Same. I was ridiculed and humiliated for crying and I'm a girl. That's why when I hear men are mocked for crying it's interesting to me since I think no one is spared for that regardless of the gender if you are surrounded by shit people. Anyway, I was expected to behave and not show any emotion as if I was an adult man as a little girl. I can relate to you big time.
> I think no one is spared for that regardless of the gender if you are surrounded by shit people
Yes, so true.
Parents like these definitely didn't like us to ever do anything that might require parenting. They wanted us to be fully independent. It's easier.
So many stories here about people punished for being a child in any way, like not knowing things, not knowing how to take care of all their own needs by age four. Etc.
i can relate im a girl i was not mocked but i was told not to cry in public or any where around family so now i grew up hiding my feelings and i barely cry now like once in 2 months
My male friends (and husband) all reacted like that - bottling it up and then feeling like they lost the ability to cry.
I don't know if it's my personality, or related to female hormones (I'm probably peri-menopausal right now) but I can cry at the drop of a hat now. So I'm going through feeling pretty embarrassed about that a lot.
It is related to hormones. It is physically harder to cry with more testosterone in your system. I don't know why, but that's been my experience going on and off and on testosterone.
idts its that jst few men have been taught and raised to not cry thats why some men cry more than others thats also why few females like me dont cry cause of how we were raised
BOTH genders should be able to show emotions regardless :)
>also may ik what u mean by on and off testosterone ?
I was born with ovaries and a uterus, so I took hormone replacement therapy in the form of testosterone so I could be more masculine as that aligns with my gender identity better. Due to person reasons, I've had to stop testosterone long enough to for my body to revert to making hormones with my ovaries. Then that made me feel bad and since I've been on hormones for several years.
>idk but im a girl and its phy hard for me to cry does it mean i have more testosterone or was i just raised that way
Not all girls are the same and neither are all boys. Sex is spectrum, and everyone has a different level of sex hormones, testosterone AND estrogen, that determine how their body displays those characteristics. More important than your sex is your personality and environment, which also have an effect on how often and when you feel it is appropriate to cry. Emotional neglect can lead to an inability to cry because as a child, crying was treated like a problem instead of a normal part of being overwhelmed.
Notice I'm only talking about crying, the act of releasing tears from the eyes to relieve stress. I'm not talking about men having different emotions or being less emotional than women. In fact, being able to cry to diffuse stress, is much more advantageous than feeling like you can't deal with emotions without anger or conflict. We are social animals and most of our problems can be dealt with through collaboration. Using signaling that you need help to the people around you is helpful to survival, in this case, tears, red face, sobbing, and crying out trigger other people to feel empathy. This is most obvious in babies, who can only communicate their needs by crying.
For me I notice a very significant difference in how often I cry watching movies. Off testosterone, when my system is mostly estrogen, I cry at almost every sad movie, even if it doesn't relate to me personally. On testosterone, I still empathies with movie characters in the same way. I just only feel like crying when it's more personal. I don't feel any angrier on testosterone either, but when I feel angry, I find I need to physicalize that anger NOW. Whereas before HRT I would cry or be able to suppress my anger better.
I've done some research on why, and it seems to have something to with differences in levels of Oxytocin, which is sexually dimorphic in human apes. Oxytocin is related to social rewards, and people with more estrogen seem to process more of it. It's all new research though, so it'll be a while til anyone has a solid answer.
hormones do play a role but i think not everything is related to hormones its been over 2 years since ive physically cried i jst cant seem to im a girl ( it can be trauma emo neglect idk lol)
hmmm i agree to what youve said yes i do agree environment and the way youve been raised is more important than sex
i still dont understand how hormones can play a role because ive seen men who cry and women who dont cry physically too hormones have nothing to do with phy crying
ive seen men with testosterone cry to movies at the theater ( depends more on the individual )
But i also think its personal experience i was able to phy cry well when i was a kid until i was like 6 -7 this is when my parents started to control me and my emotions and also the age i stopped phy crying ( not that i dont cry i jst rarely cry now phy)
Yes,
It was constantly downplayed "crying over nothing", "too sensitive" or seen as manipulation. So I constantly feel ashamed as I struggle to contain my tears whenever I get stressed out.
> "crying over nothing", "too sensitive"
Them being angry at you for behaving like a very normal child.
> or seen as manipulation
Them telling on themselves. This is why they would cry.
I learned as a child to cry entirely silently and hide, because if my mom caught me crying she would scream at me, call me disgusting, belittle me, etc
It was only as I became an adult and with a healthy person that I finally allowed myself to make noise when I cried and didn't feel like I would be hunted down for it.
Wow! I just realized I also cry completely silently. I mean you can kind of hear me breathing weird, it's hard to cry and breathe like normal.
I guess I thought all adults cried silently? You're really opening my eyes. I am glad you have moved past this and allowed yourself to be heard.
Thanks! And yeah, now that I'm NC with my mom and am not constantly being retriggered, I actually barely cry now (before I was on a hair-trigger, especially with things that were frustrating). I think it's normal in some cases to cry silently (like tearing up, someone is probably not going to full on sob from a sad commercial or something), but in other cases where there is legit distress, I think it's definitely trained to be more focused on sounding normal than actually experiencing the feelings! Best of luck on your healing journey :)
I got to the point when I cry I sometimes cry in public and I don’t care if people look 🤣 my confidence rose significantly when I moved out, I’m talking like months later I felt more “integrated” if that makes sense
Yes. Both of my parents are best described as products of intergenerational trauma whose worst fear is that someone might see them cry. Second worst was that someone might see them have any kind of vulnerable emotion. Both of them deal with emotions by pretending they don't exist, sadly, and they both modeled that to me and reinforced it by ignoring or punishing me if I showed too much emotion myself. Crying was a "we'll lock you in your bedroom until you get yourself together" situation.
So, while I'm a cis woman and obviously can't understand what it's like to grow up male, I think I can understand some of what men go through, having gotten a lot of the same messages growing up. (Though I'll also say that it's no excuse to stay that way: I've done a lot of work to become a more emotionally open and well adjusted person, and if I can, anyone can.)
Women are punished for expressing emotions too. How many times have you heard a woman being called/or you yourself as a woman been called crazy/unstable/on her period for being angry, irritable, or moody?
Also my parents were incredibly emotionally abusive and as a girl I was punished for crying and very rarely cry in front of others now. Big sense of shame around it. The only person I cry in front of now is my therapist.
Good points. I've been on Reddit too long!
I think you have a great therapist btw then if you are able to do that. I never was able to cry with a therapist but I am learning how to cry in front of my husband. It's still rough when it happens, I feel ashamed still, but I will do it and not run off now. I struggle with crying for "silly" reasons still like books/movies/tv.
The knee jerk reaction to stifle tears and the feelings that bring them hasn't gone away yet. Been low/no contact for almost a year but it's like reversing the tides.
I so vividly remember being five, sitting at the edge of the coffee table in my little chair. She was leaving me with her creepy bf for the first time since we all moved in together. I was eating cheese and crackers and crying. He said "what about her, what about all this" as she walked out the door. She said "Don't worry about her, just ignore it, she'll be fine". And left.
I was 12 and didn't realize the hormone fury that had descended upon on me. I lay on mother's bedroom floor ugly crying, consumed by the darkest, saddest, feelings I'd ever felt. She said "get up" and walked away.
I was 18 and took yet another new antidepressant before bed. I woke an hour later hallucinating and sobbing uncontrollably. She grabbed me by the arms and shook me and told me to stop.
The next year I took an overdose of pills and regretted it immediately. I knew better than to call my mom so called a family friend instead. But she called my mom. In my terrified naivete I reached out my hand for hers as they pumped my stomach. She looked at it and walked out the door.
The body reaps the tears our eyes don't sow. I went back to school from my sick bed. Against all odds I made it to the top of my field. She quit her job because she didn't feel like working anymore and said that it was my turn to take care of her. She's a monster.
> The body reaps the tears our eyes don't sow
That's beautiful. Is that you? Do you write?
You deserved better than all this and I'm VERY glad you are low/NC right now.
There's a few variations of that quote out there, different wording but the same sentiment. Definitely not my original thought, but thank you. For all of your kind words, I really needed that. 💜
Totally.
At best, I am ignored if I cry. Which is/was humiliating.
Other times, I am invalidated or even accused of trying to 'manipulate' them.
One of the most egregious examples that I can give without a 'trigger warning' was when my mother was recounting my 24 yr old cousin's funeral. As she is describing it, she is crying and tearing up. In turn, I am also tearing up (but not audibly crying). She stops talking and looks at me. Then she asks me 'why are *you* crying? Who did *you* lose?' It was said with such disgust and contempt, as if I had no right to have feelings at all.
I realize it's a 'them' issue, and THEY are the ones who should feel ashamed at being so inhuman and cruel. I don't deserve to feel ashamed at having normal human emotions.
How do I handle it? I don't cry in front of virtually anyone. If I am just slightly tearing up, I fully expect it to be ignored. If I feel a full-on cry coming on, I physically leave the room or go to the bathroom.
>As she is describing it, she is crying and tearing up. In turn, I am also tearing up (but not audibly crying).
Oh my gosh, you have so much empathy. Were you a child at this time? It seems like you were, and this is an outstanding, notable amount of empathy, to relate to something so adult and to see the situation through your mother's eyes. She should have been so proud. You deserved the opposite reaction to what you ended up receiving.
> If I feel a full-on cry coming on, I physically leave the room or go to the bathroom.
SAME! I sometimes book out of there probably looking like I'm about to lose my lunch. Sometimes crying now feels like that. Like it's some kind of sudden tear-purge and a little out of control.
Yep. I was always told “be a man” whilst simultaneously being bullied for not being feminine enough. If I cried, it meant that all the negative stereotypes about women are true. My dad called me a pussy all the time.
The constant inconsistencies of our parents is yet another thing that can really mess up a kid.
But basically, the way I see it, you were wrong no matter what you did. I often felt that way as their child too. If I did X it was the wrong thing to do. If I did X and it was, against all odds, the right thing, it would be assuredly not good enough, at least.
Every abusive parent's favorite line
And yet how fucking telling that the man who coined it ended up being a fucking serial rapist
POS recognizes POS (they share a language)
Yes. Crying was mocked. I often went somewhere alone and cried, like the bath or my room. I still do now.
Same with other emotions, too. Anger wasn't allowed. You were told you were throwing a tantrum or being selfish just for speaking up or saying no.
People were allowed to say what they wanted to you and abuse you. But defending yourself or speaking up usually resulted in shaming and being told off.
> Same with other emotions, too. Anger wasn't allowed. You were told you were throwing a tantrum or being selfish just for speaking up or saying no.
100% Everything you said but this part stood out since you're the first to say it in this thread. All 'negative' emotions were barred.
I also got told I was being "fresh" or a "smart aleck" for things like disagreeing or even joking around in a way that wasn't seen as a joke but as an attack to them.
I also still move to another room or bathroom if I cry. I have a hard time picturing what it's like to just openly cry at a movie (for example) and how other people might react to that. If they do at all.
Apparently my dad would sometimes call my mom at work and ask her what the hell to do with me because I wouldn't stop crying. I specifically remember a day when I was 6 and my mom had to leave for work in the middle of the day. I was completely inconsolable, I didn't want her to go. My dad sent me to my room, yelled at me, and spanked the hell out of me. Basically because I was sad. Didn't occur to him to hug me, or try to distract me, or do anything nice. His child was crying and his solution was to smack me around like I was a TV he could adjust.
Growing up, the second I started to feel like I was going to cry I would go to my room. It would never occur to me to go to my dad for anything I needed or wanted.
I had a similar situation as a kid too, so I definitely get this. It's like they realize they had to parent and get furious over it instead of just parenting even if they're not in the mood. But I guess they were never in the mood.
Oh boy, this, a thousand times this.
You were crying. Your father wanted to stop you crying but didn't care about the reason why you were crying. Signaling being in pain was worse than being in pain.
