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crying

I recently read a thread by someone who identifies as an ASPI who is frustrated because they want to cry more. I just want to say that if an ASPI or someone who wants to cry more is looking for relief through crying, maybe they’re crying is associated with feeling stressed or implosive. I’m not a doctor but I do know that it is important understand what you might be crying about and then think it through.

For instance are you crying for yourself? Or are you crying for someone else? If you’re crying because you miss someone or feel bad that you lost someone that you cared about, These are strong reasons for Neurotypical people to cry. But when we are children very young, we tend to cry over things like not getting what we want.

My grandmother used to say don’t cry for anything that can’t cry for you. So the next time you think crying will make you feel better, I think it is important to know what it is you’re crying about and if it matters that much. If it is a selfish reason, then reevaluate. If it is something that affects someone else and you might feel bad for them then perhaps you are in tune with emotions called empathy and sympathy. I welcome your thoughts on this and hope for a robust discussion.
 
I used to cry an incredible amount. But since I've switched meds a few years ago, I basically never cry. I can get very frustrated, sometimes quite a bit sad, but I don't cry.

Except for movies and TV, those can still make me cry. And I can also randomly get watery eyes, but those aren't caused by sad feelings.
 
I do NOT cry. I cannot stand crying, or being around others that cry.

I cried as a child and teenager growing up because I had a very abusive trauma filled home life. Crying never helped me in any situation, back then, or now. So many bad things have happened to me in my adult life too, but after my 20s, I rarely cried. I have gone decades without shedding one single tear. I cry if my beloved pets die, even goldfish. I cried recently because my emergency cash fund of several hundreds of dollars went missing from my home. I searched everywhere and was tired and exhausted. I cannot think of other things I have cried about in 15 to 20 years.
 
Just about a week ago, I realized something about myself that makes me wonder how different I am from others. I noticed that when hearing or reading a story or watching a movie or news story I am far more likely to cry if the subject is happy than if it is sad. I almost never cry about anything sad. It may make my angry, but never cry. I even find it hard to tell a story with a happy ending without crying. Movies or stories that involve great difficulties, especially by an underdog, that turns out with a happy / successful ending always makes me cry.

Is anybody else like this???
 
I can relate. Although I still sometimes cry for sad subjects, I find myself crying more for happy ones. Especially, as you mentioned, for the underdog type stories or when there is significant positive mental shift in characters. As dark as my own thoughts get, I find that I'm partial to more happier toned outcomes, or the very least more solemn vs bleak.. maybe my own mind trying to find a balance...
 
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Ken said:
Is that also true if it is a very dramatically happy story?
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I cry mostly on sad movies/stories. But any touching story involving animals makes me emotional. I just watched a music video that made me cry actually. It's "come on" by Will Young.
 
LadyS said:
I can relate. Although I still sometimes cry for sad subjects, I find myself crying more for happy ones. Especially, as you mentioned, for the underdog type stories or when there is significant positive mental shift in characters. As dark as my own thoughts get, I find that I'm partial to more happier toned outcomes, or the very least more solemn vs bleak.. maybe my own mind trying to find a balance...
Click to expand...
I agree. I have always felt like an underdog or less. Thus always hoping for a happy win - or at least a balance, as you put it.
 
Yeshuasdaughter said:
When loved ones are ill or hurt or having other problems.
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This is where I think I may be "different" or weird. I almost never cry at all if anyone is ill or hurt. I may get angry, but never cry. If they make a "miraculous" recovery, that will make me cry.
 
Because of the book that men come from Mars and women come from Venus (just joking)
It may be psychological, deep within you is unhappiness and it wants to come out. I experienced myself becoming synical and had to stop it.
We human and autism thing can also hurt us.
 
Cruelty brings me to tears as does news of the mass killing of schoolchildren. I find it hard to fathom what must be going on in the minds of those children especially seeing the bodies of their peers torn apart by high velocity rounds. Watching "If Anything Happens, I Love You," I was brought to tears.

I really think that news sources should display the horrific, unsurvivable, wounds that assault rifles like the AR 15 do to bodies, especially of children. If our society wants these weapons designed only to kill people, then we must be willing to face what is done with them.
 
I seldom cry, and even though I really like great/happy endings, they've never made me cry. In fact, I never cry over fiction period. It just feel "wrong" somehow, so I don't let myself cry when there are so many real tragedies to cry about. I have cried upon reading experiences of great personal tragedies, like when people describe a loved one dying cruelly, and how they still haven't gotten past it. The more vulnerable the storyteller, and the greater the tragedy/injustice, the more likely I am to cry.

It hasn't happened recently, but when I was younger, I would cry if I was doing very badly at some task, especially when I was being shouted at/criticized for it, I felt I should have done better or I respected the person who was annoyed with me. I would much rather cry for the former reason.
 
I cry when characters I have grown to love die or end up in a permanently horrible situation. Or sometimes if a work forcefully underlines futility and meaninglessness in life. Crying is a proper response to grief.

Happy endings never make me cry. They can leave me happy as long as they don't feel contrived. Happy because that's how they should be, given what they have overcome and achieved.

What angers me and ruins a work is when the dead character comes back to life in the end thru a kind of deus ex machina. It's okay if, logically, this could happen. The character faked their death, and I missed some minute clue to it earlier. Or if resurrection/reincarnation/afterlife were an established fact in this world. Or godlike beings are part of the plot.

If they killed the character to pull maximum sadness out of me and then brought them back to pull maximum happiness out of me, I feel manipulated. A little angry, actually, because the whole story lost its purpose. They blew away my willing supsension of disbelief. I don't like having life and death rendered meaningless because the author needed a happy ending to an unhappy story.
 
I have the same issue as you @Ken

Watching what's going on in Ukraine is very interesting to me, I like to study strategy and logistics and that's all it really means to me. But when I read a story about some old ladies making teddy bears for the orphans I bawled my eyes out.

Watching friends and family die has very little effect on me, I have to pretend to be sad. But when I watch a video like the one you posted above I feel traumatised, truly upset. Thanks for the warning by the way, I didn't watch it.

I have never really understood why. It's just the way I always was.
 
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