We hide our tears so we don't upset others, training ourselves not to feel
“Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” I grew up in the 80’s as a latch-key-kid who was sent to my room when I cried until I stopped, who was thrown out of the car to walk home if I fussed, who was left behind while the family went on an outing if I was moody, who was ignored until I could be happy again. Parenting books I read in the 2000s confirmed this was how to teach kids to be emotionally responsible.
I have an image burned into my brain of standing at the front door at age 6, my single mom having gone on a date, and my brothers left in charge. We had bars on our windows and doors to keep my dad from vandalizing our home again, and I stood there gripping the bars with my little hands, waiting for my mom to return. I didn’t know why I was crying or why I couldn’t stop; I was only 6. My brothers ignored me; their little sister always did this. But I also remember they didn’t want to hear it anymore either, like my mom. So they closed the wooden front door on me to mute the noise. My small body was comfortably smashed between the door and the bars, and eventually my crying petered out. But no one opened the door to reward me for stopping. It was like when I was told to go to my room, I was left there but no one came to retrieve me when I stopped. I would gingerly walk out of my room and join the family, and everyone would act as if nothing had happened, my sin of crying forgiven and forgotten. Except I think I had been forgotten even before my crying stopped, since no one remembered to get me. When I think of the door solid against my back and the iron bars pressed into my belly, I can feel it as if it is hugging me even now. It was my private oubliette, where I could self-soothe. Sometimes I put myself there and locked the door to secure it from opening just so I could be held by the doors until my crying stopped. Then I could put on a blank face of “fine” and return to the tribe.
“Don’t cry,”I am still told. The phrase is meant to comfort me but it's really to ease their own anxiety from feelings they can’t handle. “You shouldn’t feel sad. Cheer up, it’s just a little boo-boo” said to children who fall and scrape their knee, to adults laughed at for tripping down the stairs. I dust myself off and pretend I didn’t sprain it, laugh it off like their amusement at my pain didn’t hurt more than the knee. “You should smile more,” men say to me, and I obey so I won’t incur more shame or rejection, knowing they can’t handle anything but pleasantness.
I did it to my own children, once proud of raising my kids the same way I was raised. I didn’t want crocodile tears to manipulate me into giving them something; crying wasn’t something to reward. I was irritated by crying just as I know my own mom was. I rolled my eyes when women were emotional. I thought my husband was weak and out of control when he chronically showed me his pain.
Now I cringe to remember so many scenes where I was overwhelmed by my children’s emotions because I had no tolerance for my own. I had disowned that part of me. I laid them in bed to cry it out, sent them to their rooms in time-out to self-soothe, kicked them out of the car if they bickered, and repeated the words I was raised on “don’t cry or I’ll give you something to cry about.”
I was not clever; I was cruel. I was well-meaning, but intent didn't negate the impact. I lost access to those emotions when I was 6. I stopped having something to cry about. But now I cry; I grieve over my unshed tears; I grieve over the tears dammed up in my children; I grieve over collective unacknowledged pain that hangs in the air we breathe.
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For the last two weeks, I was weepy for no reason I could understand. Or at least no reason I was willing to face. I would be chopping vegetables at the counter, or walking to my car, or closing the door behind my last dance student…and I would suddenly sob for a minute, and then it would stop. I didn’t feel an ache in my chest like the heartbreak of ending a relationship or the death of a loved one; I didn’t feel anything. What was this burst of tears that turned on and off like a faucet? Then a conflict with my partner triggered my growing agitation into a full-blown rage. Afterwards, I cried nonstop for two days. And I was so exhausted, I couldn’t move. But finally, I regained some strength, physically and emotionally. My increasing headaches stopped, my body quit trembling, and I could relax into peace, even if the problem itself hadn't disappeared. I hadn’t experienced a nervous breakdown in years. I’d forgotten this is what happens when I try to share my pain but am denied and told not to cry.
Oh my children, your tears are safe with me. Crying is the way to ease that pain. Let me be here to witness it, and cry as much as you need. I was wrong. You don’t need a reason to cry, and it is welcome here.
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