And he wasn’t even pregnant! That’s my latest excuse for crying when I don’t want to admit that I’m crying.
When my FIL passed, I came into work to tie a few things up before my Wife and I hit the road.
My boss started giving me shit about taking a week off for this (we get ten days if we want). Between the death of my FIL, zero sleep and looking at a 1400 mile drive, this was just the last straw. I lost it. I yelled something at him, started misting up and left. Never cried at work before.
(My bosses boss ended up reading him the riot act for the way I was treated)
And I can get quite misty over the simplest things when I’m alone.
I listened to a podcast the other day from the How Stuff Works series “Stuff Mom Never Told You.” It’s about crying and is titled “Do women cry more than men?” but they also go over what to do if you find yourself crying in the workplace. There’s also a related series on the HSW site “Crying 101” which gives you a scientific look at why we cry and how to deal with it. You may enjoy it Zsofia - perhaps it’ll make you feel better about the whole situation.
As for whether or not I cry - I sort of isolated myself from a lot of things by working from home and having other people around to answer the phone. Probably because frustrating other people made me cry at work. So now I don’t get in to those situations but it’s not because I’m too tough!
The last time I cried was “c” in the OP’s list: chastised. I had made an error in setting up an appointment, apologized, and fixed it immediately. Nobody was hurt or damaged by it. The customer had no idea that a mistake had been made.
Yet my boss had to refer to it over and over again, mentioning the error in front of workmates, repeatedly. In frustration, as she started in again, I felt the tears stinging behind my eyelids. I grabbed my bag and said “I’m off! See you all later” and cried in my car on the way home.
I should mention that I was able to walk out like that because I am a volunteer at this charity. Unpaid. I have not been back.
I usually only cry like this when it’s the hormones talking. I remember once I was talking to my mom and then just broke down crying and sat down on the kitchen floor and said “why am I crying?!” I really didn’t get it.
Any other time I cry it is usually because I’m frustrated that I can’t understand something thus math and science. There was frequently a lot of crying while my dad tried to help me with my math homework.
But there was a time in high school when I freaked out my chemistry teacher because I started crying in the middle of class. We were doing a lab and I just could not get it right and I was getting so frustrated and my teacher was completely useless at helping me to understand so I broke down. Of course I was trying to hide it as best I could but it was at least apparent to those around me and my teacher.
So embarrassing.
I cry when I’m frustrated beyond dealing with it, or so furious I want to kick things and strangle passers-by. I hate it, but since I’m 48, I don’t think I’m going to grow out of it.
Overtired, too, and overwhelmed. After chemo, I went to the grocery store and by the time I got the stuff and got home, I literally couldn’t get up the energy to walk up the steps to the house. I cried buckets, and my husband rushed out to find me sitting in the car bawling, and thought something horrible had happened. Just tried to do too much, that’s all.
Yeah, but I’m clinically depressed.
Me too.
Tired? Check.
Overstimulated? Check. (god I hate family get-togethers so much. I end up going to the bathroom to sob a bit during just about every one of them.)
Frustrated? God yes. Then I get -
Angry - aaaand I cry worse, because I’m sooo pissed off at myself for being all weak and snively, and that’s on top of the whatever it was that I was failing miserably at in the first place.
Chastised/Yelled At/Disciplined? Yep. All the time. What’s worse is the throwing up. That happens pretty regularly also. 
Thankfully, I’m a passive and totally obedient little worker-bee, so I get hauled out for questioning rarely - but when it happens, fuck that. I’m done for the day, sometimes the next day.
I also cry like a fucking baby at movies (even Disney and Pixar), when someone’s being nice (to me, or to someone else), when I’m watching YouTube videos (especially cute/touching ones) and God-Damn-It-All, yes, I have cried because of stinking Hallmark greeting cards.
I truly have no words to express how absolutely I detest this about myself. If I could get my tear-ducts cauterized and not have it fuck up my eyesight, I’d be the first in line. Manipulative my ass - there’s no way in hell I would voluntarily cry over all that shit.
You and I would be fighting for first place in line. I’ve often wished there was a drug I could take to temporarily disable my tear ducts. It would be REALLY handy when I know I’m going to be going into a stressful situation.
When I cry in a stressful situation, I then feel more stressed because I’m disgusted at myself for crying in a situation where a normal person shouldn’t cry, which makes me cry all the more. Does anyone else get that vicious cycle? That really sucks.
I haven’t cried out of anger in quite a while, but if someone’s nice to me after then occasionally. I think.
