I want to cry...

[misutii]

but i don't know how. Crying seems to me like such a beautiful expression of feeling...
Yet everytime I feel tears building in my eyes it's as if I begin thinking too much... perhaps too excited that finally i will cry... and then the tears dissipate and i touch my cheeks where i wish the tears would appear.

When my friend died last year and i went to his funeral it was like the first time in my life when i was around lots of people and i wanted to cry, to express my feelings.... yet everytime i came close it was as if i got too excited... and thought i was being selfish for being excited at such an event... and so the tears dried up.... but the whole time i was crying on the inside

Perhaps my inablility to cry is related to me relating tears to something good and beautiful when in reality they only appear when sadness overwhelms us and all that is good and beautiful is gone? when i look back at how i was able to cry in highschool i envy myself then. i need a very sad movie, something that can overpower my thoughts and let me feel tears... i wish i could cry but i don't know how

[waxwing]

but i don't know how. Crying seems to me like such a beautiful expression of feeling...
Yet everytime I feel tears building in my eyes it's as if I begin thinking too much... perhaps too excited that finally i will cry... and then the tears dissipate and i touch my cheeks where i wish the tears would appear.

When my friend died last year and i went to his funeral it was like the first time in my life when i was around lots of people and i wanted to cry, to express my feelings.... yet everytime i came close it was as if i got too excited... and thought i was being selfish for being excited at such an event... and so the tears dried up.... but the whole time i was crying on the inside

Perhaps my inablility to cry is related to me relating tears to something good and beautiful when in reality they only appear when sadness overwhelms us and all that is good and beautiful is gone? when i look back at how i was able to cry in highschool i envy myself then. i need a very sad movie, something that can overpower my thoughts and let me feel tears... i wish i could cry but i don't know how

I understand.

If I could become the essense of sad and beautiful for you all at once, I would.


"It's a sad and beautiful world." -Sparklehorse

[Sackanaka]

If the sadness thing doesn't work out, maybe a way to activate the happy thing is to stare indirectly at a sunset. Animals and naturally artistic surroundings are a plus. Or watch American Beauty, for starters.
However, it seems to me that the most profound tear inducer is when I am utterly powerless to help someone that I would want to make happy more than anything else.

[Shai Gar]

go watch bicentenial man. it made me cry.

[euterpenc]

The Last Samurai... That was a tears of joy movie.

[Philo]

When my friend died last year and i went to his funeral it was like the first time in my life when i was around lots of people and i wanted to cry, to express my feelings.... yet everytime i came close it was as if i got too excited... and thought i was being selfish for being excited at such an event... and so the tears dried up.... but the whole time i was crying on the inside


I react in a similar way, though it's more like being "helpful", giving other people the strong shoulder to cry on, etc. I did much the same thing at my own mother's funeral. :rolleyes2 It wasn't until I visited her grave later and let out all the things I didn't say to her when she was alive that the tears came.

For some people, crying is a very private thing, and you may be one of those people. Crying is not something that can be forced or willed, IMO; they just have to be allowed to happen. Eventually you will hit on circumstances strong enough to cry over.

[Lee]

I have cried before, usually alone and not since my school years which I found horrible for all sorts of reasons. I have similar troubles crying at times I am expected to, death just doesn't have the same meaning to me as most.

I sort of have a strange cry that starts when I am really angry and trying to control myself.

[Geoff]

That's a difficult one. I like some of the above ideas for an attempted cry. How about thinking of the sad things in your life, looking at a sunset and ALSO chopping some onions?

-Geoff

[Star Cannon]

I recommend the movie: "Wit". Very beautiful. Very... just watch it. A very beautifuly made movie.

[FishOutOfWater]

I know what you mean - a good cry makes me feel wonderful when I need one, but often at the key moments, I feel oddly frozen and the emotion feels balled up. One of the best ways to cry, I think, is just to hole up alone for a little while. I know some books made me bawl at the end as well - "Where the Red Fern Grows" and "A Tale of Two Cities" come to mind. Oh, and I don't necessarily recommend this one, but a little bit of alcohal has helped me cry before. Just don't overdo that one, lol.