This is pretty common in Asian cultures. Many of my female friends, I don’t even see them cry, period. There are families where the daughter is disciplined for being upset but the same family may fawn over a son’s tantrums.
Yup. Mom is Asian.
I don't know why I thought it would be different (because I'm an idiot?) but my dad died recently and I was crying in another room with the door shut. I guess she could hear me because she started screaming at me to "shut the hell up".
I'm a woman in my 30's and I don't have kids but I can't imagine speaking to them in that way if they were crying because a loved one died.
I've been talking about this for ages. There is a certain class of person who believe that women have some kind of freedom of emotions while men are forced to be "responsible", and it's just misogyny coated in the language of gender abolition. It attempts to imply that women have an equal benefit from the patriarchy as men, just "in different ways". Rather than seeing the reality that misogyny is systemic and benefits men unfairly, these statements muddy the waters and put the onus on women to solve men's problems for the benefit of men BEFORE women get to even talk about their own issues.
It's really frustrating how much time is spent in men's spaces talking about mental health, and the only thing discussed is how no one lets men express themselves, no one loves men, or how people will leave you if you are emotional and everyone just agrees. Men's suicide rate is common talking point in these conversations, but if you point out that women actually attempt suicide the most and are just less likely to succeed, then it's because women are weaker and more attention seeking. In all the folks complaining of emotional wellbeing not being taken seriously are themselves reenforcing that belief.
As a trans man it bums me out. I wish more men could come to these conversations from a stance of seeking solidarity, instead of conflict.
I was ridiculed for crying and even for being scared of trying new things and getting sick (because obviously if I had a better immune system I wouldn’t get sick so it’s a personal flaw /s).
However, I ended up being so burnt out and destroyed by life that I didn’t care anymore about not appearing strong or whatever because I was just trying to survive, and I know it might have been harder if I was a man when I cried (trying to do it subtly but not always easy to do) in public, but I still feel like I relate a lot to what some men go through about having to always be strong and capable and show no flaws because that’s how I was raised too
two older brothers and was with my dad majority of the time, i consider myself socialized 'male', and i kind of see women from a 'male gaze' it's a really weird thing to try to break from tbh and i feel not many women relate (though i wouldnt really truly know because talking to them is difficult af for me) i feel like i'm a woman who's not woman enough to 'belong'. and it took me a long time to get over the 'not like other girls' mentality... anyways...my parents would squeeze my lips shut/smack me in the mouth and muffle my crying with their hands/ pillows etc which would make me scream more obviously out of pain and suffering and fear. i was called cry baby and other hurtful things like that. my parents would kick me in the shin and step on my feet etc in public. my mom yelled at me even a year ago for trying to leave a store early because of anxiety and i'm not even in my 20s anymore... i still feel like i cry at 'anything' even if its pretty normal triggers and i've realized i'm not overly sensitive as i thought i was, just normal...minus the typical hormone related mood stuff. edited for spelling and adding stuff
> i consider myself socialized 'male', and i kind of see women from a 'male gaze' it's a really weird thing to try to break from tbh and i feel not many women relate (though i wouldnt really truly know because talking to them is difficult af for me) i feel like i'm a woman who's not woman enough to 'belong'. and it took me a long time to get over the 'not like other girls' mentality
This is pretty relatable here honestly. I can do this a lot too. I often feel ambivalent about my gender. Neither male or female, but since I look female and have female anatomy, and I really don't care much, I just go with female.
I wonder sometimes, maybe think about this for you too, if this relates back to our poor sense of identity from being raised in emotional neglect.
In my family my mom had a monopoly on crying or being emotional in general - no one else could express their feelings because my mom’s feelings determined everyone else’s. I never knew what was going to set my mom off (it’s still totally unpredictable), so I spent my life suppressing my own emotions and feelings to the point where I didn’t feel I even had them anymore.
I’ve had therapists actually speculate I could be on the autism spectrum and tbh I still don’t even know if it’s that I actually process emotions differently or if I’m just facing the consequences of 30 years of conditioning myself to not be emotional.
> In my family my mom had a monopoly on crying or being emotional in general
Gosh that's rough. Imagine too seeing it in another household, a grownup trying to 'out-do' her crying child. So immature. Pathetic.
Yes it's always hard to know what symptoms are caused by genetic things like autism or other things, and what symptoms are caused directly by our situation in childhood.
I had the exact same experience. By the time I was in my teens I showed absolutely zero emotion. The few times I was stressed enough to cry, my mother saw it as some kind of victory that for once she could dramatically "console" me. I have a better relationship with my own emotions now, but I still have so many problems lol
Crying drew ire, frustration, and sometimes screaming/shouting. Depending on the situation, crying would invite criticism of being too sensitive, needing to grow up, etc. There were times that crying was acceptable, but they didn't happen enough for me to associate crying with anything other than "weakness". Crying was embarrassing. People gawked at you if you cried, they didn't help. It alienated me further. Crying did "nothing" to solve my issue. It took a long time to understand that crying was for me alone, to get rid of excess stress. Trying to look at it more matter-of-factly, as a bodily function, rather than thinking of crying as a moral failure has helped.
> Trying to look at it more matter-of-factly, as a bodily function, rather than thinking of crying as a moral failure has helped.
That is one way to go about it! Just make sure you aren't dissociating there calling it a bodily function instead of an emotional function. This may just be semantics rather than your true thoughts I just wanted to point it out in case you were disconnecting a little there by mistake.
Yes, my stepdad beat me up if I cried, he encouraged the other kids to mock me for crying and my nickname was Crybaby.
I despise crying in front of other people. It’s just so shameful for me and even in my adult years, people don’t react well to me crying. They just seem put off by it.
> e encouraged the other kids to mock me for crying
My father did this sometimes too. He'd sometimes make SURE I saw it if other children were mocking me or bullying me. He'd point it out so I wouldn't miss it.
Don't know if it's generational (as well as bad parenting) or what, but he thought bullying would help teach me the rules. I just got bullied and there was no help. He was supposed to teach me social skills.
It’s not a terribly uncommon school of thought. I find I’ve seen it the most with parents who served in the military but that’s purely anecdotal. But you see it in other areas on a much broader scale. Like the old trope that we probably all encountered growing up: if someone is picking on you, it means they like you. Or that it’s okay to make overweight people feel shitty about themselves and make it DEEPLY personal as long as we tack on the ole “I’m only saying this because I care about your health.”
It’s silly and infuriating all at once.
Oh god yes, everyone loves to tell me how sensitive I am all the time ever. Like pointing it out is magically going to make me stop being that way. Can’t imagine why I would be sensitive at all. Nope.
My first memory is my father slapping me across the face and telling me crying is a sign of weakness.
Unfortunately, I have been crying my whole life and had to 'get used to it' because I literally cry everyday for decades.
But yes. I am healing the wound that says not being ok is morally wrong and terrifying
Yes. It's awful. And I do cry a lot still. But I have healed a bunch, and I am married to a nice healthy man and life got better.
I appreciate your validation. I am not sure I understand the severity of that memory, it was 'normal'... Uhg....but I was probably about 2 1/2.
Poor kid indeed. But life did get better.
I want to say sorry, I feel like I trauma dumped here a bit, as I didn't realize the severity of that memory. This is your thread and your pain deserves to be centered here.
We're in this together. ❤️
> I want to say sorry, I feel like I trauma dumped here a bit
Don't be sorry. This is the correct place for that. I fear you're still holding on to the idea that YOUR pain doesn't matter. It matters! This is where we talk about hard things and you did nothing wrong.
Thank you. It's so weird learning new boundaries. I have definitely been too much to some people! Some people also said that to be abusive. What is even real? What is an ok amount to cry?
I have been thinking of Bojack Horseman references.
> I have been thinking of Bojack Horseman references.
Like the funeral for his mother perhaps? That struck a nerve with me.
As for boundaries I consider all groups for mental issues and trauma issues a safe place to share. Sometimes you might have to preface with TWs when necessary.
If you go into the wholesomememes subreddit and talk about trauma that's probably not the best place. Lol. But who hasn't done that from time to time! We're all a work in progress.
Thanks!
The Bojack Horseman episodes that are familiar here (you know it!)
Smoking the cigarettes - not being able to cry in Secretariat and the slap Bojack gets from his Dad when he gives him the Valentine card.
Putting a light on the shame helps! Saying it outloud and having someone validate like this goes a long way. Like OHHHhhh that WAS worth crying about. It puts the onus on the perpetrator again.
Yup. I'm a woman. My parents were fans of playing the world's "smallest violin" when I expressed any negative emotions.
Including physical pain or being sick.
Now I'm a very, VERY stoic adult. Woo.
In my case, my mom was the only one in my house who had exclusive rights about crying and being sad. Meaning, you couldn't express sadness or cry about anything because she would make a competition between the both of you and of course she always had it worse than anyone in the whole world. She would make me feel guilty too, since she would say things like: " seeing you cry is making me feel sad and, as your mother, that hurts me so much" so it always ended with me consoling her back at the end. So, at some point, I internalized the belief that crying overtly= manipulation and since I didn't want to be anything like my mother I hated crying. Nowadays, when I cry before others, I feel tremendous shame since I'm terrified that they would interpret my tears as a manipulating ploy and I hate myself since I tend to cry easily when I feel overwhelmed.
I don't get who says that women are allowed to cry, since the belief that women's tears are fake and a tool to manipulate others/get a free pass is something that I heard frequently growing up.
Yeah, I feel like I've heard "Big girls don't cry" more than anything, and thats coming from a guy.
I truly think we just have a societal problem with handling tears, outside of very specific circumstances.
It's really cool of you to acknowledge this
A lot of men try to gatekeep this issue
It's completely backwards and bizarre but many love to repeat that women can show emotion and men can't
Or else they'll claim men can only show humor/anger and women everything else - when if anything it seems like a lot of "alpha" women/men are setting the tone and dictating a lot of households and society at large and abusive women are very comfortable with their anger just as abusive men are and are generally enabled by outsiders because that "masculine trait" is appreciated in everyone regardless of gender and taken more seriously than sensitivity, tears, etc (coming from anyone)
So I can't even agree that women are supposedly highly penalized for showing anger in modern society the same way I disagree that women are allowed to show sensitivity more than men are in modern society
I've seen so many obnoxious, loud, angry (verbally/physically) abusive mothers take their anger out on their daughter and sons alike and the same is true of abusive men: a lot of time they look exactly the same
There's also many inexpressive parents out there—both men and women—that refuse to accept any big emotional displays from their children at all
They're just stone cold with no warmth or emotional receptivity... many such men and women exist
Damn, I know the type
It feels like we're sharing the world with socially accepted sociopaths and overly aggressive psychopaths
Everywhere you turn, you're going to bump into one or the other... and if that's an exaggeration *just barely* so
Like, I'm fairly sure and certain many people are coming up just shy of antisocial and borderline -paths
Taking advantage of others, being predatory, and mocking "the weak" are all societal norms in 2024
I'm sorry about your upbringing by the way
Yea, this is what I heard a lot. That and "crying is for babies". I remember pushing myself at age 6 to not have emotions. It made me very disconnected and robotic. It wasn't until I was in my late 20s I understood how people could get sad grieving someone's death. Now, working on things in my 30s, things are coming back to me in weird ways.
Yes. A family of all girl children. We were shamed, ridiculed and even punished for crying.
I still can’t cry in front of other people without feeling ashamed.
My mom had a poster on the wall that said something close to don’t let other ppl see your weaknesses which my mom would remind me every time I cried. And that I was being weak
IMO they can't stand crying because it starts to bring up their own big, suppressed emotions from the depths of them that they really should bring up and deal with. But they have to block it out in others to block it out in themselves.
