Emotionally Hardened?

[Scar]

Is it normal for me to be emotionally hardened? I've forgotten how to cry quite a while ago and I have lost loved one's. Is it normal to not cry over it?

I used to be a bawler. Every single thing made me cry such as sad movies, a minor injury, being yelled at, being insulted, watching an ant die, etc. Yes, I used to cry over every thing.

But, I've learned to emotionally harden myself. When my sister (whom I was extremely, extremely close too) passed away at the age of 8 in a car crash, my parents and friends at her funeral cried like a baby, but I just watched the coffin and didn't cry, didn't even shed a single tear.

When my friend asked me why I wasn't crying, I replied with, "I've forgotten how to cry. I am really sad about her death, but I can't cry anymore."

I was shocked I was saying that and so was my friend.

Is it weird to not cry anymore?

[TioJorge]

You killed your brother and tried to take over his kingdom while enslaving your nephew. NO ONE FEELS SORRY FOR YOU, SCAR!


Just kidding. Scar is awesome.



I mean...Yeah it's fuckin' weird, man.

Maybe you should talk to a therapist or something. We all get over emotional sometimes, and on the opposite end, emotionally numb. No matter what, you're not "emotionally hardened". Emotions don't just 'harden' or go away. They get buried, pushed down, twisted, distorted...whatever other synonyms you can think of. But they're there. I'm guessing you've got more shit going on that's affecting you. I'm certainly not qualified nor is anyone else here... Small talk and discussion is one thing but if you're that far gone you should probably seek professional help if you're truly worried and want to change. Sounds shitty but it's what I had to accept and do after I got like that and much, much worse in other aspects. Being unemotional is one thing but not crying over a very close family member/loved one is a whole other bag of shit.

Good luck.

[ariich]

Not everyone cries when experiencing sadness. I'm guessing you're in your teens? If so, it's extremely common to experience emotions very differently during that period. If you're still feeling sadness but it's not manifesting in tears, I think that's quite normal. You may well find that as you get into your twenties, that sort of thing comes back.

[Prog Snob]

Sorry, I accidentally posted in the wrong thread, though I do have something to add here.

Everybody is different in regards to expressing their emotions. You might be going through a phase where your sister's death affected you in such a profound way that you're in a state of disbelief. I feel like one day it'll hit you really hard and will reopen that sensitivity you once had. I could be wrong, but it's not unfounded.

[dparrott]

I suspect I have Asperger's Syndrome, so I usually don't cry either.  I barely cried over my dad's death, but I wasn't close to him.  I cried a little more when my cat died.  I cried a little bit when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, just because it was more shit in a year full of shit.  But life goes on, and work is a good distraction from personal problems.

[Stadler]

I am a crier, and get made fun of for it by my family all the time (actually, when I got married the kids - my daughter and three new step kids - were betting WHEN, not if, I would cry at the ceremony.  I didn't and my new wife was all nervous.  Hahaha!).

It's not really "whether you cry or not", but it is whether you appropriately - for YOU - process those emotions.  You cannot bottle them in and ignore them.  The human mind is resilient and they WILL come out at some point, and you need to be ahead of that. 

My ex-wife was a widow when I met her in '97, and she STILL hasn't fully processed his loss, and she is a train-wreck as a result.

Deal with the emotions your way, don't worry about how other people handle them.   But make sure you DO deal with them.

[ZKX-2099]

Crying is for women.

You don't need to cry to mourn.

[Phoenix87x]

I am not sure if it was the excessively neglectfully and violent childhood or just growing older and realizing how cruel and heartless the world can really be, but yeah I would definitely say that I am emotionally hardened.

I don't feel very much anymore, or at the very least rarely do. And it definitely was not always like this. Just slowly desensitized over time.

At this point in the game, when something bad or even terrible happens, I just feel like "yeah, that's life. bad things happen" and go on from there. It just doesn't surprise me that much anymore. And I'm not advocating this at all, it just is what it is.

[Fiery Winds]

Crying is for women.

You don't need to cry to mourn.

While the latter is certainly true, the former is a rather sexist statement.


To Scar, I'll echo the previous suggestions to talk to a therapist. I don't know if you've ever spoken with one before but it's not as daunting as you might imagine it to be, given the general stigma against seeking mental health (at least here in the US, though that has been improving in recent years).  You're essentially having a conversation like you're doing on here, except with someone with far more qualifications and resources that can guide you towards what you're searching for.

[King Postwhore]

The older I get, the easier it is to get me to cry.

[Cable]

I suspect I have Asperger's Syndrome, so I usually don't cry either.  I barely cried over my dad's death, but I wasn't close to him.  I cried a little more when my cat died.  I cried a little bit when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, just because it was more shit in a year full of shit.  But life goes on, and work is a good distraction from personal problems.

That doesn't mean you have higher level functioning Autism. I haven't lost my parents' yet, but my one grandma I was emotionless over. Other hit me in emotional waves. Some cat loses have impacted me, others have not. That is regardless of my age, but based on the level of closeness.

Crying is for women.

You don't need to cry to mourn.

While the latter is certainly true, the former is a rather sexist statement.


To Scar, I'll echo the previous suggestions to talk to a therapist. I don't know if you've ever spoken with one before but it's not as daunting as you might imagine it to be, given the general stigma against seeking mental health (at least here in the US, though that has been improving in recent years).  You're essentially having a conversation like you're doing on here, except with someone with far more qualifications and resources that can guide you towards what you're searching for.

