Anyone here have difficulty with crying?

[schrodingers_cat_lives]

I'm an NT with a S.O who's an aspy. In the many yrs. I've known him, he's never cried even during times of difficult crisis. He said he's doesn't remember the last time he's cried. It's not that he's the "macho" type that wouldn't tell me out of shame....he's very open about such things and doesn't think it's a sign of weakness for men to cry.

Is it common for other aspies to hardly cry or is this just his thing?

 

[dayhiker]

I don't cry at funerals or those type things.

If I hear of a testimony of God changing someones heart those, then tears come to my eyes.

 

[schrodingers_cat_lives]

I don't cry at funerals or those type things.

If I hear of a testimony of God changing someones heart those, then tears come to my eyes.

Regarding funerals: I've been to funerals of people i really wasn't close to and though i felt sad for those that were grieving the loss of their loved one, i don't really cry either. But if it was someone close to me i would feel the grief and cry. I think i would probably be in shock at first and numb, then cry when alone. I don't really feel comfortable crying in front of others....not even my close friends or family. I only feel free to cry around my boyfriend. If one of my pets die, i feel a lot of grief and cry a lot.

When you said you don't cry at funerals, are you referring to funerals of people who died that you were close to? Like a close family member etc?


Did you grow up in the church or converted later in life? Do you think that your relationship with god..i.e being a christian change or alter your emotional side? In other words, do you think you have learned to feel more for others because of your christianity?

One last question: If someone you know cries in front of you, What do you feel? For ex.does that make you feel uncomfortable or sympathetic or sad etc?

sorry if i'm prying too much...i hope i'm not asking inapropiate questions that are too personal. I'm just trying to understand.

 

[dayhiker]

The closest person to me was my grandparents and a nephew, I didn't cry at those funerals.

I have been following Christ since I was young, so hard to compare emotionally before and after. Clearly the preaching about being concern for those around us helped me things about those issues.

I'm not as empathic as I should be when those around me cry. I know not to make fun of them ... but sometimes I'm amused by what they are feeling and that comes across in a bad way to them. That's one of the biggest gaffs I make.

 

[ThePurpleFlower]

I very rarely cry and when I do, it's almost never due to grief or sadness. I cry if something hurts me, if I am angry or frustrated at life, or if I am overwhelmed by a situation. I've had animals die that I was really close to, but I didn't really cry. It tends to upset my dad, who is very emotional and assumed incorrectly that I was some unfeeling robot or something. I've learned to, well, fake some tears and emotion for his sake, because it's easier than dealing with his attitude.

I've been a Christian since I was seven. I definitely think the Bible's teaching about caring for others, as well as the indwelling and shoves of the Holy Spirit, has helped to grow my ability to understand others.

I still get impatient with it at times. Where I work, there is some outcry over two coworkers losing a project they care very much about. Honestly, it's been difficult to deal with their sadness and moping, because they knew that project reassignment is part of the job description, and it hasn't changed. I don't understand why they would feel those emotions.

I think even if my parents died, I wouldn't cry. It doesn't mean I'm not sad. It just doesn't...figure into the thing. I would cry if my brother died, but that's because he's currently agnostic, and so I wouldn't be sure where he went. That would make me angry and frustrated and sad.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

I can only say I've cried in terms of frustration, especially when I was younger. Now, it's more a matter of empathy, albeit usually in the case of tear jerkers from anime/manga/animation/comics. I'd post the example, but it's the scene between Ace and Batman in Justice League Unlimited episode titled Epilogue. Gets me everytime.

I didn't cry when both my grandfathers died, but in that same space of time, I cried to my mother when I was just so frustrated at not understanding completely where my anxiety was coming from, not to mention I had a roommate that was probably too similar and really never left the room except for class, meals and driving Bacchus (drunk van, basically).

