Depression Understood Forums

I can't cry. I often try to imagine what it would feel like. Like this huge explosion of relief that I may never get again. I had a really close friend commit suicide a couple of years ago. He was seemingly the happiest person alive before that. I've never grieved. When I heard about it I somehow ended up in the middle of my street and I'm not even sure how I got there, but there I was on my knees in the street. I remember feeling it come. Like I knew a rush of relief was going to come over me and I was going to let everything out right there in the street. A tear came, one single tear, then it was like it just got sucked right back in.
The interesting thing is I was a very easy child to set off. I would cry about anything and everything. If you gave me a wrong look I would ball my eyes out. I was very empathic. If you came in sad I'd feel your sadness as if it were my own and I'd cry for you! Then when I was maybe 9 or 10 this all stopped. I remember crying my eyes out for whatever, probably nonsense, reason and for a long period of time. As I was crying I walked into my bathroom and looked in the mirror. My face was red, like a very dark red and it hurt. Like physically hurt that's how much I was crying. I remember saying to myself "why are you crying so much? Don't you want to be happy?" "Smile," I demanded. So I did. I kept that smile on til I stopped crying and that smile became genuine. I'm 29 years old now and that was the last memory I have of me ever crying. It's like I created this unbreakable wall when I did that. I've always been seen as this strong, got it together, stable man. No fear, no tears. Only, that's not the truth. I just, I guess, don't know how to cry anymore.

Hi Justaonony,

Thanks for sharing that. It is interesting how you went from crying easily and often to not crying at all. It just shows the complexity of human emotions, and how our experiences can shape our thoughts, behaviors, physiology, and emotions.

Perhaps, in time, it will change again and you’ll be able to cry--it may even occur when you least expect it. A plausible explanation could be that you have not necessarily lost your ability to cry but rather you have suppressed it.

I've made that deduction as well. When I'm not lying to myself I can probably even deduce how to fix it. I have a problem with expressing my emotions to begin with. Past experiences have left me terrified of feeling vulnerable. Lying about how I feel has become an impulse rather than a conscious choice. It's easy to open up on here to strangers over the internet. I'm afraid I'd even lie to a therapist that I pay for about how I feel or at least omit some things. When I was younger I turned those sad feelings into anger. I've learned to control those impulses. I'm much more humble and "care free" these days until I see through this act I'm putting on even for myself.

I sympathize with not being able to cry anymore. My self analysis of why it happened to me is my mental pains are too severe to process and also keep it toegther. I'll tear up sometimes, but never actually cry. To me, I feel like I "soldier" through, battling the agony of my own thoughts keeping them at bay and that gets me to tomorrow.