An inability to cry? Am I the only one?

[davidthegnome]

Hi all... this is a really odd symptom of mine, don't know if it's caused by anxiety or what... but I have realized that I have an inability to cry. There are times when I get sad, or frustrated, but whatever I do I can't seem to bring the tears. Can anxiety do this? Am I sick or something? I have no clue about this one.

It's not like I'm trying to hold the tears back, some times I really want to cry... just can't bring out the tears. I don't get this one at all. Anyone similar, or have a similar experience? Will I ever be able to cry like a normal human being?

God bless you all

Dave

[happyone]

David,
I often can't cry but I put it down to anti depressant meds. But today I did and it hit me like a bolt out of the blue. Try not to think about it or stress about it, I think the more you 'want' to, the less likely it is.

Happyone
xx

[Freaky Chick]

Hi David

I have had this problem in the past. What had happened to me, was 2 things. First i had disassociated the event that made me sad and the emotion attatched to it - put them in separate filing boxes in my brain, and only opened the painful memory box and not the emotion box.

2nd - i had made a vow to myself that i wouldn't cry, because it was a sign of weakness, and made people hurt me more, cos they thought they were succeding. So I couldn't cry, cos i'd promised myself i wouldn't and my brain had latched on to this and kept the emotion box firmly closed, even though i felt like crying sometimes.

I still have problems with crying where people can see me, but i can cry, since i joined the emotion and the painful memory together and kept telling myself it was ok to cry, tears were healing, they were designed to be shed, not kept in - but it took time.

I know a friend of mine, was told by his dad when he was tiny that "Big boys don't cry" And those words had stuck in the record in his brain, and he couldn't cry. Once he told himself that big boys were allowed to cry, it was perfectly normal, he found he was able to shed tears too.

Maybe one of these illustrations will speak to you and help your tears to come. The trick is not to worry about not crying, but to get your brain to think - emotions are good, they are there for a reason, and i can let them out.

So you are not the only one who has had problems shedding tears, i know plenty of people with that problem.

Hopefully, you will be in tears soon!

Only cos i want you to be healed by them.

Hugs :hugs:
Freaky chick
x

[fed up with it]

Hi, i have this. sometimes i feel so ill or stressed but i could'nt make myself cry if i tried. However if i see something sad about animals that normally brings on the tears. I put it down to the fact we are so emotionally switched of due to the anxiety.?.

[ksmith]

Hi David

I have similar condition. I put it down to meds. Bit scary not being able to cry - even at a recent funeral!

Kay x

[Jimbo]

I get this too, I've had it most of my life, not just while I've been on meds.

I dunno why, I think it's depression. It's just like I really want to cry a lot but can't, even the smallest thing can make me feel tearful, but it's like I can't let it out. I think probably our brains have dealt with so many traumatic emotions that we try to supress, even crying has become supressed too.

Jim

[chuck]

I can't remember the last time I cried. There have been many times where I've wanted to. But I feel like I can't maintain the levels of emotion to do so, it's extremely frustrating.
I feel like I've lost the ability to let go and just be a human being. I'm always taking myself out of the moment and analysing the way I feel and the way I do things, almost looking at my life scientifically. It's become an automatic response.
It's drained so much of the beauty and spontaneity from life and dulled my experiences- The enjoyment and emotion I felt from music among other things has dropped off significantly.
I'm 20 now but it's been like this for years now. I just don't know how I can get back to being a complete human being who can just go with the flow.

[Phill2]

I wish I could cry.Even when my son was killed I couldn't force a tear.
I get the feeling that I want to cry but it just doesn't happen.
I think a good howl would do me the world of good. :shades:

[Phill2]

Hi Lolly,
You're very lucky being able to let your feelings out.
I think I suffer from "big boys don't cry" syndrome.
Phill :shades:

[jo61]

I put it down to my generation. WE were never encouraged to show our feelings and to keep a lid on emotion which has caused me all sorts of problems.

[Phill2]

Hi Jo,
Don't you get times when you'd just love to cry? I do.
Phill :shades:

[Jimbo]

I do, I've never have had a full on cry, with full on tears for ages. I so wish I could, I think I would feel so much better.

Weird thing is, some things that should make me cry don't, then other times I feel like I want to cry and feel my eyes filling up over the smallest thing. Even someone saying something nice to me, or watching something sad on the tv, or listening to a particular peice of music. But I never go into the full on tears, like I wish I could.

A lot of people get this, I wonder why it is?

Jim

[Rennie1989]

At times where I really felt tearful I can't cry. It's strange. I can feel so depressed or scared or what ever and I just can't cry. Although I was watching Holby City and this woman has amnesia and something on mental illness was brought up and my eyes were filling up, yet I didn't cry even though I wanted to.

The last time I cried was when I was with my ex (when we were going out) and I was going to Egypt for two weeks so we had no contact for over two weeks, terrible!

