Emotional?

I must be in the minority, I’m a bit less emotional than in earlier years. I was at my very worst when pregnant or with young children, adverts made me weep, tears would pour down my cheeks at children’s nativity or dance shows, films, sad or happy endings, books, sad stories, you name it, I could cry over it!

Now I’m just more stoic and less emotional. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

If I’m honest, I’m a very emotional person. As I’ve aged I’ve been able to “put my head in the sand” and stop worrying so much. I’m an emotional worrier. If anything I feel I’ve become more critical of others, which I dont like. I’m 70.

62Granny

I have gone the other way, I used to cry/ tear up at the slightest thing, films , adverts, music it would set me off, but the last few years I have had a few set backs in my life and have found I have become less emotional/harder. I think it is that I know if I start it will just open the flood gates. So perhaps it more about shutting that side down is easier.

That's what I found personally too.

I used to tear up noticeably often and then I had to work for an employer I'd known would be boring - but hadnt realised they'd be "barstewards" as well (even to their own staff sometimes).

When they decided they didn't want a member of staff there any more (for whatever reason or excuse) they had a whole range of tactics they used to try and make the staff "resign of their own free will". I even found written policy stuff on how to treat staff in a way they would do exactly that! It was part of the spoken (or unspoken) way they expected their supervisory staff to act - so I only ever had one normal/reasonable supervisor in all the time I worked for them and he gave up being a supervisor (because he was basically a nice person and he didnt want to be nasty as part of his job description and he was a fairminded and intelligent person).

One of their tactics was to deliberately try and make staff cry and I would find myself starting to cry all too often when those supervisors started up with their nastiness. Then I realised that they would tend to react with looking self-satisfied and would even "go up a notch" on the nastiness. I had thought to start with that they would pull back and act normal (and apologetic) - but nope...they just doubled down on the nastiness!

Once I realised it was indeed a deliberate tactic and remembered I'd never been treated that way in previous jobs prior to working for them = I knew I had to control those tears and stay as "calm and impartial" as I could whilst they deliberately verbally attacked me. So I learnt when to judiciously "have to go to the loo" and how to keep as straight a face as possible and refuse to be deliberately driven to tears by them. So - yep...I had to learn to mentally detach and remind myself it was nothing personal/I hadnt had that sort of treatment in previous jobs - so they werent acting in a normal or justified way and it certainly helped when the grapevine told us things they'd done wrong themselves (eg one of them was a thief in her own life, another was having a particularly stupid affair in her own life etc).

After that lot of wotnames I did succeed so well in not being deliberately driven to tears that I basically can't/don't cry any more. Not even when justified in doing so and no-one has deliberately tried to do that to me and I'm safely on my own etc. I reckon I've managed to stay a normal/decent person and not been turned into a "hard lout" by them - and I certainly dislike hard people (with some of the stuff I've noticed from some of those people over the years in a variety of contexts).

I would love to be able to cry. Occasionally I get a few tears in my eyes but that’s it. I haven’t cried for years. The last time I cried my husband shouted at me and stormed off. I don’t know if that caused it or if I am just hard.

This has all just reminded me in fact that the me of the era before that awful job would have certainly reacted to the treatment I got from neighbours on moving here. I figured it out pretty soon/indeed downright got told by one of them that my house had been mentally earmarked by her for one of her friends - but "YOU bought it !!!!! (glare/glare at perfectly innocent me that had just bought it in the normal way - ie via an estate agent listing)". Cue for two of them were ganging up on me - because I'd inadvertently ruined their little plans for getting hold of my house for someone they knew and were - quite deliberately - trying to drive me out in every darn way they could think of. So at least they never succeeded in driving me to tears at the way they were acting and I hung on in there grimly until they quietened down or left - but they never once saw my tears and I didn't cry even when on my own. I just analysed what they'd done and said/why they'd done it/whether I'd actually done anything wrong (nope I hadnt) and clenched teeth and waited them out. But they never drove me to tears.

I am recovering from quite a serious operation on my leg and can't walk or do very much at all for myself. I often find that by the time dh puts me to bed at night I wait until he has gone back downstairs to lock up I lie there and cry like a baby. I hate the helplessness and feel utterly exhausted with it all. I also dislike myself for dissolving into tears like that.

Absolutely. The least little thing will set me off. I've lost count of how many times I've cried myself to sleep over a silly argument.

I am like this but was diagnosed with SAD some years back and this awful wet, dreary weather has brought it on 10 fold! My OH had a meeting away for few days and I spent it feeling close to tears the whole time. I struggled to sleep, cried several times over nothing in particular and when I did sleep woke feeling bereft for mo reason. Took several days after his return and a couple sessions on a sun bed with red light to make me feel "me" again. Can't put it down to menopause because am well past that but my poor OH bore the brunt of it when he got home🫣 Good job he loves me 😳

I was always a happy sentimental crier if that makes sense? Watching DGC nativity, listening to Christmas carol concerts, that type of thing. Now cry very easily and also feel much more vulnerable because of it. Mixture of getting older, wiser and the stuff life seems to throw at you I think.

