Anyone else dysphoric about this?

[suzifrommd]

I've read posts by trans women who are unhappy they can't have a period or give birth, but I've never read a post by anyone who had my issue.

I don't cry.

Occasionally my eyes tear up, usually during a happy moment at the end of a movie or a book. And if I'm miserable enough I can manage painful sobs and just a hint of watering in my eyes.

But I don't cry. I don't have the almost exclusively female experience of having tears running down my face at an emotional moment.

I know it embarrasses women, trans and cis alike. I can imagine how mortifying it would be, especially in a professional situation, when the tear ducts start flowing.

I don't care. It is a uniquely feminine experience and ability, one that I wish I could have. Like periods and childbirth I know lots of women would glad skip the experience, but it saddens me that I can't. I figured once I'd been on hormones, things would change, but my latest blood test shows my E levels on the high side of a pre-menopausal woman and my T virtually undetectable, so chemically, I'm not getting anymore female than this. A lot of things have feminized, but my ability to cry is where it always was.

I thought about trying to train my body to cry. Don't know if it would work but I know some mind-over-body tricks I could try.

Have any other ladies here ever felt this way? Any suggestions from those who cry more easily?

[how-audrey]

I'm still pre-hrt, and I've been looking forward to the emotional effects of estrogen that could help out my shortage of cries, but I think what my biggest problem was that I forgot how to cry after so many years of holding it back. What i started doing was forcing myself / pretending to cry (with some sobs) when I'm tearing up watching a movie or something. It helped me at least relearn what it feels like to cry.  I'm not quite to the point where I can have a good cry, but I had a few genuine sobs after my grandmother died last year.

[Heather]

I haven't cried over a movie yet but I don't watch many movies. I have teared up over songs that I feel reflect my situation. But I will cry if I get sad or depressed. But I don't know how to tell you how to cry. Maybe the best way is to get in touch with how your feeling that might work. I wish I could tell you but I can't I guess it will eventually happen just give it time. 

[Oriah]

For what it's worth, the anti-crying programming can be undone.

I had the same thing, even after HRT, like I could be sad, but would never be able to cry, even when having flashbacks to my rather turbulent childhood.

The only time I could cry, I figured out, was when really, truly, brain meltingly drunk.  So I practiced.....I got righteously hammered and sat remembering happy and sad events, pouring over the traumas and fond memories of a long dead past.  I did that a few times....and desensitized myself to crying.  Now while sober when I'm upset, or really happy, during a sad book or movie, or when hit with sudden flashbacks I find the tears come.

[Nero]

The only time I could cry, I figured out, was when really, truly, brain meltingly drunk.  So I practiced.....I got righteously hammered and sat remembering happy and sad events, pouring over the traumas and fond memories of a long dead past.  I did that a few times....and desensitized myself to crying.  Now while sober when I'm upset, or really happy, during a sad book or movie, or when hit with sudden flashbacks I find the tears come.

That's me. Except it doesn't happen sober. I miss being able to cry.

Suzi, did your mother seem to have a hard time crying?

[Rachel]

Watch titanic.

I cried at movies before HRT and my wife and daughter would smile and laugh at me. Now, I have a gusher.

Today I thought of my Mom, it would have been her birthday. Tears flow each time I think of her, even now.

[Sephirah]

More often than not, I've found that it isn't a case of anything physical, hormonal, or anything like that which stops people crying. It's a fundamental blockage in the mind, one which was maybe drilled into them at a very, very early age.

The belief that it's not okay to cry.

Once you get past that, then rather than having trouble starting... it's sometimes hard to stop.

It sounds simple, but it actually isn't. And I think a lot of folks don't even know it's there. Someone they respect, some life-changing situation... gave the assertion that it's not okay to cry. That it's seen as weak, that you'll be ridiculed for it... whatever the case may be. There are hundreds of different versions of the same thing.

They stick, buried in the mind, like a thorn.

I'm not sure it's a change in your body as much as it is a change in your perception which will allow you to cry more easily. That working on telling yourself, and believing that it's okay, and it's a natural process, to cry, will yield results for you.

[MadeleineG]

I cried buckets as a child. Then, somewhere around age 20, the well went dry. I have a couple of switches I can flip, but they're few and far between. I miss being more emotional and hope against hope that HRT will help me reconnect my emotional resonance with experience.

For interest sake, Solo Cello Suite no. 4 is as close to Old Faithful as there is for me.

[Emmaline]

If I need to cry I watch 'bright eyes' from the film  ' watership down'.  I cry buckets everytime.
Oh and that johnny cash cover of hurt (probably a trigger-best avoid it if your low).

When I was on aropax many years ago I couldnt cry.  It was disturbing- not having that release made me really uncomfortable.