Don't worry though, it seems to be common to not cry among us all.

[ailsajayne26]

I haven't cried for months!. I used to have a little cry and I felt better, but since I stopped doing that the anxiety really started!! the last time I cried was when my doc sent me for a chest xray to make 100% sure my breathing probs were anxiety.... cried for three days nearly!! But i felt so much better and was fine for a week and a half... I genuinely think I would have been fine and would have destressed / let my aniety and stress out but i had an accident which restarted the anxiety!! So now I don't cry even tho I want to!! My CBT lady sid i've made myself believe that it wil be worse if I cry, that I'll feel worse... so we are going to work on that too!!! And I've nearly cried twice in the past week... progress!

Its good to hear that I'm not the only one!!

[bearcrazy]

no probs for me David, Cry at the drop of a hat!! NBever go anywhere without box of tissues!:shrug:

[denise84]

hi david, i find it hard to cry also, i have been asked if i dont care and things like that when my dad had a heart attack i was the only one not to cry and got accused to being heartless, but in actual fact i was sobbing inside. but what i dont understand is that i can cry at a film or if i read somthing sad but i cant cry when it effects me directly. so i know where u are coming from and i also worry as i have been told it is not healthy to not cry when u are upset, but what can we do? although i dont have a answer or a solution to our problem i just wanted to let u know im the same.x.

[looking4answers]

Geez.............how many times has this happened to me..You feel you are so sad that you cannot cry and there are times you cry for no reason.Its not a medical condition just a fluke deal with anxiety..Its odd sometimes I feel so sad ..I wish I could cry and all I can do is just sit there and stare into space and other times I can look at one little thing and just start to cry and can't stop.Its all anxiety related don't worry just keep trying to work on things and you emotions will go back in sync I assure you . .Hope I helped.. take care

[Ellen70]

Hi David, I was just thinking about starting a thread about the inability to cry when I came across your one.

I think it would be hugely beneficial to me if I could 'let go' and cry for hours and hours. Not just a few tears in my eyes but a long bout of big, heaving, unstoppable crying. No matter how bad I feel, even on those 'this is the worst I have ever been days', I simply cannot shed a single tear.
I had weekly psychotherapy for 3 years with a wonderful psychotherapist but I never shed one single tear in all of that time. I wasn't holding back, I desperately wanted to cry but no tears would come.

Sometimes when loneliness really takes hold and I need to hear another human voice, I will call The Samaritans and babble incomprehensibly to them. Depending on the person I end up talking to, I can sometimes cry a little bit, for maybe a couple of minutes. However the minute I hang up the phone the crying stops.

My mind and body is bursting with unexpelled emotion and yet I cannot let any of it out. On the very rare occasions I have cried a little then I have felt immediately better afterwards, felt sort of 'cleansed' if that is not too holy a word.

I was the youngest of five children and so was regularly taunted by my older siblings with the words 'cry baby' - and I was a 'cry baby' at home in early childhood. Yet I remember being 'admired' at my small primary school for never crying when I fell and cut my knees etc, the other children were amazed when I wouldn't cry at times when they would have cried.

Also my eldest brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was about 8 years old. He was always aggressive, frequently violent, and ruled my family from then on. My mother tried to stand up to him but my father would always take the easier route of 'give him his own way and he will be quiet.' As a child I fought back verbally and physically with my brother when he would riducule me and hit me etc I kept on trying to stand up to him and would end up in trouble with my parents - often getting a beating- for doing this. My brother would be laughing as I was being punished and I could not understand the unfairness of it all.

Around the age of 15 or 16, I started to keep my emotions in. I reckoned if I did not react to my brother's taunts and abuse then he would get bored and leave me alone. He never did. However I stopped shouting back at him, I stopped crying, I hardly spoke for days at a time. I retreated to my bedroom and just stayed there, only leaving it when I went to school or was in the bathroom. I shut down my emotions completely and to this day have never being able to re-open them.

Now I am 36, I live on my own and could cry all day, every day if I wanted. However I cannot shed a single tear. I am human on the outside but an empty shell on the inside.

I do think this suppression of my emotions turned into agoraphobia, panic, gad and severe depression. Maybe my body is having panic attacks in an effort to release some of the closed emotions inside of me. If I could express anger, unhappiness, fear etc by words or tears then maybe I wouldn't have depression or panic?

[DaniellesMom]

In Oct. 2005, my 17 yr old daughter was in a car wreck. She stayed in a coma for two months from a traumatic brain injury. She has made huge strides considering the doctors didn't believe she would come out of her coma. Anyway ever since she has not been able to cry....no tears no sounds of crying or anything. As parents you never want your child to cry, but I would give anything if she could cry. Because of not being able to cry she can't process her emotions and is left with all that built up frustration and depression. After all we have been through in the last three yrs, if I couldn't cry I would lose my mind. I can only imagine how terrible it is for her.
Anybody ever heard of this? The doctors are no help.