I can't say for certain that I'd cry when even our cats will eventually die, but i didn't even cry when our male tabby suffered an arterial thromboembolism and was in severe pain, paralyzed from the backlegs to his tail, shrieking in pain and distress because he suddenly couldn't use his back legs. I can get sad and sympathetic, but it seems rarer for me to cry myself except when the emotional feelings are especially strong, which usually happens in more fictionalized settings.

last example i remember is a friend of mine getting hit in the face with a snowball, accidentally from a college student just playing around trying to hit something else. She was distressed and admittedly just crying moreso from the pain than from really emotional issues. And I just sat there and let her cry it out, but I wasn't really getting teary eyed myself. some of it might be psychological and neurological, but it certainly doesn't imply that Aspies are less sympathetic, they usually just have to learn it differently. i learned it through general experience, albeit also logical thinking, if that makes any sense.

 

[MoeSzyslak]

Schrodingers cat is both alive and dead. Therein lies the paradox.


I don't think I have cried in the past 25 to 30 years.

Other people crying generally gets me anxious and then angry because I don't know what to do.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

Ding ding ding ding ding. Light goes on.

My husband and I are both possible aspies but not officially diagnosed, and in his case that could explain EVERYTHING.

Thanks for posting.

 

[TheChristianAspie]

I never was a crier until I I became a Christian. That was an interesting experience, the first time I cried. I didn't even know I was doing it, a lady praying with me told me. Apparently, the tears come unbidden and I don't really feel different some of the time. I do feel what my husband has helped me identify as compassion when someone is hurting and grief when someone who is lost dies.

But in personal situations, I do not cry. I found my father dead and I did not cry. I didn't cry when I found him, when I had to tell my mother, while I was taking care of the arrangements or even at the funeral.

I get called cold and clinical. I had one ex husband who would yell and cry and then get in my face and yell, "Would you please just cry!?"
I never did.

My husband now says he values my calm and even somewhat aloof manner. He says it keeps arguments from escalating and I stay on topic. He also likes that I don't "get all emotional" and stick to logic, facts and resolution.

 

[Fierce Badger]

I'm an aspie and I rarely ever cry. Also, when something has made me cry it usually takes a while for everything to "sink in" before I finally break down and do it. For instance, I didn't cry at my grandmother's funeral but I did a month later when I realized that I would never drive to the little town she lived in ever again.

 

[Autocannibal]

I can cry happy tears, but when I'm down I'm just angry and frustrated.

I used to cry over really bad grades, but fortunately the Lord has helped me in that area, so that doesn't happen as often as it once did.

 

[amberzak]

I will cry if I am by myself. But I rarely cry in front of people. I didn't cry during the whole of my step brother's funeral. In fact, it was the moment that my dad grabbed hold of me and hugged me after the coffin went into the grave, that was the moment when I broke.

I tend to not want comfort at all when I feel like crying. That's something my fiance finds hard to understand. He always wants to comfort me at times like that. But I really don't want it.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

I'm exactly the opposite, Amber. Like my husband, for several years I was completely iced off. I could feel pain but could not show it. Not even when my youngest child died. Needless to say, that was the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life, but it took years and professional counseling to get me to the point where I was capable of crying about it. Nowadays, I have an easier time crying in front of a room full of total strangers than I would in front of my family, and I cannot shed a tear *no matter what* if my mother is present.

 

[amberzak]

I am so sorry to hear about your child, Lovebirds. I found my brother dying one of the hardest things in my life, but most of my family thought I was so strong because of my reaction. Really, though, I just felt numb. And I don't even think I've begun to deal with it all properly. That's the problem with me just closing off and pulling a brick wall up, it causes me so many problems with coping

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

I am so sorry to hear about your child, Lovebirds. I found my brother dying one of the hardest things in my life, but most of my family thought I was so strong because of my reaction. Really, though, I just felt numb. And I don't even think I've begun to deal with it all properly. That's the problem with me just closing off and pulling a brick wall up, it causes me so many problems with coping

Thank you. I am sorry for your loss as well.

