Crying While Male

As seen on @Threads.

Society tells men to "open up" and be vulnerable.
Experience tells men that if they cry, they lose respect.
Which side is right?

These statements aren't even in opposition. And the unpacking of the topic isn't even specific to men.

You can open up and be vulnerable without crying. Sharing your thoughts, knowing you risk being misunderstood and judged, is a form of vulnerability.

You can cry without being open. The act leaves you vulnerable and open about what you feel without having to be open about why.

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.
~Theodore Parker

Keep in mind that your own self-respect is most important. Respect from others certainly has its uses. Chief among those is in calibrating the beliefs that underlie your own self-respect. Think long and hard before caring too much about the respect of other people.

Now let's get over water coming out of our eyes. People's eyes water when they are tired. They leak when irritated by dust or when someone is cutting onions. They can also leak in response to particularly strong emotions, whether happy or sad.

We focus on this last category from a male shame perspective and with good reason. The problem is that the reason has gotten lost. Crying itself is not the problem. It's all about the why and the situation.

Emotional regulation is a key part of being a functional human being. Crying is a powerful tool for this.

• It activates the rest, relax, and restore nervous system, triggering the release of hormones like endorphins and oxytocin.
• It helps to improve mood by cooling the brain.
• It helps us encode and remember meaningful information. This could be how someone hurt us, or what it felt like to win the Super Bowl.

We are hardwired to respond to the crying of others. In social situations, it can elicit social support, empathy, and bonding. This support helps us regulate our emotions. This is also where crying can become problematic. This is non-voluntary emotional and intellectual labor.

Your crying influences the emotional state of people who witness it. This, in turn, prompts them to evaluate the situation. It could be a legitimate need, or it could be an attempt to control someones actions through emotional manipulation.

It could be an overreaction or a display of excessive weakness. We can all remember a childhood meltdown that wasn't justified. Being unable to rise to the occasion as an adult isn't a good look.

Quite the opposite of a release and relief of negative emotion, it can be associated with wallowing. Excessively focusing on a negative aspect of something and refusing to deal with it.

You never know what someone else is going through, so be kind.

When we evaluate a situation, especially involving strangers, we don't know the full why. At best, we can guess based on appearances. Even internally, the full reason we cry can be hazy. When a specific event causes our emotional cup to overflow, the unprocessed feelings that left us near capacity before the event are also to blame.

There are outcomes that could be worse than losing others' respect. If you ignore or suppress your emtions you risk sadness turning into depression or anger. If you cut off your ability to feel, you lose a source of potential power and vibrance in life.

Sometimes shit happens: your eyes produce fluid when you'd rather they didn't. When it does, there are three things to keep in mind.

• Start with compassion for yourself. You are human and by nature imperfect.
• Spend some time thinking about the full why, including your emotional state leading into a situation, your orientation towards it, and the actual triggering event. You may find a way to grow from it.
• Have understanding if others judge you negatively. Don't take it personally, and don't assume that judgment is permanent or has any real impact you should be worried about.

Being open and vulnerable helps us work together through tough things. Crying is a tool we have with many purposes, including regulating physical and emotional pain. Be proactive. Find the right audience and time for meeting needs before a crisis hits. That's not work you put on strangers if you can avoid it.

~T