When I was younger I don’t really remember having tears. When I was about 20 I was on anti-depressants and my orgasms after masturbation were replaced with a spurt of tears. A few years later I the tears during ejaculation stopped and I had tears that were caused by events. Well except for one example I can think of when I was about 20… I was sitting in the bedroom floor of a girl I was obsessed with and heard her talk a bit about her boyfriend. I later told her friend about my tears and the friend told the girl. The girl asked me about the crying and I said that I was jealous.
A few years ago I can remember being on a train and I was talking to a girl that I met at high school. I hadn’t talked to her before and we were having a good conversation. Anyway I mentioned that I was a concession and she knew I wasn’t a student. I eventually said that it was a disability concession. I told my story about my hospitalization and how when I got out I said some silly things and got kicked out of my flat. At that point in the story the tears started flowing. But I didn’t really feel sad. Over the years I had become very detached. I said it was a bit like those split brain experiments - the emotional side of me was detached from the thinking side of me.
Anyway I cry every now and then in movies - mostly when someone does something brave. Also one time my wife-to-be was explaining how I mistreated hew a bit (earlier on I had asked her to go home [so the date wouldn’t drag on]). I told her that I had tears.
Recently my sister started crying when I told her that I didn’t want her 16 Gb USB stick because the transfer rates probably weren’t fast enough. Later on I had a lot of tears about it. So the tears are often caused by empathy.
Today I had tears when I was watching a guy who was a bit intellectually/physically disabled. That’s the second time that that has happened.
At my birthday I was criticizing my wife… I kept on going on about how she had a slightly noticeable moustache. She said that other people don’t think she has one and that you can’t really get rid of them anyway. After a while the tears were really bad. They were very strong and kept on coming and coming. I think I tasted them too as they went down into my mouth.
So anyway I cry every now and then and I’m really detached… I feel good when the tears come and sometimes I can’t really explain what they’re for. Even when I can guess I usually don’t feel like I’m in a sad mood. Except when my voice gets overwhelmed - like at my birthday… I found it extremely hard to speak. I left the venue and took many minutes to try and recover though I usually don’t try and resist - except one time when I was going to a real estate company and needed to quickly compose myself.
Another time I remember was when I was meeting with my employer. I said that I’d like to start at 10am every day I worked but he said “if you’re going to be like that then forget it” then some tears came.
Now I can remember one of the times I cried a lot while listening to music… I was an agnostic at the time and it was a song from a Christian ad I liked as a kid. It was Joni Eareckson Tada’s “Spirit Wings”. I played it many times in a row and strong tears kept on coming…
If I have a big smile or laughter I identify with it - it’s just most of the tears that I’m detached from. Maybe it had something to do with some self-help books which just involve observing things.
FrankJBN wrote:
“First thing you ought to do is try to get a grip on or at least a sense of the world around you.”
Well I was saying that the world around me might be different than what the poster suspected… this wasn’t a regular 9 to 5 job… the initial hours were 9 to 1pm (which I found out after I suggested it start at 10am). Like I said I’m mostly starting at 10am or later now anyway…
I hope you can see how my comment was connected to “try to get a grip on or at least a sense of the world around you” which was based on "I said that I’d like to start at 10am every day I worked but he said “if you’re going to be like that then forget it”
Anyway, tears that are unusually connected to one’s emotions are a fairly common thing. Nothing unusual there. I have certain emotional states in which I don’t cry, but tears well up in my eyes. There’s a distinct difference between crying (I cried like a baby during the movie “Up,” like about a hundred million other people) and the tear-reaction. Not sure why that is, but it’s true.
Sounds like a sensory processing issue to me. My little girl has reactions like this. She can’t fight tears when she feels even slightly emotional but doesn’t go the opposite way: When she’s happy excited it’s a rather dull reaction. Music really affects her, especially classical. We have to be careful what we play because her eyes will well up almost immediately.
She has mild autism, FTR, and definitely auditory processing issues. She was treated for Sensory Processing Disorder with Vital Sounds listening therapy and I believe it helped a lot but she still has some sensory defensiveness.
I don’t cry at serious things, but sometimes something totally random will make me cry or something silly like mild criticism. I think it’s more like one more thing has finally pushed me over the edge.
Lately my tears have been burning my eyes which is odd. I haven’t cried over anything emotional, but my eyes will water because of the wind if I’m riding my bike, and sometimes they water if I yawn or blow my nose. Not sure what the deal is there (the watering part is normal, my eyes burning isn’t).
Is it some sort of weird passive aggression?
Is it some sort of weird passive aggression?”