Oh boy, do I relate to the bolded part.

When I was a teenager, my boyfriend was shot and killed by his own brother, in a tragic accident. My family was so proud of me for being "brave and strong" about it. In reality, I was being anything but brave or strong. The truth is, I was too doggone chicken to cry and have them telling me not to, lecturing me on how "brave and strong" I should be instead. Here again, I felt it but didn't express it. It took me 2 1/2 years to cry about my boyfriend--and then I was intoxicated. Rather than genuine grieving about the loss, it was essentially a drunken crying jag.

In front of my family of origin (as opposed to my husband and children) I don't show physical pain either. When that youngest child of mine was born, my mother was in the delivery room with me. With the previous two, I had screamed bloody murder. My labors were always very hard and fast, and I didn't have time for meds to kick in, so I gave birth all three times with no pain control. The third time, with my mother present, it hurt just as much, but I didn't utter a squeal. I couldn't. It wouldn't come out.

A few years later I told my mother about that. I confessed to her that I had screamed and yelled during my first two labors, but couldn't let out a sound the third time, because she was there. She didn't think it was so strange. "It would seem to me that most people are conditioned to being on their best behavior when their mothers are in the room."

There is so much wrong with that statement.

First of all, "not showing pain, even with good reason" = "on your best behavior"? How unhealthy can you get?

Second, as more than one mental health professional has pointed out to me, "most people" are conditioned to thinking of their mothers as a source of comfort, the one you turn to when you're in pain, the first person whose shoulder you CAN cry on.

But not me. In my case, instead of being the first person I can turn to for comfort, my mother is the last. When Jessica was born, I could not express the physical pain of giving birth to her, because my mother was present. When Jessica died, I could not express the immense emotional pain of losing her, because my mother was present. I wonder how much of this is Aspie/ASD, and how much of it is something else.

 

[amberzak]

At risk of going off track, yes I can so sympathise with you. I don't go to my mother with tears, and I never have done.

This Christmas, I did get a bit upset. It was the first Christmas I spent with my mum in years, and we had all had a bit of alcohol. It came to the end of my stay, and we were chatting, and suddenly she got emotional. That had a knock on effect and I got emotional too. She was apologising for everything that has happened and the way she has treated me. I think that it felt I had permission to try, you know. And so I did. But it was more tears of happiness.

My mum always used to tell me I needed to be a big strong girl, and implied that crying or showing any form of discomfort was 'not being on best behaviour' too. She has two sayings (which she got from her parents) 'You'll die after it' and 'nice feeling when the pain goes.'

 

[joris]

It's very unusual for me to cry.
I remember as a 10 or 11 year old for some reason I told myself I must not ever cry;
I can't remember why but I'm pretty sure nobody actually said anything like that.

 

[Intellectual-Christian]

I cry a lot, but rarely in public. I have come to believe (whether rightly or wrongly) that I cry at the wrong times, so I trained myself not to cry when other people are around. When I am by myself I feel much more free to let the tears flow.

 

[C-Man]

I think, at a young age, I simply found some way to shut down my ability to cry, and to shunt emotional pain aside as a sort of coping mechanism. Now my mother's not perfect, but she would hardly shun me if I were to cry. It seems though, that that coping mechanism worked a little too well.
My uncle died in 2008. He was like a second father to me, since my dad died in 1993, and really looked after me. I loved him like a father too. During the whole funeral, I shed perhaps two tears. Inside, I was numb, completely neutral. I still feel that way now, like I'm not even entirely human.
I don't think I qualify as a psychopath, since I do love my family very dearly, and would give the shirt off my back to help my friends, but there is something missing. Is it possible that I've completely eradicated my abilities to cope with pain?

 

[MoeSzyslak]

I haven't cried in decades. Its not a macho thing, I just don't cry.

Not crying does not equal not caring. I was totally distraught when my grandfather passed away. I just don't use crying as a way of expressing emotions.