[Beth Andrea]

I couldn't cry for the longest time...but about a year after starting HRT, I noticed I had started being more "connected" to my emotions (especially sadness and happiness) and then one day it just happened.

For me, it was a part of healing, and was wonderful. Just give it time, as a guy those centers are probably buried somewhere...

[suzifrommd]

Wow!

A way different response than I expected. I expected a sort of "thank your lucky stars" response like when women say they wish they could have periods.

It sounds like based on what I'm hearing that (1) I'm not alone (which feels real good. Thanks Audrey and Carley Ann) and (2) learning to cry is possible and a good thing. It helps to hear Cynthia Michelle's, Beth's, and Oriah's positive experiences with crying.

MadelineG, JulieR, Heather, and CaseyB, Emmaline, alas I'm wee bit tone deaf and don't relate well to music, so if I'm moved to tears it probably won't be from a musical passage. Movies do it to me (the last couple minutes of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, when Santa picks up the misfit toys is guaranteed to bring a tear or two) and the occasional book. I avoid really sad movies (like Titanic) because they depress me for weeks and I don't like myself like that.

And I really want my liver in good shape for a lifetime of hormones, so I think I'll pass on Oriah's solution.

Suzi, did your mother seem to have a hard time crying?

Wow. Interesting question. My mother was a strong, career woman. I can count on one hand the times I saw a tear come to her face. She certainly never succumbed in my presence to uncontrollable waterworks. I'm a far more emotional person than she ever was.

So might be genetics there.

The belief that it's not okay to cry.

Once you get past that, then rather than having trouble starting... it's sometimes hard to stop.

I need to think about this. I certainly think it's OK to cry. I sob frequently when I'm upset. I'm not emotionally repressed (I don't think). But the tears are sparse, and basically never come spontaneously.

So I don't know where this leaves me. I had a few moments alone in the house this morning. I allowed myself to think about what has been upsetting me lately - that I will be separating from my wife of 20 years and almost definitely my two children and that all the love I've been living with for the past two decades has suddenly vanished, leaving me almost completely alone. Yes I sobbed. It is a wrenching reality.

But no tears.

[Joanna Dark]

Being able to cry is a double endged sword. Your only thinking of the good parts like cathartic release. But there is a whole level of emotional turmoil that comes with it. I can cry easily and sometimes can't stop crying but I'm also really emotional and that really turns some people off, especially men who don't want some hysterical female around. Yeah I mean men can be comforting but really cry too much and you will push them away. This holds true for women. When my ex broke up with me, I went from okay to waterfall in three seconds. To this day I can literall;y see the color drain from the sky as she breaks up with me and I just balled. And it didn't stop...for a YEAR. I mean I stopped intermittently but I would sit at my desk at work and I would have to hide or go to the bathroom as I would just start crying any time anything reminded me of her. She stopped hanging out with me because of it. One of the last things she said to me was "stop crying." She knew i couldn't. It's not fun.

But I also imagine you can't just become this way. I've always been like this from day one. I'm just a very emotional person. Some would say difficult. 

[Donna Elvira]

I cry so easily it is almost embarrassing. Pretty well all of my therapy sessions have a tearful passage, in the days following both of my FFS surgeries I cried so much at times that I came close to passing out,  learning about the birth of my first grand-daughter had me in tears (right in the middle of a management team meeting.. ), just seeing my grand-daughter for the first time had me in tears again, learning that my youngest daughter had gained admission to the business school she had targeted also opened the tap, sitting in a particularly beautful Japanese garden in Kyoto (Nanzen Ji)  etc. etc...

I already cried quite easily before HRT. For example if I recite this poem out loud the tears come very quickly:

FELIX RANDAL the farrier, O he is dead then? my duty all ended, 
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome 
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it and some 
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended? 
 
Sickness broke him. Impatient he cursed at first, but mended         5
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some 
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom 
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended! 
 
This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears. 
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,         10
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal; 
 
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years, 
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers, 
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal! 

Same thing with this song (plus many, many others... :



and since I started HRT, it is even worse. Actually, I doubt a week goes by without a few tears at some point or another...

Hard to know what explains this, maybe I just connect easily with my emotions and I can cry as much for joy as for sadness. Neither can I say whether it is good or bad, it just is. On balance, even if it can indeed be embarassing at times, I guess I am happy that I can feel things so intensely.

Anyway, I hope some of you enjoy "Beim Schlafengehen" , one of the most beautiful pièces of music I know of and Jesse Norman was at her zenith when she recorded it.
Hugs.

Donna

P.S. Talk about a trigger!  After doing this post I actually listened to the above recording again and even with the not so great sound in my computer it had the tears streaming down my face from the moment Jesse Norman takes her first crescendo through to the end. I guess I already  got my dose for this week but it's still only Monday....