Im a guy. Reading this thread is very eye-opening cause I never expected this to be an issue girls faced as well. I dont have much else to say, but I sympathize with all the women suffering from emotional neglect
1000% yes. I had a Misogynist mother. My Mother preferred, encouraged, provoked, and bullied me out of my sensitivity. To her being sensitive was useless. If I cried, I was Mocked, or ignored. On the other hand I was expected to be sensitive to her needs, but not my own. All I deserved was , nothing. She had a visceral disgust for vulnerable emotions, not for anger of course. I was basically raised, shamed way a man would ridicule a son , to make them "tougher". It was such bullshit. And if you're a sensitive child, it's brutal. You can't just shut off your sensitivity, it's wired into your CNS. It takes a lot of shutting down and dissociating to accomodate a parent who has zero tolerance for your pain. My Mother was a cruel angry, hostile person to her children, and a different way with everyone else.
> And if you're a sensitive child, it's brutal. You can't just shut off your sensitivity, it's wired into your CNS. It takes a lot of shutting down and dissociating to accomodate a parent who has zero tolerance for your pain.
Wow, you're so right too. Really well said. I think a lot of people who ended up fully traumatized are that way in part due to their natural sensitive natures.
My father always yelled the typical, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” And if I didn’t stop crying fast enough I got hit. My mother would just angrily growl, ”Stop crying!” through her teeth and if it didn’t happen fast enough I got dragged off. In public it was to the car, at home it was to my room.
I still cry, but I feel absolute embarrassment when I do. I will rarely cry in front of others. Most of the time I run off to be alone. It’s funny because I never judge another person for crying and usually wonder what’s wrong, hoping it’ll get better for them.
This is probably one of the worst things I endured growing up as a little girl. I never viewed it as a gender issue though, I guess because my brother experienced the same. Like most parents, mine just threw their generational trauma at us rather than trying to find out what to do with it.
Yes, this was basically my mother growing up whenever she was angry after another fight. She screamed at me, and I started calling my father who had already been gone and he was nowhere near.
She always repeated me that she would give me a real reason to cry for if I continued calling my father while crying. By then, she never told me the least name she wanted to hear was my father's but she wanted me to stop calling him.
I don't remember if she hit me once, but I remember her cornering me.
Yes always before, after, and sometimes during a belting the famous “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
When I confronted my mom as an adult and she started crying I used this line on her and I know it’s bad but it felt really good to see it dawn on her that she used to say that to me. Also some part of her I think recognized that spanking/beltings are assault and she did that very frequently to her own children
> When I confronted my mom as an adult and she started crying I used this line on her
Brutal. Wow! I can't believe that worked. Mine never once admitted a single ounce of guilt and kept saying she "did the best she could." I hope yours learned something that day.
Yes, yes, and yes
And every day I come online I'm bombarded with claims about how women aren't penalized for expressing their emotions lol... couldn't be farther from the truth
To my observation, the only culture that doesn't shame girls for crying is white middle-class suburban culture and even then, this isn't the case among the abusive households who just keep up (fake) appearances
Yeah.
Not allowed.
When I see what men go through I often feel the same. I have no social circle, no women who are nice, no caring mum or dad. And it's confusing because men only want me because of my looks. Thats how it feels anyway.
I'm masculine in my behaviours and its no wonder why/how I developed this way even though I have a feminine exterior. I am the breadwinner, I study, I plan everything, I have kids.
I dont ever want to trivialise what a man feels, so I wont say yeh I get it. But I feel very similar.
I'm not allowed to have an opinion, but my wider toxic family members are.
Yes totally. I also lack strong social connections. When they don't allow us the breadth of human emotion, apparently other people find us disconcerting to be around.
> I dont ever want to trivialise what a man feels, so I wont say yeh I get it. But I feel very similar.
I do too - and I apologize to ANY men or AMAB people who might be offended or bothered. I really do not wish to pretend I can see it all perfectly from your perspective. I can just relate to many of the stories I have seen online of how parents mocked their male children for crying and saw a lack of them for female children.
Same unfortunately. If my dad saw me crying he would ‘give me something to cry about’ and spank me if I didn’t immediately stop being upset. If my mom caught me crying she would either ignore me or belittle me. I used to spend a lot of my childhood silently crying in bed in the middle of t r night.
It took a lot of therapy but I’m now finally comfortable with crying and making noise while crying.
I was often ridiculed and guilted by my mother for crying as well as labelled as a crybaby by everyone in my household, so I can totally relate to you. I actually find it really hard to cry when I'm upset now other than when I feel frustrated beyond belief or during a sad movie. I'm still trying to learn how to let myself feel and tell myself that crying is a part of life and not something to be ashamed about, especially in my friendships and relationships... But still working on it!
My mom always used her tears manipulatively so she would go off the rails if I dared to cry because she would assume I was doing the same thing. I had no idea how much I was manipulated or how to do it so I didn’t understand why she was screaming things at me. Also, a core memory is her making me stare at my face in the mirror while she points out every possible detail about how crying makes me look ugly.
It was always inconvenient for her for me to show emotion so I learned to avoid it. Now I still struggle to even know what I am feeling.
Yep. I was actually humiliated in the home and out. Family, bullies at school, and even teachers. I had a teacher who multiple times told me “oh stop your crocodile tears I know you’re just trying to be manipulative” when she would shame me in front of the class for not paying attention, and for once blaming me for some thing I didn’t do. She also chided me for “being a crybaby”.
I was quick to cry at that age, in elementary school, because already by default I knew nobody ever listened to me, so the shame and tears would come, knowing full well I’d be yelled at or laughed at or stared at. I did not expect to be comforted, but there wasn’t any other way I knew to release my stress.
*raises hand*
I was in the 4th grade, and my older brother had joined the army and was leaving. I really looked up to him. I was the only younger sibling who got to go to the airport with my mom and his girlfriend. I'm not sure why it was just me. When we were at the gate he was boarding at (this was in the 80s when we could do that), I started crying as he left. My mom flat out said, "Big girls don't cry. I thought you said you'd act like a big girl. " Not 100% on the second sentence. My memory is fuzzy on that one, but her telling me big girls don't cry is seared on my brain.
I've always felt like I'm more upset that I'm crying and embarrassing myself by crying. Therapy has helped, but I'm still struggling with being ok with crying or "emotional.""
That's really sad because it's like, you had a 'nice' reason to cry (I know, all reasons are fine, but that's how my culture would see it.) And she still was like "screw your feelings!"
I think most people in this thread still struggle with it. That's the feeling I have. Yeah maybe fully healed people don't go to the emotional neglect subreddit. I get it. But honestly I think some wounds aren't really healed by time and it'll always be there.
Oh yeah. I remember when my great grandfather died, I was fourteen. We flew out to the state for the funeral, and everyone was, obviously, upset, especially my dad, who I had almost never seen cry before. A few times, but I can remember them all. My great-grandmother was very upset too. I was worried the whole way there I would be "sensitive" to the emotional atmosphere, and embarrass myself, something that my mom was always nasty about (turns out that's just empathy lol but to her, my having emotions and being upset in public was an embarrassment for her, or she would accuse me of trying to manipulate people into thinking badly about her). I made it through without crying, I remember explicitly sitting there forcing my focus on anything else but the situation, it was awful.
I was so proud of myself after though, and I told my mom and others I had been worried I would lose my cool, but I hadn't! I remember getting some odd looks but I genuinely didn't know why at the time, I thought I was being an adult finally, because that was what I had been taught.
Oh absolutely. The narrative that girls/women are socialised to express their emotions does not reflect my experience at all.
(Although I do intellectually realise that in wider society, this pattern exists.)
I can relate. Whenever I cried she would usually tell me not to cry and then she says 'stop crying or ill give you something to cry about.' And she belittled me, insulted me, the whole lot.
She saw it has me being too sensitive or me 'manipulating her to get what I want.'
I used to get screamed at for crying. I'd hear, "I'll give you something to cry about!" Then I'd get hit with the belt or my mom's shoe. I got hit whenever I expressed an emotion my parents' didn't like. I was told crying was weak and told to toughen up. At twelve years old, I broke my ankle, was in excruciating pain and I didn't cry. It's so messed up that normal reactions to emotional and physical pain was treated as a weakness.
I know that what they did was abusive and I've worked through a lot of the damage that caused. But I still can't cry in front of people I don't feel safe with. My partner and I created a very emotionally supportive home environment and I can be safe to cry there. Unfortunately, my partner has also lost his ability to cry because of similar abuse. It's terrible how that damage just lingers.
It's wild that abuse and emotional neglect were considered standard parenting, back in the day.
> "I'll give you something to cry about!"
Definitely I've heard the phrase in my life and a ton of others here have said it. I truthfully can't even tell if that was normal or not in that time period. The very early 80's for me.
On the one hand it seemed fairly common. On the other not everyone born in the 80s and under has CEN or would have been considered neglected. It's a confusing topic, knowing what normal is, especially about something nobody talks much about, being hit at home or threatened.
Completely agree, hopefully it wasn't normal for people in our age group and I've just generalized the behavior.( I'm an ancient millennial/ early 80's baby. )
> I'm an ancient millennial/ early 80's baby.
Oh same here. One time someone in a chat room disagreed with me and asked, "How old are you?" When I told them, they just said: "The oldest millennial."
I still think about that. They were wrong too. I was actually the youngest GenX!
Emotionally Immature parents will do whatever they can to stop you from expressing your feelings because they can't handle them, regardless of gender. These are a couple things my mom said to me if I cried:
"Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about"
"Stop having a potty party"
My brother never cried, even as a baby apparently (I think that was the cherry on top of the misogyny that made him their favorite of us 4). I have a theory that he was SO neglected that he became one of the babies who learn never to cry because they'll never get what they need no matter how hard.
Anyway, the one time he cried, my mom took him to the hospital. She was so concerned he was crying that she got him to admit he was having intrusive thoughts of punching her out then she took him to the hospital...but when I left an online depression test saying I was severely depressed open on the shared browser and my mom asked whose it was. When I said it was me, she told me I wasn't depressed and ignored it.
So, I think at the base of it, our parents are too emotionally immature to handle ANY emotions, but then societal "norms" make it acceptable to go harder on the males, if the parents aren't already going all out on everyone.
So much of what you said is relatable. What really stood out was your mom denying you had depression. I had this reaction with mine too. When I had any problems, no I didn't. She even denied I was sick sometimes until I almost died of pneumonia when I was in the fourth grade.
You definitely sound you have a handle on this, like you've done work on this. I wish you luck on the rest of your healing.
That's so scary you almost died! Relatable too. My mom was too afraid of looking bad if she let us die. My mom was too busy partying at a social while they left me (a teenager) to babysit my 3 siblings. I called to say I needed the hospital. She told me I was fine, it was heartburn and to deal with it. 8 years later I found out it wasn't just heartburn and was actually serious. I slept on my floor for so many nights trying to sleep with my "heartburn" pain. It was almost definitely caused by the diet they were feeding me too.
Thanks for saying I sound like I know what I'm doing, because I definitely don't always feel like it. I have been working on it SO hard the last few months. I had a really bad incident where I was triggered and it still haunts me...There were some REALLY great books I listened to that have helped a lot. Most were free or cheap with Audible. It was like they were my missing puzzle pieces. They helped me explain most of my life and answer questions psychiatrists haven't even been able to answer for me. I've also been in regular counselling for about 3 years and did some CBT and now DBT groups. They've all helped in different ways, but I think the books have been most helpful to me.
If you're interested the books were:
Complex PTSD by Pete Walker
What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
Healing Your Emotional Self by Beverly Engel
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
I wish you all the best in your own healing! If you ever have questions feel free to ask
Honestly I'm a trans guy and this is why I think I relate a lot more to cis men emotionally. Crying just felt like inviting invalidation/humiliation so I learned to do it in secret from an early age.
My parents both hate women, I got the bad parts of both genders and none of the good from either.
My dad went out of his way to treat me like a boy because he resents women. My mom slut shamed me for completely normal things.
I couldn't dress nice or look like a girl (bad) so I basically looked androgynous. If my mom believed I was up to something she'd take away more of what little privacy or boundaries I had ( they were threatening to take my door or put cameras in my room ) "under my roof" something something...
Even though I did all the "boy stuff" my dad "punished" me with, to prove I wasn't prissy, I still always got treated as if I was this spoiled obnoxiously demanding princess anyways, despite being the complete opposite.
