And does it make you ABSOLUTELY MURDEROUSLY INSANE?
I guess I have that weird temperament where I cry when
a) furious
b) humiliated
c) chastised
d) goddamn it somebody is nice to me
all three of which are distressingly likely to happen at work or in other places when it’s most humiliating. It came up today (not as awful as it could have been) when a TOTALLY UNFAIR AND EVIL THING HAPPENED TO ME AT WORK where a known awful patron was predictably awful to me and complained to a higher up who took the opportunity to exercise her clear personal loathing of me. And I was fine, if upset… but then she left and my boss was so damned kind and I lost it. Which frankly surprised me because I made it through the awful “seriously, you believe somebody you met ten minutes ago over somebody who’s worked here almost ten years?” thing just fine, but one drop of nice and it’s all over.
So please other people, probably female but not exclusively, about all the times you’ve hated the fuck out of your weak-sauce tear ducts. PLEASE.
Ha, all the times? I’m not a huge cryer, but if I’m exhausted and overstimulated, it’s on. Then I will cry at the drop of a hat, and sometimes I can’t stop. I have learned not to let myself get that way at work or other public situations, even if it means going home “sick” or whatever. But this past Thanksgiving, it happened. I had two dinners at different houses, with a bunch of people at each house that I didn’t know. By the end of the second dinner, I was exhausted and overstimulated, and I inexplicably started bawling, and I really hope to never see the majority of those people again in my life, as I’m quite sure they didn’t understand.
I do. There’s a certain few days a month that I cry if a sparrow farts in my general direction or something, nevermind if something actually happens to upset me or make me happy or generally make me feel any emotion at all.
It’s so frustrating. And frustration makes me cry even more.
I’ve become the master of the faked sneeze and the quick trip to the loo.
Me too. I’m pretty stoic when it comes to dealing with the public so I’ve only broke down once during college when my supervisor kept picking on me while I was having a terrible day. The waterworks only seem to come when I’m dealing with people I care about and it’s usually when I’m feeling furious. Hate it. I feel like it undermines whatever anger I feel. I’m not just having an emotional reaction, I’m angry for a logical reason that is your fault, dammit!
guy here. I was so pissed off today I could hardly see straight. Cry, no… but I understand the mechanism behind it. Men and women just express things differently.
I can watch a young kid do something that is seen as a developmental milestone and experience the universal joy and delight that adults feel over it. Something wells up inside me. I may not gush forth but there are mental tears of joy. I can be moved to tears by a piece of music or a well acted movie. But as a guy I think it’s easier to bottle it up.
See, here I am trying to go to sleep and my fiance is being so freaking sweet about it and it the opposite of helps and I keep starting up with the sniveling again. To be honest, because it isn’t fair. And turns out Mom was right - life, in fact, is not fair.
Hehe, when it’s ‘that time of month’ around my house, it’s not the blood flow but the ‘crying at a sparrow’s fart’ <good one!> thingy, which is doubly annoying because somehow my husband contracts it. O.o He’s been known to ask me if my period’s due soon 'cause HE is feeling teary-eyed for no reason; once or twice he’s asked that, I’ve said ‘no’ based on my schedule, and then wham, the next day I’d start. (yay, perimenopause!)
So yeah. It happens. <hugs> Sorry you had a shitty day at work; I hate those.
It happens to me frequently. It is very humiliating and I hate it.
On some occasions, though, the crying ends if I have to repeatedly do the same thing again. For example, I hate talking in public, but I was forced to present my cases so many times in one of my classes that eventually, at least there, the crying stopped. Same with teaching students, the paralyzing fear stopped because it became somewhat normal.
On other occasions that have to do with anger, nope, no, I still cry if I’m mad. It makes some men uncomfortable. Look, those are not “I’m fragile and dainty” tears, my tears then are “I’m so mad I want to smack/kick/punch you until you shut up” tears.
Woman came in. Recent arrival from Japan. Has just enough english to tell me that she’s been diagnosed with major depression and PTSD, and has panic attacts due to being caught up and losing her whole family in the tsunami.
The kicker? She wants to volunteer as a victim support worker in gratitude for all the support she’s had.
I kept it together while she was there and gave her a big hug (which I normally never do) while she got herself sorted out and we sorted out what she *can *do, while working towards what she *wants *to do.
I was fine. Right up until I was reviewing her case with my boss. Then we both lost it. Trouble is, each time I think of her I start tearing up all over again.
Rarely in public. I’ve only ever cried at work one time, a couple years ago, and that’s when I was going through some bullshit with my ex and got written up for a really stupid reason. The only other times I cry outside of my house are when my mom is a bitch, and usually I remove myself from the situation at that point.
I cry at good movies/music sometimes, but that’s more voluntary because I can turn them off if I want.
Not often, but it has happened. The most embarrassing time was when people in my class confronted me for making a bad webpage. The content shouldn’t have been upsetting–I had just misunderstood the requirements. But the way it happened, I just started crying.
A less embarrassing time was when I got so angry I hurt someone I loved emotionally if not physically. When I tried to apologize, I started crying.
In between is slightly tearing up at some movies. It’d be more embarrassing, except that it’s always been when I was by myself.
How old are you all? I only ask because this is something I got control of, over time. Now of coure everyone’s different but it’s possible that some of you may eventually gain control over it…I never cry in public now, unless it’s for a good reason and usually not even then.
The combination of exhaustion and frustration is what does it for me. I can usually control it long enough to escape the situation and find a private place but there is a point where I just can’t stop the spiral.
I tear up at movies too but other than my husband teasing me about it when a sappy scene comes on I don’t mind that.
Yes – I cry at a, b, c, and d in the OP. It’s even worse when it’s in front of someone who thinks women only cry to manipulate people, because that makes me even angrier, which makes me cry even more.
I know when I was growing up, I got punished for losing my temper (via the silent treatment that could last for days), so I think I learned to release anger by crying because it was more acceptable to the family that way. This is how I release anger when I’m alone, too – it’s got absolutely fuck-all to do with manipulating anyone. This is just how it comes out.
I got yelled at for crying when I was a kid. It did fuck-all to stop me from crying any time I felt upset or angry. It didn’t teach me to control my tear ducts. It taught me to hide from my parents when I was crying, but that’s all I could do about it.
I cry when I’m overstimulated too! So you’re not alone, Alice The Goon.
I also cry when something reminds me of something that’s sad for me. For example, I cannot listen to that sappy, syrupy song “Butterfly Kisses” without bawling my eyes out because my parents divorced when I was 5, so my dad wasn’t there for all those ‘special moments’.
I also started crying at church on Easter Sunday because one of the songs they sang during the service was my grandmother’s favorite (Because He Lives…by the Gaithers, I think?).
Yup, I cry when I get angry or frustrated. I’ve learned to deal with it better now and can control it, but in my 20s it used to piss me off to no end that I’d get mad at work and end up crying. So humiliating.
If it helps at all, I’m reading Steve Job’s biography, and apparently he was a big cryer, at least early on. There’s been at least 4 incidents where people reported him crying when something went wrong at work.
If Steve Jobs cried at work, then hell, we all can cry at work!