Here here.

I cry when it comes and it's socially appropriate. So not at my job. But I've gotten misty/cried in my car, during movies, during conversations, and all sorts of other times.

The older I get, the easier it is to get me to cry.

You said it while I was typing! If anything,  I too have become more in touch with the crying emotion so to speak as I have aged. If others view it as weak, so be it. If I am a women vs. a man based on outdated concepts, so be it. And vice versa too.

Emotions are relative to the person, and we all deal with them differently. However, if someone's ways of dealing with them are destructive, then it may not be good to keep ignoring it.

[Prog Snob]

The older I get, the easier it is to get me to cry.

Yes. Just take away your beer.

[King Postwhore]

The older I get, the easier it is to get me to cry.

Yes. Just take away your beer.

That just makes me angry.

[Dublagent66]

Crying is for women.

You don't need to cry to mourn.

While the latter is certainly true, the former is a rather sexist statement.

Not only that, it's just flat out ignorant.

[Kotowboy]

I'm the opposite

I never used to blub but since i've had terrible depression - it happens at the drop of a hat.

[Mladen]

Not everyone cries when experiencing sadness. I'm guessing you're in your teens? If so, it's extremely common to experience emotions very differently during that period. If you're still feeling sadness but it's not manifesting in tears, I think that's quite normal. You may well find that as you get into your twenties, that sort of thing comes back.

This is very true. I used to not be able to cry during my teens at all. But over the last several years, I started to be more sensitive about certain things.

[Prog Snob]

The older I get, the easier it is to get me to cry.

Yes. Just take away your beer.

That just makes me angry.

Eventually you'll cry because you realize that I hid it in Blob's workboots.

[Scar]

Interesting answers. Definitely helped me a lot. Thank you!

The thing is that, not crying, the experience has been really awesome. Call me heartless, cruel, or whatever, but I don't like crying. I once easily cried and it took forever to stop crying, but now since it's nearly impossible for me to cry, I love that feeling of my emotions not getting in the way.

Stadler, you talked about resilience and how my emotions will come racing back, but will it be possible to stop them? To bury the emotions and make sure they don't come up.

I've heard people say that when their parents were involved in a fatal accident, they didn't cry even though they weren't close to them. I don't why I think this, but I'd be pretty happy to not show emotions.

[King Postwhore]

Over time scars heal but you never forget.   The pain dulls but is always there.

[Cable]

Stadler, you talked about resilience and how my emotions will come racing back, but will it be possible to stop them? To bury the emotions and make sure they don't come up.

The research shows that suppression actually increases the frequency of the unwanted thoughts and emotions. Escaping/avoidance often causes problems, and rarely solves problems.

[Kwyjibo]

Not crying doesn't mean you don't feel something. And not showing emotions might actually be good sometimes. But completely surpressing them isn't a good idea. Now I'm not a psychiatrist or something but from my own experience, when you surpress your emotions, especially in the case of sadness or loss, they just build up and someday everything comes out, probably then with a violent reaction and at totally the wrong time.

It's like drinking to forget, it works for a while but the outcome is always bad.

I was crying at every little thing until 16 or 17. Then some guys made fun of me being a crybaby. That hurt like hell and I completely stopped crying, no matter what happened. But because this didn't come naturally I forced myself to not cry. And the sideeffect was that I wasn't able to show emotions of any kind anymore and I wasn't able to deal with especially sadness and loss. Only in my midthirties I realised that this "a man shouldn't cry"-thing is complete bullshit and I started to let my emotions show again. Now I feel much better for it and I'm not ashamed to cry, for joy or for sadness.

I cried my heart out at the funeral of the grandfather of my wife, more than I cried for my own grandmother, and I cried in front of the whole church when my wife was led in by her father at our wedding. Even now, writing this and therefore thinking back, I could start to cry again.

[Tomislav95]

Not everyone cries when experiencing sadness. I'm guessing you're in your teens? If so, it's extremely common to experience emotions very differently during that period. If you're still feeling sadness but it's not manifesting in tears, I think that's quite normal. You may well find that as you get into your twenties, that sort of thing comes back.

This is very true. I used to not be able to cry during my teens at all. But over the last several years, I started to be more sensitive about certain things.

Me, too. Especially since I joined college two years ago (wonder if there's connection hmm ). I don't know, some of us just don't know how to react to certain events and that's ok. I used to be really cold about everything and now I have water-y eyes even when watching sad movies (I almost cried on Inside Out, almost!).

[Stadler]

Stadler, you talked about resilience and how my emotions will come racing back, but will it be possible to stop them? To bury the emotions and make sure they don't come up.

Well, "showing emotion" (for all the world to see) is not the same as "releasing emotion".  I'm a pretty stoic guy around my family and friends, and I am often turned to because I am the calm in the storm.   But I make sure there is release.   Sex.  Guitar.  My therapist.  Crying.   

It's not this simple or black and white, but as a thinking aide, you want to release them in measured ways that are in your control, as opposed to your subconscious saying "fuck that, it's gonna blow!" and beating your wife, or overdosing on drugs or shooting up a school.   Again, don't take this literally - I don't at all think that "by not crying" you're going to be a serial killer - but I'm painting a picture here.