[misutii]

I know what you mean - a good cry makes me feel wonderful when I need one, but often at the key moments, I feel oddly frozen and the emotion feels balled up. One of the best ways to cry, I think, is just to hole up alone for a little while. I know some books made me bawl at the end as well - "Where the Red Fern Grows" and "A Tale of Two Cities" come to mind. Oh, and I don't necessarily recommend this one, but a little bit of alcohal has helped me cry before. Just don't overdo that one, lol.


haha, drinking sambuca alone is not the answer to your problems when a relationship ends... i learned that the hard way... cant remember if i cried

[jimkopelli]

Onion eyedrops.

[ApeTheDog]

I don't think you can cry without feeling. And if you're thinking about crying you can't attain that. Even actors don't have a trick to get them to start crying. It is not a skill they can master, a procedure they can run through in their head. They think back to their private saddest moment, and then it happens.

Can you force your stomach to burp by thinking about it hard? Can you make your skin itch? I think crying is exactly like all of those things - it's a purely bodily thing, and it only happens when it is necesary.

When you're thinking, you're detached from your feelings, and therefor your body doesn't feel like you need tears. You don't need other people to make you feel better, which is the signal crying sends out I believe - because you're not receptive for feelings at that moment as you're busy thinking.

But yeah, try some onions man. How could they not work?

[kuranes]

I didn't cry at my Dad's funeral, which surprised me, and left me feeling strangely ashamed, and yet i can shed a tear over stupid things like a stranger being friendly to me when formality and coldness was expected. Embarassing.

K

[Clara]

I've laughed, sometimes, when - congested, sneezing, and having to blow my nose every few minutes - I found myself feeling unaccountably sad... as though I'd been crying, and still felt like crying... And then, suddenly realizing that, I didn't feel sad at all ( except, not liking to have to deal with having a cold ).
It was simply my emotions, "illogically" trying to match the physical details... ;P ( It is pretty funny, like a joke played by biology... :) )

[t]

i never cry when i "should". i usually break down and cry about 3 times a year. usually this happens pretty randomly & after i've been holding a lot inside... unfortunately it almost always is provoked by something really little and i have to hurry up & go home b/c i refuse to cry in front of people. oh, and the only person who can make me cry is my mother, but i swear they are tears of frustration.

[INTerloPer]

I recently went to visit one of my friends' grave, on the anniversary of his death. it was a hollow and insignificant experiece. i didn't/couldnt cry (although it would have been appropriate). there was nothing meaningful to say and the thoughts of him that flashed through my mind were brief and indistinct enough to highlight the fact that I hadnt thought of him in months. i left feeling a mix of shame, disgust (at the people i was with, who acted even more trite) and a faint echo of anger that he was gone. what a disappointment when what i wanted/needed was a dramatic, uncontrollable weeping spell to overtake me at the foot of his grave, driving me to my knees, pushing out my grief.

now that my throat tastes like pennies, i think i'll take a smoke break.

[Heather Harrison]

The "T" part of the personality must work against crying. For years, I actively worked to suppress the "F" and simply would not cry; I just did not know how at all. I can certainly identify with other posts here to the same effect.

Nowadays, perhaps because I have finally accepted the strong "F" in my personality, or perhaps under the influence of estrogen, I am able to cry occasionally, but only in private. A good cry feels really good, and I wish I could manage it more often, but the habits of a lifetime are difficult to break.

Heather Harrison

[euterpenc]

I feel similarly sometimes. But sometimes I feel as if I should cry, but I don't really care. Everyone around me is sad, and I don't give two shits. That doesn't bother me as much as when I WANT to feel something, but I don't. I don't know how to get around that.

[FactsDontMatter]

I don't think you can cry without feeling. And if you're thinking about crying you can't attain that.

When you're thinking, you're detached from your feelings, and therefor your body doesn't feel like you need tears. You don't need other people to make you feel better, which is the signal crying sends out I believe - because you're not receptive for feelings at that moment as you're busy thinking.
This strikes me as profound. INTPs are often "busy" in their minds. Maybe others aren't that way, and they're giving themselves up to their emotions in the moment. How nice that might be sometimes, eh? I often seem cold at funerals and wakes. Inside I'm in high stress, thinking about everything and everybody, and concerned about how I'm coming across.