I was laid off a couple of months ago, along with a few other people; made it through the whole day until the very end, when my super was being nice. (this is a very open friendly emotional office, all women, all dramatic all the time, lol) I was just FINE until she gave me a hug, and then I don’t know why I started with the tears 'cause I wasn’t unhappy about it or anything, glad to have the time off!
What pisses me off the most about the tears thing is that I CANT TALK THROUGH IT. And even if I give it a few seconds, or more, when I try again there it goes, and I can’t talk!! Tears, who cares, I can hide those. Kinda hard to hide that you suddenly can’t speak, lol.
Also…kinda funny, to me anyway…
A couple years ago my grandma died, first death of anyone close to me. (Yes, I’ve been very lucky)
It wasn’t unexpected, but still sad; found out at work, made it through the day, then on the long drive home I just let loose and bawled in the car. Which is fine except that a lady with several dogs decided to cross the street between me and the next car, which wasn’t very far ahead of me. (No crosswalk) I stopped in time to not hit her, but yeah. One of the puppies was just smooshed.
So now I’m REALLY bawling, I’m more upset about the puppy than the lady is. (There were 3 others, glad I just got one but still, poor thing. STUPID WOMAN!)
So after all this I drive the rest of the way home, or rather to the store where my sweetie is, since we’re going grocery shopping. It’s almost an hour’s drive, so by the time I get there I am all cried out, especially after the puppy kicked it all into high gear.
And of course as soon as I see my husband and I try to tell him what happened, I start bawling again and can’t talk. So of course he thinks something is SERIOUSLY wrong. HATE THAT!!
There are moments in opera and musicals where I reliably tear up. The end of Miss Saigon has always pulled a tear or two from me. (And, no surprise, the end of Madame Butterfly).
I use to cry all through grade school. They once tried to reward me for not crying for a day by giving me the chance to call my mom… but when she got on the phone, I just cried and begged to go home.
I’ve tried, but it’s so hard to shed a tear these days. I want to get it out but I can’t.
All of the above. Angry, frustrated, chastised, and especially when I feel I’ve let someone down. And yes, the tears make me more angry and more frustrated, which makes me more weepy, which is HORRIBLE.
I cry a lot. I also laugh a lot. I consider both of them normal, healthy reactions set up, usually, by the need to release physical tension of some sort, and *triggered *by some thought, emotion, event, etc. I carry handkerchiefs and go on about my business.
I think the ability to cry easily when the body requires it (as I said, I believe it is fundamentally a **bodily **reaction with a mental veneer) is a sign of maturity.
One time I broke a tooth on a cherry pit. It was on a Sunday and I located an emergency dentist, so less than an hour after the event, I was seated in the dentist’s chair. I felt an enormous amount of tension, both because of the stupidity of not eating the unpitted cherries carefully and because of worry about the expense. Before I could let the dentist stick her hands in my mouth, I told her, “I need to cry for a bit.” So she and her assistant sat there, flummoxed, while I took about three minutes to sob my guts out. Both of them said no one had ever done that before. When finished, I was relaxed, they proceeded to fix the tooth, and it remains fixed to this day.
Crying is something that when your body needs to do it, it needs to do it (like a sneeze), so just let it happen and don’t add insult to injury by labeling yourself weak or other nonsense like that.
I rarely cry but when I do it’s usually music that does it to me.
I can be having a great day and if I’m on the train on the way home and certain songs come on the radio (I have FM on my MP3 player) I have to change the station real quick.
I’m a 45 YO Guy FWIW.
This. And your credibility instantly vanishes, which is even more upsetting, etc., etc.
I haven’t cried for 20 years.
I get a little misty watching or reading really sad news, or conversely watching or reading really sweet, touching news, but that’s about it.
I can’t understand why anyone would be less credible because of a physical reaction.
It’s one of the most unrealistic aspects of some people, that they judge others by irrelevancies like whether they cry, or sneeze, or hiccup, rather than by anything relevant…
I used to have a problem with crying when I was younger (up till I had a child, which somehow seemed to set a lot of my emotional issues aright). It was particularly bad in grades four through eight, where I probably cried (despite my best efforts not to) a couple times a day.
I’m not sure I’m following your idea, here-- could you elaborate?
As to myself, I don’t recall crying in recent memory, but it’s mainly because it’s not an immediate reaction of mine. I express emotion in other ways, but as someone stated earlier, I’m mostly stoic when it comes to that type of expression. I don’t see it as good or bad, given I’m still empathetic and do get frustrated, but some people have different tolerances and outlets than others. I tend to just zone, distract myself, reflect, or find other mechanisms, more than anything.