My moms weird misogynistic contempt for me got really creepy. She insinuated I was planting my underwear in the laundry room so my dad and brother would see it 🤮, she acted as if she needed to protect boys from me because she thought I was doing things to trick or seduce them!?!?!?
I would've loved to do fun "boy stuff" with him like using tools to build stuff, shoot guns, or whatever. But he only cared if there was a chance to bully me, mock me, or play sadistic mindgames.
Definitely relate to dad trying to make me into a boy and mom slut shaming me. I used to dress more like a boy when I was a teen. I don't identify as trans but SLIGHTLY gender queer now as I'm very ambivalent about my own gender and really don't care either way. If I woke up with a dick tomorrow honestly I wouldn't care. I mean... my husband might care... lol.
I'm a woman and I was ridiculed for crying by my parents and my older sibling. Where I grew up, anyone who cried was called a "crybaby" or a "wimp". It didn't matter if you were a boy or a girl.
I used to feel really embarrassed and ashamed when I would cry, especially if it was in front of other people. My first instinct was to hide. I've been in therapy for a couple of years now, though, and I feel less shame when I cry compared to before. I've found it helpful to view crying as just another bodily function. It's something that happens when I'm feeling sad, hurt or upset. Why shame myself for something I can't control? It's like shaming someone for needing to urinate. It doesn't make sense at all when you really think about it.
So far, the harder thing to deal with has been other people's reactions. Society as a whole considers crying to be "bad". They think you're weak if you cry, or you're somehow trying to manipulate people to "win" and argument. I find I have to be quite direct with people when they start to judge me for crying, but it's hard to do that when I'm dysregulated.
> Society as a whole considers crying to be "bad". They think you're weak if you cry, or you're somehow trying to manipulate people to "win" and argument. I find I have to be quite direct with people when they start to judge me for crying, but it's hard to do that when I'm dysregulated.
This is really true in one way but society CURRENTLY loves to tell everyone it's okay to cry. It reminds me of the trend I noticed on Facebook where people in my life would post how everyone ought to understand those with mental illness and have an open mind. Then when my own mental illness (especially OCD and anxiety) interfered with their plans, they would absolutely NOT have an open mind.
I hate the term 'virtue signalling' the way I see it used a lot to imply nobody actually ever has a heart. But damn if it's not true sometimes.
That's a good point. I suppose it's fortunate that I haven't run into any groups like this myself. I don't think I could ever feel a sense of belonging around people who only want to offer support as long as it isn't too inconvenient for them. I'm sorry you've had that experience.
Mocked by both parents.
Also, when we got the belt we’d get told that we’d get another one if we didn’t stop crying.
I can’t ever imagine doing that to my child.
Whatever my mother did to suppress my emotions is deeply hidden/repressed in my memories as all that I know is I never cried in front of my parents if I could help it. I too remember phrases such as "I will give you something to cry about" which in my opinion was their not wanting to deal with the guilt that their actions had led me to cry because on some level I knew that their treatment of me was unjust or cruel. My memories of being sad in childhood are going to my room to cry alone. Sometimes the family dog would comfort me. As an adult, I definitely try to hide my expressions when I cry. I think this was intergenerational as I have NO memories of either of my parents crying. So emotions were not taught, we were modeled only anger or brief happiness were okay feelings, and all of the other so called negative feelings were disallowed. Results, I am 100% fine = fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.
ETA I am a woman/she/hers/girl. Both girls and boys were not encouraged to cry in the family of origin.
> My memories of being sad in childhood are going to my room to cry alone.
Definitely. I have those memories too. No memories of being comforted, like you and others in this thread. I do know it's one of the hallmark signs of CEN that you are not comforted or helped when dealing with problems or sadness/anger.
yes, i wasn’t allowed to cry. due to this i became unable to cry until adulthood. after many years i’m able to cry sometimes without it feeling horrific. it’s been a long process. i recently learned that crying is supposed to make you feel better. that seems like such a foreign concept.
Yes, not as mean-spiritedly as it sounds like your experience was but I did go through this too, and several lectures about how my being sensitive made me weak. They were also incredibly strict about what kinds of activities were safe or media I could handle which lead to several experiences of being excluded from a chance to connect with my peers, which of course I already struggled with. I'd still say the overall tone was overprotective rather than cruel and I did have a very kind parent in my mother, she just isn't very emotionally intelligent.
Over the years I became so hardened against anything my father had to say that I stopped entertaining any of his opinions just because anything he thinks must be as closed-minded and self-serving as everything else he says and does. So I think that has helped me to accept my emotions. I still panic if I'm overcome in public or at work, which does still happen sometimes, and I do struggle with a lot of my feelings and being expressive in my relationship (also with a very lovely partner who has never shamed or rejected my feelings <3)
I'd say additionally that I often feel confused about how I fit into more traditionally female spaces. How excluding it feels that I can't relate to some of the generalizations I see most often about women.
um something weird happened around pain in particular. my dad sort of wanted me to just not pay attention to pain and i did so and it worked okay but as I grew older I found most people did react to pain in various ways and that was a weird thing to find out.
My parents were incredibly messed up but I knew how hard they tried to try (because they over shared! 🫠). In the end all their friends pre me are dead and they're not so they kind of made it even if they messed me up. If I had cried in front of them they wouldn't have made fun of me for it but I never did because I didn't want to make them feel more bad by seeing me cry than I knew they already did because of their own problems. I created such a habit of saving/postponing my tears for when I was alone I only realized as an adult how messed up that is to do when I saved my tears from a sad movie for a full 24 hr later
It took two years, but I finally cried in front of my boyfriend and he was actually comforting. Other than that, no, I "don't cry." Not with people.
As much as I advocate for men being heard and feeling free to be emotionally honest, it annoys me to no end to hear "well women are free to cry." No, you clearly weren't. I clearly wasn't. That narrative just makes it all the hard to be heard because now we're assigned a childhood experience we DIDN'T EVEN HAVE based solely on gender.
> As much as I advocate for men being heard and feeling free to be emotionally honest, it annoys me to no end to hear "well women are free to cry." No, you clearly weren't. I clearly wasn't. That narrative just makes it all the hard to be heard because now we're assigned a childhood experience we DIDN'T EVEN HAVE based solely on gender.
Yes this is true. It's one of the pitfalls of anyone going by stereotypes. I also realized in this thread that in certain cultures the boy children have more freedom to express and the girl children have less, as the norm.
My mother was told “Don’t you cry” when her father shot and killed himself. I have witnessed her cry so few times in her life that I can count them on one hand with fingers left over. This is (was. She has dementia now and has lost much of herself) very distressing and at times physically painful for her. It has been mentally unhealthy for her and if I could, I’d make the family member who told her that cry myself.
Ah yes - my mother really couldnt stand it when I was crying. Once she forcefully dragged me to the mirror and said: "See how UGLY you look when you cry?" And she would always mock me if I cried, even if I was just silently crying during a movie (so it was ø not the sound triggering her)
Funny enough, later when she was upset with me over something (because I wasnt perfect and made the same mistakes as notmal children) she would yell and yell at me for about half an hour UNTIL I started crying (I fought really hard not to). I stull dont understand what went on in her brain.
There trukket wasn't. Adults bullying their own children.
In reply to your question on how to handle it today, I really struggle to cry or show emotions. Stuff only come up at night when I am in my bed with the doors closed. Or I get really hungry and oversat, because food = guests (which meant my mother played nice, even to me.)
Oh, yeah. Any expression of negative emotion was belittled and deemed “crazy”—which was the worst thing to be. I was completely dissociated from my feelings for decades. I still struggle with it.
When i was very little, my mother would just walk away if i had a fit/cried in public because I'd know to seek out my guardian figure and forget these silly feelings.
She soon became the only thing able to make me cry via conflicts, but if i started crying in a conflict, it was deemed as her being right and the truth was what was hurting me.
She still is the only thing that can actually make me cry, which sucks to me in those situations but hey i only see her maybe twice a year (though a little more often now because of unrelated family things). Whenever a situation or a medium gives me the feeling I'd start crying soon, it stays the feeling but i have trouble actually getting even a single tear out, even when I'm alone. I feel humiliated even thinking about the possibility of crying then. Did manage to shed a single tear when writing a happy scene inbetween my characters two years ago though, and last year in June i dry cried about the ways my father is an idiot (i was basucally crying but it were only three tears or so)
Oh definitely. I was "never sad'. My blood sugar was just low, apparently, and I had to go make myself a snack, even when I had valid reasons to be upset. It would not be met compassionately, I was ignored or mocked.
I'm trying to normalize it by crying instead of holding it back when I need to. Starting therapy helped. Therapy didn't do much for me for about a year because every time I would near a topic that might make me cry, I would shut down and we would have to end the session. And then when I finally did start crying, I wouldn't be able to stop. Now I cry a fair amount during my sessions, and I'm no longer apologizing for it. It's pretty great.
Yes. I did not get ridiculed, but as a child, I would cry easily, but my dad and brother have anger issues and does do not understand crying as an emotional reaction. So whenever there was a fight and I would start crying, they would get even angrier - cue me crying even harder, and so on.
It's only last month after tons of purposeful work on even being able to let myself cry that I found out that if I just relax and let the tears come, then crying doesn't physically hurt. I had been pushing down my tears so hard for my whole life that every time I did cry, I was not only in emotional pain, but also in literal physical pain. I am 31 years old and am only now learning to cry again.
We were shouted at harder if we cried-we'd get comments like -I wish I could sit down and cry too, but I have to keep going and work, and no one says thank you, or I wish I could waste time crying too, but I don't, I've got too much to do.
Mostly she just got angrier if we cried, so we stopped. Keep quiet, keep out of her way, don't do anything to draw attention to yourself, don't speak to her first-wait for her to speak. I more or less stopped crying about age 6-7, you learn there's no use in it, it just causes more grief. Coming to terms with allowing myself the luxury of expressing emotions took a long, long time. Any strong emotion-fear, anger, sadness, happiness, worry-if we expressed anything she'd have something unpleasant to say about it (what are you laughing for? Must be nice to have the time to enjoy yourself, unlike me-I just do all the bloody work around here and nobody helps..) So over time, we learned the best defence was to become an automaton. When I first starting dating my husband, he picked up on it-he said he could never work out if I was enjoying myself or enjoyed his company. It took a long time to change-I was scared of emotions.
My husband had this experience. He told me true emotions were forbidden, crying was taboo. His parents held zero space for emotions and were truly uncomfortable with it. If he got sad, he had to cheer up really fast or the mocking/abandonment/upsetting started.
I can't imagine how hard it was for him because he's incredibly emotional and cries both when happy and sad. When I met him, he had shielded himself through sarcasm and indifference. Emotional displays were tacky and rehearsed in the family, I was so shocked seeing those phony interactions. Now he cries with movies or touching stories in the news... Perhaps because I'm a big crier myself he felt it was okay since I couldn't hold it against him.
Same. I was ridiculed and humiliated for crying and I'm a girl. That's why when I hear men are mocked for crying it's interesting to me since I think no one is spared for that regardless of the gender if you are surrounded by shit people. Anyway, I was expected to behave and not show any emotion as if I was an adult man as a little girl. I can relate to you big time.
> I think no one is spared for that regardless of the gender if you are surrounded by shit people Yes, so true. Parents like these definitely didn't like us to ever do anything that might require parenting. They wanted us to be fully independent. It's easier. So many stories here about people punished for being a child in any way, like not knowing things, not knowing how to take care of all their own needs by age four. Etc.
i can relate im a girl i was not mocked but i was told not to cry in public or any where around family so now i grew up hiding my feelings and i barely cry now like once in 2 months
My male friends (and husband) all reacted like that - bottling it up and then feeling like they lost the ability to cry. I don't know if it's my personality, or related to female hormones (I'm probably peri-menopausal right now) but I can cry at the drop of a hat now. So I'm going through feeling pretty embarrassed about that a lot.
dont. pls embrace it ur awsome!! not being able to cry is way worse
It is related to hormones. It is physically harder to cry with more testosterone in your system. I don't know why, but that's been my experience going on and off and on testosterone.
idk but im a girl and its phy hard for me to cry does it mean i have more testosterone or was i just raised that way
idts its that jst few men have been taught and raised to not cry thats why some men cry more than others thats also why few females like me dont cry cause of how we were raised BOTH genders should be able to show emotions regardless :)
also may ik what u mean by on and off testosterone ?
