I've known several, more lately than pre HRT. They tend to start by blurring my vision, then roll down my cheeks and are gone before any real relationship can be established. At times they can be real sobs.

  Smiles,
   Jeanette

i've always found crying very embarrassing and tried not to do it in front of people.  unfortunately, since i'm one of those people who literally gets frustrated to tears, that has been impossible and i've had moments where i started crying even more just because i was so embarrassed about having an emotional outburst in front of someone. 
having a good cry while alone, on the other hand, doesn't bother me at all.  it's rare, since being alone doesn't usually put me in that position in the first place, but it's a biological function for a reason and i tend to always feel better afterward, provided there's no one around to hover over me and judge me. 
that said, most of the time i don't have to worry about this because unless i am extremely frustrated/overwhelmed for some reason, i don't feel much of anything anyway.  i haven't been very emotional for a long time now.

   Do not feel bad meatwagon , you are not alone. I have always had difficulty holding back tears in times of high emotion. Ever since my divorce I well up and fight back tears for what should be happy events. They make me sad for what I should have had and lost. Also at times when friends express their love for me as if I don't deserve it.
   Darn I guess I am more messed up than I was willing to admit. My emotions are still on a leash and they hurt when I let them out.

  Anyway meatwagon  you have friends and company.

  Hugs,
   Jeanette

I hate crying. I always have, as far as I can remember.
I don't know about when I was a little kid, but from what I can remember I only cried when I was ashamed of something, and then that made me cry more because I was ashamed to be crying.
When I was in early high school (what I term my dark years- I was in a bad place) I learned to shut it off because I was crying almost every night for no real reason and I hated it- I was just letting depression and PTSD get the better of me. I can pinpoint the exact moment when I told myself "no, men don't cry. Soldiers don't cry. You don't cry. You don't feel." (this was really the first time I knew I was having gender issues, and also what occupation I wanted, lol) Since then I've been able to pretty much have a switch for all emotion in general and I can have almost complete control over the tears, unless its during that sucky time of the month that no guy should be subjected to.  -_- At that point I can take control of it during the day, but if I'm particularly frustrated or something it makes its on way forward by the time I go to bed.

I really try not to cry. To me, it serves no purpose and just makes me feel worse about myself. I don't cry anymore unless I'm just so over-frustrated and stressed that I can't do anything about it. I've cried twice on this deployment, and other than that its the first time I've cried since that moment Freshman year other than during my divorce, and then I mostly just got so frustrated from having the same arguments over and over that I just couldn't deal with it, and when I cried he shut up and left me alone.
Being pre-t, I feel like I do a decent job of controlling it, compared to some of the cis-females and flamboyant lovelies (you know the type I'm talking about. Not trans necessarily, but flaming. (I'm allowed to use that word here, right?)) I know/ work with.
I just usually keep that emotion switch off so that I can perform my job efficiently and feel like a rational human being. Mostly I feel when people around me feel, and that's pretty much just because I have the inherent ability to be empathic sometimes. It gets confusing sometimes when I'm sitting with two people that are in completely different moods.

caveat: I will cry for movies/ books. Especially when a dog or favourite character dies.
I sob every time for Dobby, Kili, and Prim. Those three absolutely kill me every. singe. darn. time.

Throw Tonks, Lupin, Marley, and Wolverine in there, and its a total sobfest.

Real talk I tear up whenever I see youtube videos or movies about animals or dogs that are sad or heartfelt...and its only that subject....goddam Im a wuss



This one did me in

Pre-T here, I get the feeling that I'm about to cry more often than I actually cry, which is very rare. I've never viewed it as a shameful or subversive thing, I just don't feel the need to cry very often.
As far as what I cry over, it's mostly either serious frustration or (depending on the time of month) touching things.
However, there are exceptions. Tonight I cried after I lost a friend once he found out I was trans. I quickly recovered from that though.
I don't think I've ever cried over someone dying. But holy crap, I'll cry if someone else is crying over it.

Just for the record, when I said that male tears could be subversive, I meant it in the best possible way.  Social mores that involve putting a lid on basic emotional expression absolutely deserve to be subverted, IMO. 

I'm pre-T but not much for crying, and I'm just about 40.   I'll cry usually once or twice a year, usually out of complete frustration. I think the last time was sometime early fall when things were very tough for me with work, and health, and coming to terms with being trans. As a kid it was a similar routine. I never was one for comforting people when they cried, or wanting to be comforted when I cried. If I feel like crying, I'll cry. But I don't usually.

However, I've learned that three things will usually make me cry: weddings (especially if I have to give a speech, lol), funerals/death, and... dun dun dun... long distance phone commercials, back in the 90s. I remember one where someone was calling their parents out on the coast, and it was pouring rain--made me so homesick I bawled every time I saw it.

