now that I have accepted it I cry less. I no longer am fighting myself. This results in less internal built-up tension resulting in crying! It’s funny how that works isn’t it? The more you accept you for you, the happier you are with you.
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