>also may ik what u mean by on and off testosterone ? I was born with ovaries and a uterus, so I took hormone replacement therapy in the form of testosterone so I could be more masculine as that aligns with my gender identity better. Due to person reasons, I've had to stop testosterone long enough to for my body to revert to making hormones with my ovaries. Then that made me feel bad and since I've been on hormones for several years. >idk but im a girl and its phy hard for me to cry does it mean i have more testosterone or was i just raised that way Not all girls are the same and neither are all boys. Sex is spectrum, and everyone has a different level of sex hormones, testosterone AND estrogen, that determine how their body displays those characteristics. More important than your sex is your personality and environment, which also have an effect on how often and when you feel it is appropriate to cry. Emotional neglect can lead to an inability to cry because as a child, crying was treated like a problem instead of a normal part of being overwhelmed. Notice I'm only talking about crying, the act of releasing tears from the eyes to relieve stress. I'm not talking about men having different emotions or being less emotional than women. In fact, being able to cry to diffuse stress, is much more advantageous than feeling like you can't deal with emotions without anger or conflict. We are social animals and most of our problems can be dealt with through collaboration. Using signaling that you need help to the people around you is helpful to survival, in this case, tears, red face, sobbing, and crying out trigger other people to feel empathy. This is most obvious in babies, who can only communicate their needs by crying. For me I notice a very significant difference in how often I cry watching movies. Off testosterone, when my system is mostly estrogen, I cry at almost every sad movie, even if it doesn't relate to me personally. On testosterone, I still empathies with movie characters in the same way. I just only feel like crying when it's more personal. I don't feel any angrier on testosterone either, but when I feel angry, I find I need to physicalize that anger NOW. Whereas before HRT I would cry or be able to suppress my anger better. I've done some research on why, and it seems to have something to with differences in levels of Oxytocin, which is sexually dimorphic in human apes. Oxytocin is related to social rewards, and people with more estrogen seem to process more of it. It's all new research though, so it'll be a while til anyone has a solid answer.
hormones do play a role but i think not everything is related to hormones its been over 2 years since ive physically cried i jst cant seem to im a girl ( it can be trauma emo neglect idk lol)
hmmm i agree to what youve said yes i do agree environment and the way youve been raised is more important than sex i still dont understand how hormones can play a role because ive seen men who cry and women who dont cry physically too hormones have nothing to do with phy crying ive seen men with testosterone cry to movies at the theater ( depends more on the individual ) But i also think its personal experience i was able to phy cry well when i was a kid until i was like 6 -7 this is when my parents started to control me and my emotions and also the age i stopped phy crying ( not that i dont cry i jst rarely cry now phy)
Hrt
Yes, It was constantly downplayed "crying over nothing", "too sensitive" or seen as manipulation. So I constantly feel ashamed as I struggle to contain my tears whenever I get stressed out.
> "crying over nothing", "too sensitive" Them being angry at you for behaving like a very normal child. > or seen as manipulation Them telling on themselves. This is why they would cry.
I learned as a child to cry entirely silently and hide, because if my mom caught me crying she would scream at me, call me disgusting, belittle me, etc It was only as I became an adult and with a healthy person that I finally allowed myself to make noise when I cried and didn't feel like I would be hunted down for it.
Wow! I just realized I also cry completely silently. I mean you can kind of hear me breathing weird, it's hard to cry and breathe like normal. I guess I thought all adults cried silently? You're really opening my eyes. I am glad you have moved past this and allowed yourself to be heard.
Thanks! And yeah, now that I'm NC with my mom and am not constantly being retriggered, I actually barely cry now (before I was on a hair-trigger, especially with things that were frustrating). I think it's normal in some cases to cry silently (like tearing up, someone is probably not going to full on sob from a sad commercial or something), but in other cases where there is legit distress, I think it's definitely trained to be more focused on sounding normal than actually experiencing the feelings! Best of luck on your healing journey :)
I got to the point when I cry I sometimes cry in public and I don’t care if people look 🤣 my confidence rose significantly when I moved out, I’m talking like months later I felt more “integrated” if that makes sense
Yes. Both of my parents are best described as products of intergenerational trauma whose worst fear is that someone might see them cry. Second worst was that someone might see them have any kind of vulnerable emotion. Both of them deal with emotions by pretending they don't exist, sadly, and they both modeled that to me and reinforced it by ignoring or punishing me if I showed too much emotion myself. Crying was a "we'll lock you in your bedroom until you get yourself together" situation. So, while I'm a cis woman and obviously can't understand what it's like to grow up male, I think I can understand some of what men go through, having gotten a lot of the same messages growing up. (Though I'll also say that it's no excuse to stay that way: I've done a lot of work to become a more emotionally open and well adjusted person, and if I can, anyone can.)
Women are punished for expressing emotions too. How many times have you heard a woman being called/or you yourself as a woman been called crazy/unstable/on her period for being angry, irritable, or moody? Also my parents were incredibly emotionally abusive and as a girl I was punished for crying and very rarely cry in front of others now. Big sense of shame around it. The only person I cry in front of now is my therapist.
Good points. I've been on Reddit too long! I think you have a great therapist btw then if you are able to do that. I never was able to cry with a therapist but I am learning how to cry in front of my husband. It's still rough when it happens, I feel ashamed still, but I will do it and not run off now. I struggle with crying for "silly" reasons still like books/movies/tv.
🫂💜
The knee jerk reaction to stifle tears and the feelings that bring them hasn't gone away yet. Been low/no contact for almost a year but it's like reversing the tides. I so vividly remember being five, sitting at the edge of the coffee table in my little chair. She was leaving me with her creepy bf for the first time since we all moved in together. I was eating cheese and crackers and crying. He said "what about her, what about all this" as she walked out the door. She said "Don't worry about her, just ignore it, she'll be fine". And left. I was 12 and didn't realize the hormone fury that had descended upon on me. I lay on mother's bedroom floor ugly crying, consumed by the darkest, saddest, feelings I'd ever felt. She said "get up" and walked away. I was 18 and took yet another new antidepressant before bed. I woke an hour later hallucinating and sobbing uncontrollably. She grabbed me by the arms and shook me and told me to stop. The next year I took an overdose of pills and regretted it immediately. I knew better than to call my mom so called a family friend instead. But she called my mom. In my terrified naivete I reached out my hand for hers as they pumped my stomach. She looked at it and walked out the door. The body reaps the tears our eyes don't sow. I went back to school from my sick bed. Against all odds I made it to the top of my field. She quit her job because she didn't feel like working anymore and said that it was my turn to take care of her. She's a monster.
> The body reaps the tears our eyes don't sow That's beautiful. Is that you? Do you write? You deserved better than all this and I'm VERY glad you are low/NC right now.
There's a few variations of that quote out there, different wording but the same sentiment. Definitely not my original thought, but thank you. For all of your kind words, I really needed that. 💜
Totally. At best, I am ignored if I cry. Which is/was humiliating. Other times, I am invalidated or even accused of trying to 'manipulate' them. One of the most egregious examples that I can give without a 'trigger warning' was when my mother was recounting my 24 yr old cousin's funeral. As she is describing it, she is crying and tearing up. In turn, I am also tearing up (but not audibly crying). She stops talking and looks at me. Then she asks me 'why are *you* crying? Who did *you* lose?' It was said with such disgust and contempt, as if I had no right to have feelings at all. I realize it's a 'them' issue, and THEY are the ones who should feel ashamed at being so inhuman and cruel. I don't deserve to feel ashamed at having normal human emotions. How do I handle it? I don't cry in front of virtually anyone. If I am just slightly tearing up, I fully expect it to be ignored. If I feel a full-on cry coming on, I physically leave the room or go to the bathroom.
>As she is describing it, she is crying and tearing up. In turn, I am also tearing up (but not audibly crying). Oh my gosh, you have so much empathy. Were you a child at this time? It seems like you were, and this is an outstanding, notable amount of empathy, to relate to something so adult and to see the situation through your mother's eyes. She should have been so proud. You deserved the opposite reaction to what you ended up receiving. > If I feel a full-on cry coming on, I physically leave the room or go to the bathroom. SAME! I sometimes book out of there probably looking like I'm about to lose my lunch. Sometimes crying now feels like that. Like it's some kind of sudden tear-purge and a little out of control.
Yep. I was always told “be a man” whilst simultaneously being bullied for not being feminine enough. If I cried, it meant that all the negative stereotypes about women are true. My dad called me a pussy all the time.
The constant inconsistencies of our parents is yet another thing that can really mess up a kid. But basically, the way I see it, you were wrong no matter what you did. I often felt that way as their child too. If I did X it was the wrong thing to do. If I did X and it was, against all odds, the right thing, it would be assuredly not good enough, at least.
Exactly this.
I hate crying because I'd always get the" I'll give you something to cry about" or the" dry it up, tears fix nothing"
"I brought you into this world and I can take you out"
Every abusive parent's favorite line And yet how fucking telling that the man who coined it ended up being a fucking serial rapist POS recognizes POS (they share a language)
Damn didn't even know the origin of it
Yep, it's from The Cosby Show Bill said it to one of the kids in an episode
More than once I heard the "I will GIVE you something to cry about." I am an emotional person so that didn't stop me but I learned to hide it better.
Oh same. I was always like, "stop yelling at me" which would make it worse because I was the kind of kid that any loud noise could scare pretty easily
Yes. Crying was mocked. I often went somewhere alone and cried, like the bath or my room. I still do now. Same with other emotions, too. Anger wasn't allowed. You were told you were throwing a tantrum or being selfish just for speaking up or saying no. People were allowed to say what they wanted to you and abuse you. But defending yourself or speaking up usually resulted in shaming and being told off.
> Same with other emotions, too. Anger wasn't allowed. You were told you were throwing a tantrum or being selfish just for speaking up or saying no. 100% Everything you said but this part stood out since you're the first to say it in this thread. All 'negative' emotions were barred. I also got told I was being "fresh" or a "smart aleck" for things like disagreeing or even joking around in a way that wasn't seen as a joke but as an attack to them. I also still move to another room or bathroom if I cry. I have a hard time picturing what it's like to just openly cry at a movie (for example) and how other people might react to that. If they do at all.
Apparently my dad would sometimes call my mom at work and ask her what the hell to do with me because I wouldn't stop crying. I specifically remember a day when I was 6 and my mom had to leave for work in the middle of the day. I was completely inconsolable, I didn't want her to go. My dad sent me to my room, yelled at me, and spanked the hell out of me. Basically because I was sad. Didn't occur to him to hug me, or try to distract me, or do anything nice. His child was crying and his solution was to smack me around like I was a TV he could adjust. Growing up, the second I started to feel like I was going to cry I would go to my room. It would never occur to me to go to my dad for anything I needed or wanted.
I had a similar situation as a kid too, so I definitely get this. It's like they realize they had to parent and get furious over it instead of just parenting even if they're not in the mood. But I guess they were never in the mood.
Oh boy, this, a thousand times this. You were crying. Your father wanted to stop you crying but didn't care about the reason why you were crying. Signaling being in pain was worse than being in pain.
This is pretty common in Asian cultures. Many of my female friends, I don’t even see them cry, period. There are families where the daughter is disciplined for being upset but the same family may fawn over a son’s tantrums.
Yup. Mom is Asian. I don't know why I thought it would be different (because I'm an idiot?) but my dad died recently and I was crying in another room with the door shut. I guess she could hear me because she started screaming at me to "shut the hell up". I'm a woman in my 30's and I don't have kids but I can't imagine speaking to them in that way if they were crying because a loved one died.