I wonder how it'll be when I'm on T. Otherwise, I'm fairly balanced in my emotions, even with the bipolar. Happily for me that didn't mean rage and fury, more like depression (I would just withdraw), with occasional manic bursts. But it's been some years since I was diagnosed and things are well managed. I'm not over/under medicated. I feel all the feels when I need to and want to.

I do not cry in public. That is how my family behaves, male and female. Even when we are broken, we do not let others see our pain.
My husband (cis) is a cryer. It drives me nuts. Not because I think it's weak for men to cry but because of my upbringing I still see strong emotions as private matters.

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Quote from: Kylo on April 19, 2017, 12:46:05 PM
When younger, crying infuriated me. It would happen sometimes out of sheer frustration and the fact it didn't do anything to help me fix a problem made it an utterly useless biological response to whatever the problem was, in my opinion. I mastered the stone face; I desensitized myself to plenty of things so that they wouldn't shock or bother me. That also worked. Self-control has always been important to me.

I think right from the get-go, little boys learn that when they cry their parents probably don't come running and fuss over them to the extent they do with little girls. One of the interesting things about my childhood was that I didn't cry much. Even as a baby. And if I did, my parents did not really know how to do the comfort thing. I expect much like any boy I learned it wasn't generally helpful for me to cry. I remember my father actually telling me on one occasion when he was giving me a chewing out that crying wouldn't help me out of it. My mother was much the same. Strangely with my female siblings, they were the opposite. The behavior was not reinforced in me by any positive outcomes. That's not to say I didn't have my moments - but unlike women saying crying makes them feel better ("have a good cry"), it never made me feel better, only worse. I do not like my body having salty outbursts without my permission.

Since HRT I now understand it's very much the influence of female hormones in the absence of testosterone that makes emotional outbursts so easy. I've not had any since starting testosterone and believe me, the stresses and problems I've been dealing with since would absolutely have caused some tear shedding before it. The difference is remarkable; you can still feel the various emotions of a stressed-out state but the body's reaction of crying is - for me - nonexistent. Nothing will cause crying unless I choose to (one of my hobbies is a drama group, no problem there, I can switch the emotions on at will there if I want to) but the sort of knee-jerk biological response of crying is gone. I expect you'll experience the same when you go on HRT.   

And you're right - people don't know what to do when men cry. They don't expect it. So they have no idea how to handle it. When a woman cries, it tends to stimulate an urge in other people (male and female) to help them. For women, crying isn't a bad thing, it doesn't invite ridicule and it does tend to cause people to care for you and find out what is the matter - or, if you're in a situation under threat for someone threatening to assume because you're crying that you're no threat, and to stop attacking you (or so you hope). For men, it's probably not going to have people flocking to see if you're all right. Though people recognize that fundamentally crying by anyone is a sign of distress, I think we're programmed biologically to worry far more about the wellbeing of women and therefore to respond the way we do when a woman starts crying.

I've seen grown men cry; they always had a good reason, and it's rare, in my experience, so when it happens I know they're really torn up about something and it's serious. They tended to cry only if a significant part of their life had just gone downhill - someone had been killed, especially a good friend or family member, or a long time spouse was leaving them and they didn't know what else to do to prevent it. Things like that.

But the fact that I saw them do it meant that I was a trusted friend or equivalent - they don't do it in front of just anyone usually, so when it has happened, I've been there as the support and my response was never to join in feeling miserable but to provide the foil for it. Frankly I've had lots of experience with people in states of duress and trauma, so it doesn't surprise me to see it. I know men are human and have emotions, it just takes a lot more usually to put them over the edge into crying about them. When it happens, I know they aren't feeling good about something, and not great about the fact they're crying, and they'd typically rather just stop and get it together than go on crying. When you're talking to a guy crying I think you have to assume he's on the edge, and they'd rather not have attention drawn to the fact they are. That's normal behavior in men, from what I see, and not just some social construct because bravado, or whatever. Most men literally don't delight in crying in front of people most of the time, myself no exception.

So for my part, I do not cry in response to things... instead I will quietly experience a bunch of unpleasant emotions internally, untangle them, and put them away. If something can be DONE about the situation, I will go and do it, which is 1000% more helpful. If not, I figure a way to move on rationally. Which is what I used to do as well, only now I save myself an hour's headache and constricted sinuses. It's not part of my life now.

How I feel about the guys crying? Anyone crying with a damn good reason for it is fine with me. The only time I get frustrated is with people who cry at the drop of a hat about what is essentially trivial problems, and to be honest I don't know any males who do this.