 

[Donna Elvira]

I cried buckets as a child. Then, somewhere around age 20, the well went dry. I have a couple of switches I can flip, but they're few and far between. I miss being more emotional and hope against hope that HRT will help me reconnect my emotional resonance with experience.

For interest sake, Solo Cello Suite no. 4 is as close to Old Faithful as there is for me.

That worked on me too. It took all of two minutes... 

Donna

[BurningBrilliance]

I cry way too often though I relate a lot of it to my growing depression. I aslo noticed that HRT has made me more sensitive but I've always been very sensitive so that isn't anything really new.

One thing that gets me is my inability to really scream, (like a girl I mean. Like my sister I love scary stuff but I'm so used to it by now that the things that are really scary only affect me at night, (and worsen my insomnia).

One night I did scream but the sound was male and I hated it. Does this get anyone else? Not being able to scream like a girl. Does voice training help at all, I don't think so at least if you're really scared and it just comes out you really don't have control of how you scream.

[Northern Jane]

Give it time! Your brain will re-wire itself over a period of years and in a few years time you will find you are quite different. 

[Lesley_Roberta]

An inability to cry is NOT always just some gender based conditioning that gets forced on us, life can cruelly turn off your ability to be emotional too.

In the mid to late 90s crushing depression made me go emotionally dead. And frankly, it hurt a lot more than I want to remember.

Nothing got to me, nothing touched me, and the death of a family member would probably have gone unfelt.

I can't say precisely what fixed it, but, I gained my ability to cry back, and then it was like I couldn't control it at all. I cried at all sorts of things.

I don't mind crying, it's like sunshine, it doesn't hurt to have a good cry.

I have lost some of my capacity to do so recently though and it worries me. I think if we endure too much stress, are bodies can lock up on us.

I suggest you watch some intensely sappy romantic videos, I also suggest anime for this as it is very intensely sappy and romantic and good to train yourself to release the tensions and have a good cry.

[Emily Aster]

More often than not, I've found that it isn't a case of anything physical, hormonal, or anything like that which stops people crying. It's a fundamental blockage in the mind, one which was maybe drilled into them at a very, very early age.

That may be true of many, but it's definitely not true of all. I was brought up knowing that men do not cry. Ever. And I worked very hard to come across that way. It's impossible for me. Any time I get angry, hurt, or happy, the tears start flowing. If I stop the feeling, I can stop the wave of tears that will follow, but I can't stop the watery eyes or initial tears. I can't watch almost any movie or tv show without crying at some point during the show, so I've learned to leave the room if it looks like it's going to get emotional. Even at work, when I have to go reprimand someone, I have to fight back the tears from the anger. When I help people and it makes me feel good, that makes me cry too. It really is uncontrollable for me and I'm not on hormones yet. It's also not just me in my family. My grandfather has the same problem, except he must have had very supportive parents because he just lets them flow no matter where he is. Really annoys the crap out of my father because he's embarrassed by it.

By the way, my mother, never cries. Ever. Last time I went to a movie with her (The Passion of the Christ... yeah that long ago), she shed not a single tear. I was uncontrollably crying the entire movie. She's Christian. I'm atheist. There's no rhyme or reason to why she didn't cry and I couldn't stop. It's not a male / female thing at the physical level. It may be as far as acceptance in society, but not at the physical level.

[StellaB]

Wow. Interesting question. My mother was a strong, career woman. I can count on one hand the times I saw a tear come to her face. She certainly never succumbed in my presence to uncontrollable waterworks. I'm a far more emotional person than she ever was.

I need to think about this. I certainly think it's OK to cry. I sob frequently when I'm upset. I'm not emotionally repressed (I don't think). But the tears are sparse, and basically never come spontaneously.

I think you're heading in the general direction here.

Most of our behaviour which we have acquired as adults was previously modelled by other adults and we have take on different traits and reactions which we have learned from them.

I am able to cry at will, at any time for any reason, but I've also had actor's training and know how to process a new emotional reaction to a past event and imagine that it is happening now.

I wonder whether through not having crying modelled to you and therefore no opportunity to learn and acquire crying within your range of emotional reactions whether this is why you feel unable to cry.

Perhaps if you to find someone who cries who could model this emotional reaction for you you could some how emulate it and bring it within your range of emotional reactions.

[Tadpole]

Dysphoria on this issue doesn't apply to me, but I was never able to cry at will. The only way I possibly would ever be able to do that would be for me to think about something very saddening. I almost would want to be in your situation where I can't cry at all because when I do cry it can sometimes be very difficult to quit or embarrassing if I am out in public because I have cried in classes before or while I was out walking and something sad happened. Sometimes it's relieving but overall, I could do without it.