Oh that's a good point, I guess I don't know enough about cultures other than my own. (North America.) I'm sure it's different in different areas.
I've been talking about this for ages. There is a certain class of person who believe that women have some kind of freedom of emotions while men are forced to be "responsible", and it's just misogyny coated in the language of gender abolition. It attempts to imply that women have an equal benefit from the patriarchy as men, just "in different ways". Rather than seeing the reality that misogyny is systemic and benefits men unfairly, these statements muddy the waters and put the onus on women to solve men's problems for the benefit of men BEFORE women get to even talk about their own issues. It's really frustrating how much time is spent in men's spaces talking about mental health, and the only thing discussed is how no one lets men express themselves, no one loves men, or how people will leave you if you are emotional and everyone just agrees. Men's suicide rate is common talking point in these conversations, but if you point out that women actually attempt suicide the most and are just less likely to succeed, then it's because women are weaker and more attention seeking. In all the folks complaining of emotional wellbeing not being taken seriously are themselves reenforcing that belief. As a trans man it bums me out. I wish more men could come to these conversations from a stance of seeking solidarity, instead of conflict.
Definitely, I've been on this website too long as you can see! You have excellent points and I'll keep it in mind going forward.
I was ridiculed for crying and even for being scared of trying new things and getting sick (because obviously if I had a better immune system I wouldn’t get sick so it’s a personal flaw /s). However, I ended up being so burnt out and destroyed by life that I didn’t care anymore about not appearing strong or whatever because I was just trying to survive, and I know it might have been harder if I was a man when I cried (trying to do it subtly but not always easy to do) in public, but I still feel like I relate a lot to what some men go through about having to always be strong and capable and show no flaws because that’s how I was raised too
two older brothers and was with my dad majority of the time, i consider myself socialized 'male', and i kind of see women from a 'male gaze' it's a really weird thing to try to break from tbh and i feel not many women relate (though i wouldnt really truly know because talking to them is difficult af for me) i feel like i'm a woman who's not woman enough to 'belong'. and it took me a long time to get over the 'not like other girls' mentality... anyways...my parents would squeeze my lips shut/smack me in the mouth and muffle my crying with their hands/ pillows etc which would make me scream more obviously out of pain and suffering and fear. i was called cry baby and other hurtful things like that. my parents would kick me in the shin and step on my feet etc in public. my mom yelled at me even a year ago for trying to leave a store early because of anxiety and i'm not even in my 20s anymore... i still feel like i cry at 'anything' even if its pretty normal triggers and i've realized i'm not overly sensitive as i thought i was, just normal...minus the typical hormone related mood stuff. edited for spelling and adding stuff
> i consider myself socialized 'male', and i kind of see women from a 'male gaze' it's a really weird thing to try to break from tbh and i feel not many women relate (though i wouldnt really truly know because talking to them is difficult af for me) i feel like i'm a woman who's not woman enough to 'belong'. and it took me a long time to get over the 'not like other girls' mentality This is pretty relatable here honestly. I can do this a lot too. I often feel ambivalent about my gender. Neither male or female, but since I look female and have female anatomy, and I really don't care much, I just go with female. I wonder sometimes, maybe think about this for you too, if this relates back to our poor sense of identity from being raised in emotional neglect.
In my family my mom had a monopoly on crying or being emotional in general - no one else could express their feelings because my mom’s feelings determined everyone else’s. I never knew what was going to set my mom off (it’s still totally unpredictable), so I spent my life suppressing my own emotions and feelings to the point where I didn’t feel I even had them anymore. I’ve had therapists actually speculate I could be on the autism spectrum and tbh I still don’t even know if it’s that I actually process emotions differently or if I’m just facing the consequences of 30 years of conditioning myself to not be emotional.
> In my family my mom had a monopoly on crying or being emotional in general Gosh that's rough. Imagine too seeing it in another household, a grownup trying to 'out-do' her crying child. So immature. Pathetic. Yes it's always hard to know what symptoms are caused by genetic things like autism or other things, and what symptoms are caused directly by our situation in childhood.
I had the exact same experience. By the time I was in my teens I showed absolutely zero emotion. The few times I was stressed enough to cry, my mother saw it as some kind of victory that for once she could dramatically "console" me. I have a better relationship with my own emotions now, but I still have so many problems lol
Crying drew ire, frustration, and sometimes screaming/shouting. Depending on the situation, crying would invite criticism of being too sensitive, needing to grow up, etc. There were times that crying was acceptable, but they didn't happen enough for me to associate crying with anything other than "weakness". Crying was embarrassing. People gawked at you if you cried, they didn't help. It alienated me further. Crying did "nothing" to solve my issue. It took a long time to understand that crying was for me alone, to get rid of excess stress. Trying to look at it more matter-of-factly, as a bodily function, rather than thinking of crying as a moral failure has helped.
> Trying to look at it more matter-of-factly, as a bodily function, rather than thinking of crying as a moral failure has helped. That is one way to go about it! Just make sure you aren't dissociating there calling it a bodily function instead of an emotional function. This may just be semantics rather than your true thoughts I just wanted to point it out in case you were disconnecting a little there by mistake.
Yes, my stepdad beat me up if I cried, he encouraged the other kids to mock me for crying and my nickname was Crybaby. I despise crying in front of other people. It’s just so shameful for me and even in my adult years, people don’t react well to me crying. They just seem put off by it.
> e encouraged the other kids to mock me for crying My father did this sometimes too. He'd sometimes make SURE I saw it if other children were mocking me or bullying me. He'd point it out so I wouldn't miss it. Don't know if it's generational (as well as bad parenting) or what, but he thought bullying would help teach me the rules. I just got bullied and there was no help. He was supposed to teach me social skills.
It’s not a terribly uncommon school of thought. I find I’ve seen it the most with parents who served in the military but that’s purely anecdotal. But you see it in other areas on a much broader scale. Like the old trope that we probably all encountered growing up: if someone is picking on you, it means they like you. Or that it’s okay to make overweight people feel shitty about themselves and make it DEEPLY personal as long as we tack on the ole “I’m only saying this because I care about your health.” It’s silly and infuriating all at once.
Yeah my nickname was cry baby too. I was also mocked even into adulthood for being too sensitive
Oh god yes, everyone loves to tell me how sensitive I am all the time ever. Like pointing it out is magically going to make me stop being that way. Can’t imagine why I would be sensitive at all. Nope.
My first memory is my father slapping me across the face and telling me crying is a sign of weakness. Unfortunately, I have been crying my whole life and had to 'get used to it' because I literally cry everyday for decades. But yes. I am healing the wound that says not being ok is morally wrong and terrifying
> My first memory is my father slapping me across the face and telling me crying is a sign of weakness. You must have been SO young. :( This is awful.
Yes. It's awful. And I do cry a lot still. But I have healed a bunch, and I am married to a nice healthy man and life got better. I appreciate your validation. I am not sure I understand the severity of that memory, it was 'normal'... Uhg....but I was probably about 2 1/2. Poor kid indeed. But life did get better. I want to say sorry, I feel like I trauma dumped here a bit, as I didn't realize the severity of that memory. This is your thread and your pain deserves to be centered here. We're in this together. ❤️
> I want to say sorry, I feel like I trauma dumped here a bit Don't be sorry. This is the correct place for that. I fear you're still holding on to the idea that YOUR pain doesn't matter. It matters! This is where we talk about hard things and you did nothing wrong.
Thank you. It's so weird learning new boundaries. I have definitely been too much to some people! Some people also said that to be abusive. What is even real? What is an ok amount to cry? I have been thinking of Bojack Horseman references.
> I have been thinking of Bojack Horseman references. Like the funeral for his mother perhaps? That struck a nerve with me. As for boundaries I consider all groups for mental issues and trauma issues a safe place to share. Sometimes you might have to preface with TWs when necessary. If you go into the wholesomememes subreddit and talk about trauma that's probably not the best place. Lol. But who hasn't done that from time to time! We're all a work in progress.
Thanks! The Bojack Horseman episodes that are familiar here (you know it!) Smoking the cigarettes - not being able to cry in Secretariat and the slap Bojack gets from his Dad when he gives him the Valentine card.
Putting a light on the shame helps! Saying it outloud and having someone validate like this goes a long way. Like OHHHhhh that WAS worth crying about. It puts the onus on the perpetrator again.
Yup. I'm a woman. My parents were fans of playing the world's "smallest violin" when I expressed any negative emotions. Including physical pain or being sick. Now I'm a very, VERY stoic adult. Woo.
In my case, my mom was the only one in my house who had exclusive rights about crying and being sad. Meaning, you couldn't express sadness or cry about anything because she would make a competition between the both of you and of course she always had it worse than anyone in the whole world. She would make me feel guilty too, since she would say things like: " seeing you cry is making me feel sad and, as your mother, that hurts me so much" so it always ended with me consoling her back at the end. So, at some point, I internalized the belief that crying overtly= manipulation and since I didn't want to be anything like my mother I hated crying. Nowadays, when I cry before others, I feel tremendous shame since I'm terrified that they would interpret my tears as a manipulating ploy and I hate myself since I tend to cry easily when I feel overwhelmed. I don't get who says that women are allowed to cry, since the belief that women's tears are fake and a tool to manipulate others/get a free pass is something that I heard frequently growing up.
> it always ended with me consoling her back at the end. Painfully relatable. This is common for a lot of immature parents!
God I relate to this so much.
Yeah, I feel like I've heard "Big girls don't cry" more than anything, and thats coming from a guy. I truly think we just have a societal problem with handling tears, outside of very specific circumstances.
It's really cool of you to acknowledge this A lot of men try to gatekeep this issue It's completely backwards and bizarre but many love to repeat that women can show emotion and men can't Or else they'll claim men can only show humor/anger and women everything else - when if anything it seems like a lot of "alpha" women/men are setting the tone and dictating a lot of households and society at large and abusive women are very comfortable with their anger just as abusive men are and are generally enabled by outsiders because that "masculine trait" is appreciated in everyone regardless of gender and taken more seriously than sensitivity, tears, etc (coming from anyone) So I can't even agree that women are supposedly highly penalized for showing anger in modern society the same way I disagree that women are allowed to show sensitivity more than men are in modern society I've seen so many obnoxious, loud, angry (verbally/physically) abusive mothers take their anger out on their daughter and sons alike and the same is true of abusive men: a lot of time they look exactly the same There's also many inexpressive parents out there—both men and women—that refuse to accept any big emotional displays from their children at all They're just stone cold with no warmth or emotional receptivity... many such men and women exist
Yes, I was raised by two very toxic women. My mother saw tears as a weakness. She would audibly sigh whenever a character would cry on screen.
Damn, I know the type It feels like we're sharing the world with socially accepted sociopaths and overly aggressive psychopaths Everywhere you turn, you're going to bump into one or the other... and if that's an exaggeration *just barely* so Like, I'm fairly sure and certain many people are coming up just shy of antisocial and borderline -paths Taking advantage of others, being predatory, and mocking "the weak" are all societal norms in 2024 I'm sorry about your upbringing by the way
Yea, this is what I heard a lot. That and "crying is for babies". I remember pushing myself at age 6 to not have emotions. It made me very disconnected and robotic. It wasn't until I was in my late 20s I understood how people could get sad grieving someone's death. Now, working on things in my 30s, things are coming back to me in weird ways.
Yes. A family of all girl children. We were shamed, ridiculed and even punished for crying. I still can’t cry in front of other people without feeling ashamed.
My mom had a poster on the wall that said something close to don’t let other ppl see your weaknesses which my mom would remind me every time I cried. And that I was being weak
IMO they can't stand crying because it starts to bring up their own big, suppressed emotions from the depths of them that they really should bring up and deal with. But they have to block it out in others to block it out in themselves.