I'd never say crying felt empowering. Perhaps being in a fubar situation at rock bottom and realizing you can only go up from there kind of is, but the act of crying itself... no, I kind of see crying as like shivering when you're cold, a response to a state. Maybe it empowers females, but for me it never had the same effect as it maybe does for them.
   
I've also seen people complaining men should cry more and the fact they don't much is somehow some self-conscious play at hypermasculinity. Not true. Testosterone literally makes it much harder to cry and men have a whole lot more of it. It's a biological trait... and a fact for most with male T levels. Not much we can do about it. Personally I find it very comfortable to feel less highly-strung emotionally. I don't feel robotic or heartless in the least, but I do feel more in control which is the position I prefer to be in.

I feel very much the same as you.
My husband cries about things that I don't think merit tears... maybe not at the drop of a hat but certainly easily.

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I went to my first trans support group tonight, and there was one poor kid, still in high school, who was having a terrible time.  His girlfriend had just broken up with him, he has serious health issues, his parents were causing him grief, and so on.  Understandably, he cried for a while.  I didn't know him and he wasn't sending out "comfort me" signals, so I didn't try to touch him or engage him in any way.  I just tried to sit there and bear respectful and compassionate witness to his pain.  He's pre-T, so it's possible his ability to cry will dry up when he's able to start hormone therapy.  For his sake, I rather hope it doesn't.

The trans experience itself and how others around you deal (or don't) with it would be enough to bring most to a low point or breakdown at some point, some tears are to be expected somewhere along the line. And most men do not have to face it. Cis friend of mine said he'd have no idea how to deal with what I and others like me do, that'd he'd probably not even have survived this long.

Wasn't sure exactly what to make of that statement, but resilience is one of the qualities inevitably drawn to the surface of those who choose this path. Resilience means going the distance... but of course it doesn't mean being a stone all the time. Emotional outlets are good. Very good, for those who need them.

I'm a real crier I get emotional as hell. I hope I don't stop being like that when I go on testosterone. Personally I'm fine with crying as it helps me get everything out so to speak.


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Pre testosterone I cried a lot(2-3 times a week not counting emotional movies or books) over the stupidest of reasons. I've been on T for 9 months and have cried twice (not counting emotional movies or books).  I don't really understand why the things that used to make me cry don't anymore, but i still cry over emotional movies or shows.

I still get emotional I just handle it differently.  Not being such a crybaby is one of my favorite things about testosterone.

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When I see a guy cry I feel no different to when I see a woman cry. It's because I grew up surrounded by tearful males- my father cries at movies, my best friend cried at the drop of a hat, my brother cried whenever he went through a breakup (briefly but loudly). It was my mom who never cried, my close female friend who never cried. The guys cried left and right though, even after hit and (just about) finished.

  However, most of my life I've cried at the drop of a hat. I'm pre-T and suffer from a couple genuine mental illnesses that mean I can't regulate my emotions for the life of me. I cry when I see something cute, cry when I feel sad, cry when I'm frustrated. I even cried when I found a pretty scarf once- serious breakdown of pure awe at the colours and design in the middle of the shop. As you might've guessed, I've always been bullied in school over it. The bullying lead to... more tears.
   I need a Or T. Do you guys think T will help?

Previously I would have to consciously fight the cry response. After T, I would have to consciously allow the response, in order to cry. It just does not happen on its own any more.

But since you have conditions that I might not I have no idea if it would help in your case. Possibly. But there could well be things overriding it... to hazard a guess I would say you'd probably see some improvement, but I wouldn't say T would be something to rely on as an anti-depressant or mood improver or anything of that type. If you still have things making you upset, you're still going to be upset, even if you're not crying.

Quote from: Kylo on May 02, 2017, 06:05:38 PM
Previously I would have to consciously fight the cry response. After T, I would have to consciously allow the response, in order to cry. It just does not happen on its own any more.

But since you have conditions that I might not I have no idea if it would help in your case. Possibly. But there could well be things overriding it... to hazard a guess I would say you'd probably see some improvement, but I wouldn't say T would be something to rely on as an anti-depressant or mood improver or anything of that type. If you still have things making you upset, you're still going to be upset, even if you're not crying.

A guess is good enough. I was just wondering about the tears themselves, the feelings come and go quickly. Thanks!

Quote from: undautri on May 03, 2017, 12:59:08 PM
I was just wondering about the tears themselves, the feelings come and go quickly.

I definitely feel you there. I can be totally past feeling something, like I'm done being sad or angry, but the tears just wont freaking stop. Its like the dam broke or something, LOL.

Quote from: dusty97 on May 06, 2017, 01:35:45 PM
I definitely feel you there. I can be totally past feeling something, like I'm done being sad or angry, but the tears just wont freaking stop. Its like the dam broke or something, LOL.

Too relateable tbh