YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I'm amazed at the amount of people in the poll results who can't cry. I'm definitely a crier. I cry easily at internet videos, animal videos, TV shows, and movies - both dad and happy tears. It feels good to cry the happy tears, because it is such a release. I feel like I get to experience the euphoria of the situation and release some of the stuff inside of me at the exact same time.

Just now, I was web browsing on my phone and realized there was a slow stream of soft tears running. Fot no reason. I wasn't looking at anything sad or anything. My body has stored sadness as a completely automated response. lol j/k Unconscious crying...definitely a new low.

I actually was crying consciously about an hour ago, because during bad episodes of depression in my life (like the one I am on the borderline of right now, but am fully aware of and am trying to reverse), I am always very sad when I first wake up. Just an intense sadness and emptiness, for no apparent reason, upon waking. I hate that.

Starting with my most recent depression, I became an out-of-control weeper. All kinds of inappropriate occasions: business meetings, any kind of personal confrontation. Until they tweaked my meds, I cried every morning; it could be something sad in the news, or something happy in the news, or a video of a puppy, or I might be out of toothpaste.

By nature, I'm very controlled. I cry, but usually only alone. I remember I used to cry A LOT during movies like "Terms of Endearment" - I think I was able to "save up" my stress until an opportunity to release it, like a sad movie or weepy song, arose.

But now it's all the time, from anything. I'll cry walking down the street, or sitting on the train. I have lots of shame, but my tears have none. I've spoken to my therapist a lot about this, and there's no medicine that will stop this. For now, I have to live with this.

The weeping never comes out of nowhere. It's always in response to one of the many negative lines of thought that are always going through my head, or something I saw in the media, or a half-dead flower, or a puppy looking sad.

Fortunately, this has come at a time of great unemployment. The industry I used to work in is very male, very cutthroat, and definitely No Tears Allowed. Following a layoff in 2009, I've been pursuing other work. It's better paying than the work I used to do, and is a much better match for my personality. Crying is not welcomed, but you aren't penalized for it, either. It's allowed. It's normal.

I'm trying to learn to accept myself as a Crying American. It's very very difficult, because I've always taken pride in emotional self-control. But that's just not possible anymore, and frankly, I'd like to learn to be more emotionally open.

It's not uncommon for me to have tears in my eyes daily, and once in a while they will run down my face. it's been this way for almost 20 years (i'm 31), but in the last month or so i've had a few instances where my tears finally, finally turned into horrible, heaving, ugly sobs that i had real trouble stopping. the most recent was while watching Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak. i started crying at a few of the things he said because i felt them reflected in me so strongly, but even after the movie was over i just sat there for a long time momentarily stopping the sobbing and then having it overwhelm me again. i think it's most of a lifetime of pent-up emotional grief/trauma/abuse starting to spill out. it's only happened in private, but it felt so fucking good to somehow let go, if only for a few minutes... very unfamiliar, very relieving.

I used to cry often and easily when I was young but now I cannot cry even though I would love to. I misd that relieving feeling after a good cry. I fear of being disassociated, I really want to cry when I see other people's suffering. When I look back, the reasons why I cry have been because I was in emotional pain and I don't really remember last time I cried for other people. Now I cannot even cry for myself, some tears and that's it, I cannot cry.

I cried so hard

I can cry, but only when using e.g. movies as a "catalyst" or "focal point".

I can't cry about my own situation, even though I have often felt that I should. I last managed to do that fifteen years ago.

I struggle with this so much! I was shamed for showing emotions when I was a child by my emotionally absent/distant mother, and it still impacts me. Add on society's issue with emotion, love of making fun of people, trying to make everyone into unfeeling robots, and it causes a turmoil mix of emotions. Whenever I get really frustrated or an in an emotionally charged situation, I cry. It has nothing to do with sadness, it's more having the struggle of controlling myself mixed with the shame of feeling and frustration that I still can not control this, even as an adult. I also struggle with not telling people exactly what I think of them when I am just done with a relationship/situation.. The rest of the time, and in emergencies, I have great control of myself. As long as no emotions are involved on my part.

I struggle with accepting any sympathetic gestures, my instinct is to react with unease and attempt to dismiss it. I want your sympathy, but when I get it, I must have manipulated you into giving it. I can cry or get teary, but I always hold back just enough, so I'm still in control of the situation and always terrified, that I'm really just manipulating you with my tears.

Sometimes I sit there like "come on...cry..." and I just can't. The only time I can cry is therapy.

Lately I've been more able to at least shed some tears, but I'm also on medication for bipolar for the first time, so it's hard to tell what's cause and what's effect.