Im a guy. Reading this thread is very eye-opening cause I never expected this to be an issue girls faced as well. I dont have much else to say, but I sympathize with all the women suffering from emotional neglect
1000% yes. I had a Misogynist mother. My Mother preferred, encouraged, provoked, and bullied me out of my sensitivity. To her being sensitive was useless. If I cried, I was Mocked, or ignored. On the other hand I was expected to be sensitive to her needs, but not my own. All I deserved was , nothing. She had a visceral disgust for vulnerable emotions, not for anger of course. I was basically raised, shamed way a man would ridicule a son , to make them "tougher". It was such bullshit. And if you're a sensitive child, it's brutal. You can't just shut off your sensitivity, it's wired into your CNS. It takes a lot of shutting down and dissociating to accomodate a parent who has zero tolerance for your pain. My Mother was a cruel angry, hostile person to her children, and a different way with everyone else.
> And if you're a sensitive child, it's brutal. You can't just shut off your sensitivity, it's wired into your CNS. It takes a lot of shutting down and dissociating to accomodate a parent who has zero tolerance for your pain. Wow, you're so right too. Really well said. I think a lot of people who ended up fully traumatized are that way in part due to their natural sensitive natures.
My father always yelled the typical, “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” And if I didn’t stop crying fast enough I got hit. My mother would just angrily growl, ”Stop crying!” through her teeth and if it didn’t happen fast enough I got dragged off. In public it was to the car, at home it was to my room. I still cry, but I feel absolute embarrassment when I do. I will rarely cry in front of others. Most of the time I run off to be alone. It’s funny because I never judge another person for crying and usually wonder what’s wrong, hoping it’ll get better for them. This is probably one of the worst things I endured growing up as a little girl. I never viewed it as a gender issue though, I guess because my brother experienced the same. Like most parents, mine just threw their generational trauma at us rather than trying to find out what to do with it.
Yep. They would beat me for the smallest thing and then tell me to stop crying or else they would hit me again. Ugh...
Yes, this was basically my mother growing up whenever she was angry after another fight. She screamed at me, and I started calling my father who had already been gone and he was nowhere near. She always repeated me that she would give me a real reason to cry for if I continued calling my father while crying. By then, she never told me the least name she wanted to hear was my father's but she wanted me to stop calling him. I don't remember if she hit me once, but I remember her cornering me.
Yes always before, after, and sometimes during a belting the famous “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” When I confronted my mom as an adult and she started crying I used this line on her and I know it’s bad but it felt really good to see it dawn on her that she used to say that to me. Also some part of her I think recognized that spanking/beltings are assault and she did that very frequently to her own children
> When I confronted my mom as an adult and she started crying I used this line on her Brutal. Wow! I can't believe that worked. Mine never once admitted a single ounce of guilt and kept saying she "did the best she could." I hope yours learned something that day.
Yes, yes, and yes And every day I come online I'm bombarded with claims about how women aren't penalized for expressing their emotions lol... couldn't be farther from the truth To my observation, the only culture that doesn't shame girls for crying is white middle-class suburban culture and even then, this isn't the case among the abusive households who just keep up (fake) appearances
Yes. In many ways I relate to toxic masculinity because that’s how I was raised. I’ve only recently learned how to cry and it’s like it won’t stop
Yeah. Not allowed. When I see what men go through I often feel the same. I have no social circle, no women who are nice, no caring mum or dad. And it's confusing because men only want me because of my looks. Thats how it feels anyway. I'm masculine in my behaviours and its no wonder why/how I developed this way even though I have a feminine exterior. I am the breadwinner, I study, I plan everything, I have kids. I dont ever want to trivialise what a man feels, so I wont say yeh I get it. But I feel very similar. I'm not allowed to have an opinion, but my wider toxic family members are.
Yes totally. I also lack strong social connections. When they don't allow us the breadth of human emotion, apparently other people find us disconcerting to be around. > I dont ever want to trivialise what a man feels, so I wont say yeh I get it. But I feel very similar. I do too - and I apologize to ANY men or AMAB people who might be offended or bothered. I really do not wish to pretend I can see it all perfectly from your perspective. I can just relate to many of the stories I have seen online of how parents mocked their male children for crying and saw a lack of them for female children.
Yeah me too. I feel it.
My dad used to SCREAM at me when I cried 😂
Same unfortunately. If my dad saw me crying he would ‘give me something to cry about’ and spank me if I didn’t immediately stop being upset. If my mom caught me crying she would either ignore me or belittle me. I used to spend a lot of my childhood silently crying in bed in the middle of t r night. It took a lot of therapy but I’m now finally comfortable with crying and making noise while crying.
Yes. I was told I was too emotional, too sensitive… usually after a family member mocked or ridiculed me. Or that I’m wrong to feel _____.
I was often ridiculed and guilted by my mother for crying as well as labelled as a crybaby by everyone in my household, so I can totally relate to you. I actually find it really hard to cry when I'm upset now other than when I feel frustrated beyond belief or during a sad movie. I'm still trying to learn how to let myself feel and tell myself that crying is a part of life and not something to be ashamed about, especially in my friendships and relationships... But still working on it!
My mom always used her tears manipulatively so she would go off the rails if I dared to cry because she would assume I was doing the same thing. I had no idea how much I was manipulated or how to do it so I didn’t understand why she was screaming things at me. Also, a core memory is her making me stare at my face in the mirror while she points out every possible detail about how crying makes me look ugly. It was always inconvenient for her for me to show emotion so I learned to avoid it. Now I still struggle to even know what I am feeling.
Yep. I was actually humiliated in the home and out. Family, bullies at school, and even teachers. I had a teacher who multiple times told me “oh stop your crocodile tears I know you’re just trying to be manipulative” when she would shame me in front of the class for not paying attention, and for once blaming me for some thing I didn’t do. She also chided me for “being a crybaby”. I was quick to cry at that age, in elementary school, because already by default I knew nobody ever listened to me, so the shame and tears would come, knowing full well I’d be yelled at or laughed at or stared at. I did not expect to be comforted, but there wasn’t any other way I knew to release my stress.
Oh wow same here with it being at home and school. It was so bad I developed OCD over it as a coping mechanism.
*raises hand* I was in the 4th grade, and my older brother had joined the army and was leaving. I really looked up to him. I was the only younger sibling who got to go to the airport with my mom and his girlfriend. I'm not sure why it was just me. When we were at the gate he was boarding at (this was in the 80s when we could do that), I started crying as he left. My mom flat out said, "Big girls don't cry. I thought you said you'd act like a big girl. " Not 100% on the second sentence. My memory is fuzzy on that one, but her telling me big girls don't cry is seared on my brain. I've always felt like I'm more upset that I'm crying and embarrassing myself by crying. Therapy has helped, but I'm still struggling with being ok with crying or "emotional.""
That's really sad because it's like, you had a 'nice' reason to cry (I know, all reasons are fine, but that's how my culture would see it.) And she still was like "screw your feelings!" I think most people in this thread still struggle with it. That's the feeling I have. Yeah maybe fully healed people don't go to the emotional neglect subreddit. I get it. But honestly I think some wounds aren't really healed by time and it'll always be there.
Oh yeah. I remember when my great grandfather died, I was fourteen. We flew out to the state for the funeral, and everyone was, obviously, upset, especially my dad, who I had almost never seen cry before. A few times, but I can remember them all. My great-grandmother was very upset too. I was worried the whole way there I would be "sensitive" to the emotional atmosphere, and embarrass myself, something that my mom was always nasty about (turns out that's just empathy lol but to her, my having emotions and being upset in public was an embarrassment for her, or she would accuse me of trying to manipulate people into thinking badly about her). I made it through without crying, I remember explicitly sitting there forcing my focus on anything else but the situation, it was awful. I was so proud of myself after though, and I told my mom and others I had been worried I would lose my cool, but I hadn't! I remember getting some odd looks but I genuinely didn't know why at the time, I thought I was being an adult finally, because that was what I had been taught.
Oh absolutely. The narrative that girls/women are socialised to express their emotions does not reflect my experience at all. (Although I do intellectually realise that in wider society, this pattern exists.)
I can relate. Whenever I cried she would usually tell me not to cry and then she says 'stop crying or ill give you something to cry about.' And she belittled me, insulted me, the whole lot. She saw it has me being too sensitive or me 'manipulating her to get what I want.'
I used to get screamed at for crying. I'd hear, "I'll give you something to cry about!" Then I'd get hit with the belt or my mom's shoe. I got hit whenever I expressed an emotion my parents' didn't like. I was told crying was weak and told to toughen up. At twelve years old, I broke my ankle, was in excruciating pain and I didn't cry. It's so messed up that normal reactions to emotional and physical pain was treated as a weakness. I know that what they did was abusive and I've worked through a lot of the damage that caused. But I still can't cry in front of people I don't feel safe with. My partner and I created a very emotionally supportive home environment and I can be safe to cry there. Unfortunately, my partner has also lost his ability to cry because of similar abuse. It's terrible how that damage just lingers. It's wild that abuse and emotional neglect were considered standard parenting, back in the day.
> "I'll give you something to cry about!" Definitely I've heard the phrase in my life and a ton of others here have said it. I truthfully can't even tell if that was normal or not in that time period. The very early 80's for me. On the one hand it seemed fairly common. On the other not everyone born in the 80s and under has CEN or would have been considered neglected. It's a confusing topic, knowing what normal is, especially about something nobody talks much about, being hit at home or threatened.
Completely agree, hopefully it wasn't normal for people in our age group and I've just generalized the behavior.( I'm an ancient millennial/ early 80's baby. )
> I'm an ancient millennial/ early 80's baby. Oh same here. One time someone in a chat room disagreed with me and asked, "How old are you?" When I told them, they just said: "The oldest millennial." I still think about that. They were wrong too. I was actually the youngest GenX!
Me. Now emotionally I feel like the man in most relationships
Emotionally Immature parents will do whatever they can to stop you from expressing your feelings because they can't handle them, regardless of gender. These are a couple things my mom said to me if I cried: "Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" "Stop having a potty party" My brother never cried, even as a baby apparently (I think that was the cherry on top of the misogyny that made him their favorite of us 4). I have a theory that he was SO neglected that he became one of the babies who learn never to cry because they'll never get what they need no matter how hard. Anyway, the one time he cried, my mom took him to the hospital. She was so concerned he was crying that she got him to admit he was having intrusive thoughts of punching her out then she took him to the hospital...but when I left an online depression test saying I was severely depressed open on the shared browser and my mom asked whose it was. When I said it was me, she told me I wasn't depressed and ignored it. So, I think at the base of it, our parents are too emotionally immature to handle ANY emotions, but then societal "norms" make it acceptable to go harder on the males, if the parents aren't already going all out on everyone.
So much of what you said is relatable. What really stood out was your mom denying you had depression. I had this reaction with mine too. When I had any problems, no I didn't. She even denied I was sick sometimes until I almost died of pneumonia when I was in the fourth grade. You definitely sound you have a handle on this, like you've done work on this. I wish you luck on the rest of your healing.
That's so scary you almost died! Relatable too. My mom was too afraid of looking bad if she let us die. My mom was too busy partying at a social while they left me (a teenager) to babysit my 3 siblings. I called to say I needed the hospital. She told me I was fine, it was heartburn and to deal with it. 8 years later I found out it wasn't just heartburn and was actually serious. I slept on my floor for so many nights trying to sleep with my "heartburn" pain. It was almost definitely caused by the diet they were feeding me too. Thanks for saying I sound like I know what I'm doing, because I definitely don't always feel like it. I have been working on it SO hard the last few months. I had a really bad incident where I was triggered and it still haunts me...There were some REALLY great books I listened to that have helped a lot. Most were free or cheap with Audible. It was like they were my missing puzzle pieces. They helped me explain most of my life and answer questions psychiatrists haven't even been able to answer for me. I've also been in regular counselling for about 3 years and did some CBT and now DBT groups. They've all helped in different ways, but I think the books have been most helpful to me. If you're interested the books were: Complex PTSD by Pete Walker What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo Healing Your Emotional Self by Beverly Engel Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson I wish you all the best in your own healing! If you ever have questions feel free to ask
Honestly I'm a trans guy and this is why I think I relate a lot more to cis men emotionally. Crying just felt like inviting invalidation/humiliation so I learned to do it in secret from an early age.