[Sleepless999]

Are you on anti-depressants? When I was, I found that I felt "flat" and completely without emotion. I couldn't have a good laugh either.

[ladybird64]

In Oct. 2005, my 17 yr old daughter was in a car wreck. She stayed in a coma for two months from a traumatic brain injury. She has made huge strides considering the doctors didn't believe she would come out of her coma. Anyway ever since she has not been able to cry....no tears no sounds of crying or anything. As parents you never want your child to cry, but I would give anything if she could cry. Because of not being able to cry she can't process her emotions and is left with all that built up frustration and depression. After all we have been through in the last three yrs, if I couldn't cry I would lose my mind. I can only imagine how terrible it is for her.
Anybody ever heard of this? The doctors are no help.

Hi and :welcome:

I don't have any personal experience of this but didn't want to leave your first post unanswered.
I can only imagine the distress that you have been through, it must have been so hard for your daughter and equally as difficult for you having to watch her struggle.
You don't mention if you daughter had any long standing damage after the accident..did she sustain a brain injury that might affect her physical ability to cry and release emotions? If so, I wounder if there any support groups who may have experience of this kind of problem and they may be able to give you some advice.
If there is no injury, has your daughter seen a psychologist? Perhaps they might have some ideas..
I really hope that you manage to get somewhere with this, both for your daughter's sake and your own. She is only 20, a difficult age anyway (I've got 4 daughters :winks: ) and has spent some vital teenage years recovering from this trauma.

Good luck :)

[The Bloodman]

This is all too familiar...

I can not cry. I get the urge (often recently) and it feels like tears should be pouring down my face, but there is nothing. Shortly after that I do not have the urge anymore, and the feeling is gone. That urge only lasts for about ten seconds, at the most. I have no idea why this is, but I would sure like to know - because I keep coming back to that urge, never having it fulfilled, and It can hit me almost anywhere, anytime. It puts me down, and I do NOT think it is improving my mental health.

[Oceanblue]

In Oct. 2005, my 17 yr old daughter was in a car wreck. She stayed in a coma for two months from a traumatic brain injury. She has made huge strides considering the doctors didn't believe she would come out of her coma. Anyway ever since she has not been able to cry....no tears no sounds of crying or anything. As parents you never want your child to cry, but I would give anything if she could cry. Because of not being able to cry she can't process her emotions and is left with all that built up frustration and depression. After all we have been through in the last three yrs, if I couldn't cry I would lose my mind. I can only imagine how terrible it is for her.
Anybody ever heard of this? The doctors are no help.


Sorry to hear about your daughter.

I suffered a trauma 3yrs back, I didn't immediately cry at the incident, I didn't express my feelings until around 3 months afterwards. Everybody is different, some people ignore it altogether. It's just their way of dealing with the situation.
I still haven't really spoken about what happened to anybody,.. doctors have tried, but I have never been ready.

In time your daughter will be ready to talk about things,.. but only she will know when that time comes. Things like this can't be rushed, the mind takes a fair time to heal, until this time can things be spoken about.

I wish her well xx

Answer to David's question - I'm like this too now, I can find it hard to cry. 3mths after the trauma I suffered a huge breakdown, all feelings throughout my life were expressed then. I was hospitalised for sometime as I was so sick. Since leaving hospital, I feel like a different person, it's strange. I'm obviously not different, still the same,.. but I seem to not see life in quite the same way.

I do also feel that medication can cause some of these feelings/lack of expression.

:flowers:

[rml]

I suffered a TBI in 1996 when I was 17 y.o, a senior in high school. I am now 30 y.o. I, too, was in a coma for about 2 wks. I have not cried or at least shed tears since my car accident. It's extremely frustrating and to this day, I still look for information on being able to cry. I have seen eye doctors who say that my eyes have tears in them and if I haven'y cried yet, I probably never will. I remember the first few years, at least 5, I didn't have the emotions. But, now I "cry" but without tears. Every TBI is different. I have fulfilled my dreams of becoming a physical therapist and marrying so all is not lost. I think it was very important that I stayed away from medcations that some psych MDs suggested and that I went to college and pursued my dreams. Family support is VERY important. Hope this was helpful!!

[Lucille]

I was actually in a Car vs Semi crash, i suffered from a tbi and was only in a coma for 3 days. Since the accident people including my self has said that I'm back to my old self! I compleatly agree with that i feel fine! The only problem is, I cannot cry I've been through so much bad thing where i should have cried, like my Friend dying another Friend saying she hope i rot in hell. Those should all have affected me more than they have. I just feel emotionally numb. Well i'm very concerned because a funeral is coming up and i just cant imagine what people are going to think when they see that i haven't cried at all. Did you ever go through something like this? Or have any advice?