Thanks for the thought.

[ohnoaninfp]

I cry once in a while from rage or whatever, and I don't think it looks or feels beautiful. It normally gives me a runny or stuffy nose and a headache.

[J.L. des Alpins]

I don't think you can cry without feeling.


INTPs are often "busy" in their minds.

My inescapable tear trigger is beauty in art…complex, mysterious, magnificent beauty.

Take the movie Cyrano de Bergerac for instance (Depardieu, Brochet; Rappeneau, 1990). Even though I have seen this motion picture a dozen times, I will invariably shed tears—large, wet tears—at the end when Roxane, while Cyrano is dying at her feet, discovers that she had fallen for Cyrano’s mind instead of Christian’s beauty. The grandeur of the play, the story, everything overpowers my innards and I cry.

Rodin’s masterpiece The Kiss [www.statue.com/rodin-the-kiss.html (http://www.statue.com/rodin-the-kiss.html)] produced a similar explosion of sensations when I saw the original a few years ago.

Songs, paintings, poems can also do that sometimes.

ApeTheDog and FactsDontMatter’s comments may explain my reactions: My mind becoming totally absorbed—“busy”—by feelings seems to be a tear catalyst for me.

J.L.

[Clara]

I cry once in a while from ... whatever, and I don't think it looks or feels beautiful. It normally gives me a runny or stuffy nose and a headache.
( I ellipsed "rage" ohno... because I don't cry from rage... and, I suspect that for you -- too -- it's more complex than that ... :hug: by the way time, for the one of us who cries next ~ )

I concur with ohno ... and those who say, "It's beautiful," clearly aren't there, when we cry -- kind of insulting, actually, to presume to define, if ya'll aren't ever crying from hard emotions... ( But, if you are, well then, nevermind, and sorry. )

[CreativeChaos]

I don't think you can cry without feeling...

Tis true ApetheDog. But it sounds as if he wants to cry but can't. It is the worst thing, really. When I feel sad, but really want to cry, I just imagine the situation being worse. Crying is really a great relief. After you cry, the sadness goes away. So, I can see, being sad, having the emotion, and not being able to cry as really awful. Being male, and a "T", I'd say he is doubly conditioned not to cry. I'd take your fellow INTPs advise, and get to crying, somehow. :cry:

Want that I should tell you some really sad stories? I have some really sad doggy stories. Old Yeller is a REALLY sad one. Read that book? Seen that movie? :cry:

[Clara]

CreativeChaos, I'm really glad you posted that. :blush: You're right ... as awful as we might feel, in crying when we're feeling sad ( and sometimes other emotions at the same time ) ... it's the best way to express them, often. And stifling them is not good : not physically, and not for our psyches.

I agree that adding to the "list" of things that might trigger releasing the tears -- and knowing that someone is there -- helps to do that. :)

[misutii]

Want that I should tell you some really sad stories? I have some really sad doggy stories. Old Yeller is a REALLY sad one. Read that book? Seen that movie? :cry:

yes but i don't like dogs. i think i'll try the onion idea while watching the ending of lost and delirious

[Sally]

Books and movies easily make me tear up - anything poignant and understated, beautiful and sad. I always try to suppress it, especially in front of others (it's a private emotion). Which makes it very difficult to read Dr Seuss to a child, let me tell you. :}

When I was an adolescent, I had a few very frustrated crying sessions, and they always left me aching and ill and miserable.

I didn't learn how to just let go and cry for myself until a little over a year ago, when I was more miserable than I had been at any time since adolescence. I was more mature, able to accept my emotions. I would just sit on the floor of the shower with the water going full blast and not hold back at all, sometimes not even know what I was crying for. I was almost 100% confident that no one could hear me, and even more confident that no one would care if they did, so that made it much easier not to feel any shame.

It took time before I could get a catharsis out of crying. When I was younger, I didn't recognize my own emotions - all my logic told me they were flawed and best ignored. Crying was painful then.

Anyway, I'm much happier now. Don't need to cry, don't need to drink, don't even need to binge on cheap chocolate biscuits. :}

[cjs55]

It doesn't seem to make me feel better, only leaving me spiraling deeper into whatever depression I have sunk myself into.