Big Girls Do Cry

My recent bout of blue mood has me a bit worried. I am not concerned that I'm sliding into depression. After figuring out the root of my recent blahs, I'm back on more stable footing. But I am worried about the future. I am worried about what happens when my daughter figures out that I am a crier.

I am a very tearful person. I cry in response to a wide range of emotional stimuli, from sadness and frustration, to anger, nostalgia, and that particular annoying-but-compelling tug on the heartstrings that occurs during the string and woodwind-heavy moments of certain television programs and movies. This last reason for tears is incredibly embarrassing to admit, but it is inescapable. The sappy music gets me every time. I sat through the all but unwatchable Robin Williams vehicle What Dreams May Come, practically sobbing the whole time. I was not emotionally connecting with this piece of trash, and I kept thinking "this movie sucks, why am I crying so much?" Near the end of the movie I realized it was the music that had opened the floodgates and was keeping them flowing through the whole, sucky movie.

I know that many people cry (and cry easily). I can imagine readers commenting, "Me too! I cry ALL the time." "I'm the soggiest, sappiest, cryingest girl I know!" But I'm betting you don't cry as easily or as much as I do. I have cried in front of every single boss I've ever had. (did I mention I cry when I'm nervous or frustrated?) My friends, family, carpool, coworkers, strangers on the street - all have seen me cry. A person's tone can make me cry. I once watched a coworker chastise an administrative assistant and had to walk away to hide my tears. If I'm hoping someone can meet me for a walk and coffee and it doesn't work out, I well up. Ada wakes up after a lousy 20 minute nap? Tears flow. It happened Sunday. I cry in public, in private, with strangers and close friends. If you are sad and tell me about your woes, I'll cry foryou. Really, sometimes I think I should rent myself out to appear at funerals. A designated mourner, with business cards: "crier for hire".

At some point I looked up lability, and found a reference to involuntary emotional expression disorder. It freaked the crap out of me, in part because it is associated with ALS, which my grandmother had and which sucks spikey dog turds. Realistically, I don't think I'm developing ALS - I have been like this for as long as I can remember (and I don't have uncontrolled laughing fits), but let's just say that I cry a lot more than most people. But I do cry easily, and often tear up when I don't feel the level of emotion that would warrant tears. That is one of the most frustrating parts - that I cry when I don't feel sad, angry or frustrated. But something in my brain seems to have a hair-trigger for tears, going off easily and without warning.

Crying is something I have struggled with for a long time. I went to a therapist to see if she could help me rein it in. Why do I well up even when I don't feel consciously upset? How can I stop doing it? She didn't have much to offer, nor did my mother's psychologist friend, who suggested I pinch myself when I felt tears coming. Despite laughing at the suggestion, when desperate enough I tried it. It never worked, because by the time I felt the sting the tears were already there. The suggestion to "think of something happy" was so ludicrous that I didn't even try. If the tears are PRE-conscious, how can thinking something post-tear help stave them off? Or maybe she meant I should constantly be thinking of fluffy bunnies frolicking in a field of heather?

Many people, especially women, think they are unusually easily moved to tears, but mostly such declarations are like people telling me how bad their vision is. My myopia correction is -11.5, plus I'm astigmatic. My eyes are way worse than yours, trust me (unless you are my friend KJ, in which case I recognize our sisterhood of the crappy eyes.) Your eyes may be imperfect, but mine suck. Comparisons of tearfulness feel like this, with people saying how much they cry, and then me realizing that I still cry way more than they do.

In the past, my tearfulness was just my own problem. But now I have a daughter and I worry how my damp response will impact her. What will it mean to see mom cry so much? Will she resent my behavior, think (like a male friend once admitted to me) that I am trying to manipulate people with my flow? Will she think this is normal and purposefully emulate me? Since my tears are so instantaneous, so unplanned, I don't know how to keep her from experiencing them. I wonder already if her baby tantrums are expressions of her experience seeing me cry.

I know we all worry that our idiosyncrasies and interactional quirks will impact our children. I also know that being a crier is no worse than being so emotionally battened down that I can't express my love for my child. Biking with friends one evening last week we were talking about how we express frustration and anger. Al said she grew up avoiding conflict and pushing down any negativity. It took years with a passionate, volatile partner to be comfortable expressing any negative emotion. G talked about stoicism and buddhism and their goal of a disengagement from all emotional response. He described the idea that one could let emotion and experience flow over and not through you. I don't know that (even with meditation and other practice) that I could stem the flow of my physical response to emotional stimuli. Even more, I am not sure I really want that. I want to feel, and I doubt that I could train myself from a physical response without training away the emotional response. Even though I don't always notice the connection between the two, I believe that whatever triggers the tears is just a more sensitive response to outside stimuli than that noticed by my conscious mind.

I recognize that I can not change this part of me. But how do I deal with my fears about how this will impact Ada? Do other people worry about this kind of thing, whether it be tears or some other personal quirk that maybe seemed harmlessly odd or interesting before kids, but now takes on larger meaning? I'd love to hear your thoughts. And don't worry, it won't make me cry (at least not more than I already do).