This skill is incredibly easy for me because I cry about everything. Movies, tv shows, sad stories, paper cuts, acting out arguments too dramatically in the shower….. everything.
I am just a mess of emotions at all times and I’m sensitive (A trait that my mother, brother, and I share making family movie nights very amusing for my step-dad when I was growing up. I guess there’s nothing like watching Andy give Woody, Buzz, and all his other toys to the young neighbor and then turning to see 2 teenagers and their mom bawling their eyes out).
Lately I’ve noticed that I clearly have some untapped emotions because there are times where I start laughing at something and then that laughing becomes hysterical and then suddenly I’m a sad crying mess on the floor…. I haven’t quite figured out what all that’s about yet but I’m sure that the continuation of my anti-depressants and therapy will get to the bottom of it.
But back to the coping skill!
I let myself cry. It wasn’t a big dramatic scene and I wasn’t miserable. I was shopping with my mother and telling her about a commercial I’d seen that I had never found funny in the past but, suddenly, in that moment it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I could barely get through telling her about it and she had to turn away because I was crouched down in the middle of an isle with tears in my eyes and she was afraid that she’d start laughing too and wet herself. It was the kind of laughing that makes you struggle to breath, and you’re crying, and you can’t get your words out and it’s so contagious that everyone with you laughs too.
My eyes were watering and it turned to crying but my tears were happy and I couldn’t remember the last time I had genuinely laughed that hard at something. It was the good kind of crying that I want to do more of in the future.
Anxious Brunette 