Posted by Racer on September 11, 2005, at 17:18:31
In reply to Re: *Trigger* Why crying isn't okay *Trigger* » jammerlich, posted by alexandra_k on September 11, 2005, at 16:15:55
I've got the context sensitive crying thing, too. I can cry over movies with no problem -- you can pretty much tell when I'm renting old movies by Kleenex stock prices -- and I have even had periods when even shows like Law & Order will set me to crying for days. But somehow, crying about things that have happened to me is different. Especially all the "this shouldn't have hurt me" things, like the nightmare I went through last year with trying to get treatment. Somehow, no matter how much that actually did hurt me, I still feel ashamed that I found it painful. Therefore, I'm not supposed to cry about it.
I wasn't beaten as a kid, my mother likes to tell about the three times she ever hit me -- once when I was teething and she just reacted when I used her hand; once with a rolled up newspaper on my thighs (apparently she couldn't keep straight Dr Spock and Barbara Woodhouse); and the last one I forget -- but I did get a lot of ridicule for being "too thin-skinned," for "not being able to take a joke," for "needing to toughen up." All that [expletive deleted] that some people offer up to kids.
And I also find that I'm like a dying animal when I need to cry -- I have to get away from everyone, because otherwise I'm much too vulnerable.
This was on my mind the other day, wondering if the criteria for "atypical depression" fit me better than plain-vanilla. I don't think it does, even though I don't "look" depressed when I have to go out. It's not that my mood actually improves, it's just that I can hide my mood so well that I look fine and pretty well act fine. As soon as I'm alone again, though, I collapse again. I think it's just hiding my vulnerability so well that even I can't really find it.
{shrug}
I dunno. Maybe I"m just full of [you know what] and none of this matters... But I think that's all true, and I think that's how it all works for me.
poster:Racer
thread:553815
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050901/msgs/553848.html