I’m the opposite. Used to cry very easily but rarely nowadays. I think being on anti depressants has numbed my emotions.

Yes, I do that was why my Daughter and I fell out, I've always been emotional but more so as I have aged. My Daughter on the other hand was so together emotion was'nt allowed in. Now that I can let it out I feel so much better and this is one of the benifits of living on ones own.

I have become incredibly soft hearted. Cant kill spiders and worry about re-locating them outside in case they get cold (!), rescue ladybirds, get really upset if I see dead wildlife on the road, spoil the cat, I even think twice about swatting flies. Not quite so sentimental about people, but I cant watch anything violent or sad on TV, which means no news programmes and a limited selection of films and drama. I used to be a tough cookie when I was younger.

Nanny27

I am recovering from quite a serious operation on my leg and can't walk or do very much at all for myself. I often find that by the time dh puts me to bed at night I wait until he has gone back downstairs to lock up I lie there and cry like a baby. I hate the helplessness and feel utterly exhausted with it all. I also dislike myself for dissolving into tears like that.

Wishing you a speedy recovery Nanny27
Better days will come

Yes I do too and I was never an emotional person.....not hard but did not cry easily...typical Brit!.

Always have been a weeper and always will be, happy or sad, my tears have fallen most days, it’s a family joke ! My 3 AC and 5 GC write such lovely words in my cards, and off I go. A long time friend said that she’s never known a woman who cries as much as me, but equally, she’s never known a woman as strong as me ! I’ve been annoyed with myself, embarrassed etc but I just can’t help it ! Interestingly my parents and siblings are all the total opposite, totally unemotional.

One of my friends when she was alive would cry at the drop of a hat.

I cry easily too. I don't think it's because I'm depressed, I think it's more about losing loved ones, old haunts have changed, children have grown up and being nearer to the end than the beginning.

It is why we are the primary target of the charity fundraisers.

I was horrified when I was sorting out MILs home about the literally tons of begging and thank you letters from charities that kept coming. She moved and downsized, and I could not understand why her bank account was fairly low until I saw this.
My mother was paying regularly too to 3 or 4 until I stopped her because she could not afford it.

I have always cried at end of films if we go to cinema.Even toy story because i really wanted big baby to get his mummy back😢My kids& grandkids think its hilarious😅

I actually can’t cry any more. This last year has been so awful with my husband having a major, life changing stroke and now being in a wheelchair most of the time.
My son being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and my husband and I literally crying our eyes out for weeks every time he went out. We tried not to cry in front of him. Then our elderly horse being put to sleep. It has been a s* year.
I am all cried out. Just can’t do it now.

I’d love to know what makes me a non- cryer? Sometimes a few tears might slip out or my eyes may well a bit, but this has been so very rare. I’m more likely to go quiet and thoughtful than actually cry. I think always been the same.

Primrose I'm the same as you. Traumatic childhood, having all my teeth removed at 11, losing my brother to suicide, being at my nephew's bedside as he died of cancer, watching his mother have a fit as he died, losing all my hair, husband's cancer (thankfully in remission), husband blue lighted to AE last year and DH and me finding a man dead in the street a while back.

My daughter was surprised when we went to see The Lion King that I didn't cry. I couldn't cry over people dressed as animals.

I am not at all bothered about being a "weeper" as I can weep with laughter too.

Like Coconut people see me as a "strong" person (though I don't always feel that) - and I suppose my openness to tears does make me a good shoulder to cry on... no judgement from me!

I do feel other's pain quite acutely and weep with frustration (and anger).

I think we should each just accept the way we are made.

I do warn "professional" people who don't know me well - that i might weep when i explain the problem to them - mostly they see me weep and that i quickly recover.
Occasionally, like a nurse once when told "I'm feeling sorry for myself today so I will probably weep when I tell you... but please be assured I'm actually ok" they don't "get" it.
The nurse referred me to the doctor and i had a phone call offering "support".

I suppose it may help people if weeping is unusual for them so I can't be irritated really. I was irritated though - because I'd warned her.

dogsmother

I’d love to know what makes me a non- cryer? Sometimes a few tears might slip out or my eyes may well a bit, but this has been so very rare. I’m more likely to go quiet and thoughtful than actually cry. I think always been the same.

I'm pretty sure my lack of emotion - crying in particular - is all down to my mother. I wasn't allowed to cry as a child - she'd make my life a misery if I did. She even gave me hell on the day of my dad's funeral because apparently I 'made a show of her' by crying at the crematorium.

I do not think that tears are a measure of someones emotion. Yes, emotional events can cause them and not crying does not ea you do not feel things.

I cannot remember when I last had a good cry. Possible around 2008. Even when the dearest of dear friends died suddenly 4 years ago. I welled up, but did not cry, but my emotions were in shreds. I went numb with grief.

In fact I suspect I go numb where others cry. Any emergency, health, domestic, family. I am dry eyed calm, numb and dealing with the problem. There is no deep childhood reason why I do not cry, beyond my real irritation with people who make bad situations worse - and that so often involes crying when what is needed is immediate action. I am not of course including those crying through grief, frustration because nothing can be done and the like