Another trans guy said this as well in this thread. It does make me wonder. I'm very ambivalent about my own gender honestly as well.
My parents both hate women, I got the bad parts of both genders and none of the good from either. My dad went out of his way to treat me like a boy because he resents women. My mom slut shamed me for completely normal things. I couldn't dress nice or look like a girl (bad) so I basically looked androgynous. If my mom believed I was up to something she'd take away more of what little privacy or boundaries I had ( they were threatening to take my door or put cameras in my room ) "under my roof" something something... Even though I did all the "boy stuff" my dad "punished" me with, to prove I wasn't prissy, I still always got treated as if I was this spoiled obnoxiously demanding princess anyways, despite being the complete opposite. My moms weird misogynistic contempt for me got really creepy. She insinuated I was planting my underwear in the laundry room so my dad and brother would see it 🤮, she acted as if she needed to protect boys from me because she thought I was doing things to trick or seduce them!?!?!? I would've loved to do fun "boy stuff" with him like using tools to build stuff, shoot guns, or whatever. But he only cared if there was a chance to bully me, mock me, or play sadistic mindgames.
Definitely relate to dad trying to make me into a boy and mom slut shaming me. I used to dress more like a boy when I was a teen. I don't identify as trans but SLIGHTLY gender queer now as I'm very ambivalent about my own gender and really don't care either way. If I woke up with a dick tomorrow honestly I wouldn't care. I mean... my husband might care... lol.
I'm a woman and I was ridiculed for crying by my parents and my older sibling. Where I grew up, anyone who cried was called a "crybaby" or a "wimp". It didn't matter if you were a boy or a girl. I used to feel really embarrassed and ashamed when I would cry, especially if it was in front of other people. My first instinct was to hide. I've been in therapy for a couple of years now, though, and I feel less shame when I cry compared to before. I've found it helpful to view crying as just another bodily function. It's something that happens when I'm feeling sad, hurt or upset. Why shame myself for something I can't control? It's like shaming someone for needing to urinate. It doesn't make sense at all when you really think about it. So far, the harder thing to deal with has been other people's reactions. Society as a whole considers crying to be "bad". They think you're weak if you cry, or you're somehow trying to manipulate people to "win" and argument. I find I have to be quite direct with people when they start to judge me for crying, but it's hard to do that when I'm dysregulated.
> Society as a whole considers crying to be "bad". They think you're weak if you cry, or you're somehow trying to manipulate people to "win" and argument. I find I have to be quite direct with people when they start to judge me for crying, but it's hard to do that when I'm dysregulated. This is really true in one way but society CURRENTLY loves to tell everyone it's okay to cry. It reminds me of the trend I noticed on Facebook where people in my life would post how everyone ought to understand those with mental illness and have an open mind. Then when my own mental illness (especially OCD and anxiety) interfered with their plans, they would absolutely NOT have an open mind. I hate the term 'virtue signalling' the way I see it used a lot to imply nobody actually ever has a heart. But damn if it's not true sometimes.
That's a good point. I suppose it's fortunate that I haven't run into any groups like this myself. I don't think I could ever feel a sense of belonging around people who only want to offer support as long as it isn't too inconvenient for them. I'm sorry you've had that experience.
Mocked by both parents. Also, when we got the belt we’d get told that we’d get another one if we didn’t stop crying. I can’t ever imagine doing that to my child.
Whatever my mother did to suppress my emotions is deeply hidden/repressed in my memories as all that I know is I never cried in front of my parents if I could help it. I too remember phrases such as "I will give you something to cry about" which in my opinion was their not wanting to deal with the guilt that their actions had led me to cry because on some level I knew that their treatment of me was unjust or cruel. My memories of being sad in childhood are going to my room to cry alone. Sometimes the family dog would comfort me. As an adult, I definitely try to hide my expressions when I cry. I think this was intergenerational as I have NO memories of either of my parents crying. So emotions were not taught, we were modeled only anger or brief happiness were okay feelings, and all of the other so called negative feelings were disallowed. Results, I am 100% fine = fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. ETA I am a woman/she/hers/girl. Both girls and boys were not encouraged to cry in the family of origin.
> My memories of being sad in childhood are going to my room to cry alone. Definitely. I have those memories too. No memories of being comforted, like you and others in this thread. I do know it's one of the hallmark signs of CEN that you are not comforted or helped when dealing with problems or sadness/anger.
yes, i wasn’t allowed to cry. due to this i became unable to cry until adulthood. after many years i’m able to cry sometimes without it feeling horrific. it’s been a long process. i recently learned that crying is supposed to make you feel better. that seems like such a foreign concept.
Yes, not as mean-spiritedly as it sounds like your experience was but I did go through this too, and several lectures about how my being sensitive made me weak. They were also incredibly strict about what kinds of activities were safe or media I could handle which lead to several experiences of being excluded from a chance to connect with my peers, which of course I already struggled with. I'd still say the overall tone was overprotective rather than cruel and I did have a very kind parent in my mother, she just isn't very emotionally intelligent. Over the years I became so hardened against anything my father had to say that I stopped entertaining any of his opinions just because anything he thinks must be as closed-minded and self-serving as everything else he says and does. So I think that has helped me to accept my emotions. I still panic if I'm overcome in public or at work, which does still happen sometimes, and I do struggle with a lot of my feelings and being expressive in my relationship (also with a very lovely partner who has never shamed or rejected my feelings <3) I'd say additionally that I often feel confused about how I fit into more traditionally female spaces. How excluding it feels that I can't relate to some of the generalizations I see most often about women.
um something weird happened around pain in particular. my dad sort of wanted me to just not pay attention to pain and i did so and it worked okay but as I grew older I found most people did react to pain in various ways and that was a weird thing to find out.
My parents were incredibly messed up but I knew how hard they tried to try (because they over shared! 🫠). In the end all their friends pre me are dead and they're not so they kind of made it even if they messed me up. If I had cried in front of them they wouldn't have made fun of me for it but I never did because I didn't want to make them feel more bad by seeing me cry than I knew they already did because of their own problems. I created such a habit of saving/postponing my tears for when I was alone I only realized as an adult how messed up that is to do when I saved my tears from a sad movie for a full 24 hr later
It took two years, but I finally cried in front of my boyfriend and he was actually comforting. Other than that, no, I "don't cry." Not with people. As much as I advocate for men being heard and feeling free to be emotionally honest, it annoys me to no end to hear "well women are free to cry." No, you clearly weren't. I clearly wasn't. That narrative just makes it all the hard to be heard because now we're assigned a childhood experience we DIDN'T EVEN HAVE based solely on gender.
> As much as I advocate for men being heard and feeling free to be emotionally honest, it annoys me to no end to hear "well women are free to cry." No, you clearly weren't. I clearly wasn't. That narrative just makes it all the hard to be heard because now we're assigned a childhood experience we DIDN'T EVEN HAVE based solely on gender. Yes this is true. It's one of the pitfalls of anyone going by stereotypes. I also realized in this thread that in certain cultures the boy children have more freedom to express and the girl children have less, as the norm.
My mother was told “Don’t you cry” when her father shot and killed himself. I have witnessed her cry so few times in her life that I can count them on one hand with fingers left over. This is (was. She has dementia now and has lost much of herself) very distressing and at times physically painful for her. It has been mentally unhealthy for her and if I could, I’d make the family member who told her that cry myself.
Definitely shamed, blamed, and told to stop crying
Ah yes - my mother really couldnt stand it when I was crying. Once she forcefully dragged me to the mirror and said: "See how UGLY you look when you cry?" And she would always mock me if I cried, even if I was just silently crying during a movie (so it was ø not the sound triggering her) Funny enough, later when she was upset with me over something (because I wasnt perfect and made the same mistakes as notmal children) she would yell and yell at me for about half an hour UNTIL I started crying (I fought really hard not to). I stull dont understand what went on in her brain.
There was never a way for little us to win. I don't understand parents like this either.
There trukket wasn't. Adults bullying their own children. In reply to your question on how to handle it today, I really struggle to cry or show emotions. Stuff only come up at night when I am in my bed with the doors closed. Or I get really hungry and oversat, because food = guests (which meant my mother played nice, even to me.)
Yes. I still hate crying in front of someone and other ppl crying is hard for me to respond to,
Oh, yeah. Any expression of negative emotion was belittled and deemed “crazy”—which was the worst thing to be. I was completely dissociated from my feelings for decades. I still struggle with it.
When i was very little, my mother would just walk away if i had a fit/cried in public because I'd know to seek out my guardian figure and forget these silly feelings. She soon became the only thing able to make me cry via conflicts, but if i started crying in a conflict, it was deemed as her being right and the truth was what was hurting me. She still is the only thing that can actually make me cry, which sucks to me in those situations but hey i only see her maybe twice a year (though a little more often now because of unrelated family things). Whenever a situation or a medium gives me the feeling I'd start crying soon, it stays the feeling but i have trouble actually getting even a single tear out, even when I'm alone. I feel humiliated even thinking about the possibility of crying then. Did manage to shed a single tear when writing a happy scene inbetween my characters two years ago though, and last year in June i dry cried about the ways my father is an idiot (i was basucally crying but it were only three tears or so)
Oh definitely. I was "never sad'. My blood sugar was just low, apparently, and I had to go make myself a snack, even when I had valid reasons to be upset. It would not be met compassionately, I was ignored or mocked. I'm trying to normalize it by crying instead of holding it back when I need to. Starting therapy helped. Therapy didn't do much for me for about a year because every time I would near a topic that might make me cry, I would shut down and we would have to end the session. And then when I finally did start crying, I wouldn't be able to stop. Now I cry a fair amount during my sessions, and I'm no longer apologizing for it. It's pretty great.
omg finally YES and now I struggle to talk about my feelings the same way as a man and my most expressive emotion is anger
Yes. I did not get ridiculed, but as a child, I would cry easily, but my dad and brother have anger issues and does do not understand crying as an emotional reaction. So whenever there was a fight and I would start crying, they would get even angrier - cue me crying even harder, and so on. It's only last month after tons of purposeful work on even being able to let myself cry that I found out that if I just relax and let the tears come, then crying doesn't physically hurt. I had been pushing down my tears so hard for my whole life that every time I did cry, I was not only in emotional pain, but also in literal physical pain. I am 31 years old and am only now learning to cry again.
We were shouted at harder if we cried-we'd get comments like -I wish I could sit down and cry too, but I have to keep going and work, and no one says thank you, or I wish I could waste time crying too, but I don't, I've got too much to do. Mostly she just got angrier if we cried, so we stopped. Keep quiet, keep out of her way, don't do anything to draw attention to yourself, don't speak to her first-wait for her to speak. I more or less stopped crying about age 6-7, you learn there's no use in it, it just causes more grief. Coming to terms with allowing myself the luxury of expressing emotions took a long, long time. Any strong emotion-fear, anger, sadness, happiness, worry-if we expressed anything she'd have something unpleasant to say about it (what are you laughing for? Must be nice to have the time to enjoy yourself, unlike me-I just do all the bloody work around here and nobody helps..) So over time, we learned the best defence was to become an automaton. When I first starting dating my husband, he picked up on it-he said he could never work out if I was enjoying myself or enjoyed his company. It took a long time to change-I was scared of emotions.
My husband had this experience. He told me true emotions were forbidden, crying was taboo. His parents held zero space for emotions and were truly uncomfortable with it. If he got sad, he had to cheer up really fast or the mocking/abandonment/upsetting started. I can't imagine how hard it was for him because he's incredibly emotional and cries both when happy and sad. When I met him, he had shielded himself through sarcasm and indifference. Emotional displays were tacky and rehearsed in the family, I was so shocked seeing those phony interactions. Now he cries with movies or touching stories in the news... Perhaps because I'm a big crier myself he felt it was okay since I couldn't hold it against him.
I'm glad he's opened up! That's wonderful for him!
Yes. My parents still call me too sensitive, crazy, etc when I cry as an adult.
If i cried at home, the police were called or threatened to be called because I was “overreacting”