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Need a Good Cry - possible TMISubmitted by CordeetMente on Tue, 04/15/2008 - 6:30pm.
So it has been a rough past few weeks. At the time of my accident, a few weeks ago, I felt like I needed to cry but in the midst of everything going on I held it in when it was an immediate need and then in the days following decided I was just going to act as if the accident hadn't happened. As there were no real consequences in my life I was just going to move on from it. A few other things have recently occured that have also left me feeling the need to grieve for something. Anyway, in the face of the various disappointments and losses I responded the same way - kind of pushing through and responding with action and not allowing myself the time to actually feel the losses. Instead I was left feeling somewhat manic - constantly moving and producing and reacting to what the new situations demanded. Anyway, the immediacy of the various issues have all waned and I'm left with this awful knot of sadness and emotion deep in my chest which I cannot seem to release. So I guess my question is, what works for you ladies when you are left feeling this way? My go-to-never-fails has always been sex. (Here's the TMI bit of my post.) A good orgasm always seems to be the key to release whatever emotions I have been holding onto. Usually this is a good cry. For years it would through DH off, but it doesn't really seem to phase him now. Anyway in the past few nights I've made serious attempts and while the Os have arrived the tears haven't. I'm at a loss ladies and am beginning to feel desperate to release this sadness. So, any tips or tricks? CordeetMente's blog | login or register to post comments | email this page | printer friendly version
Good luck, mama. You've had a lot lately and maybe having a day just to yourself would help. My favorite place for a good cry is the shower. You'll be in my thoughts, CM. I got a shoulder right here for you, sister. Unload. HUGS to you, C. A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song. - Chinese Proverb After my dad's death, I struggled to go ahead and FEEL. I would cry, but it always felt muffled. To help release it, I started just facing things that reminded me of him --- his house, Louis Armstrong songs, old movies, his work, etc. Being faced full on with things that my memory so closely related to him helped me untangled the mourning and feel that release when I cried. I hope you find your release somewhere. I can only imagine how strained your soul and body are feeling after all you've been dealing with. take a breath cord, hold it for a slow second, sit still, release it. allison said at the seminar she breaths in "willingness", and out "willfulness". you can release this tension on your own, i know it. i'm sorry that it's built up, please don't blame yourself or put unecessary pressure on yourself to even let this out, you'll cry when you're ready. how could you not feel this way? i know what it's like. you're not isolated, you have us! the accident was jarring, and you could have lost your life. thank goddess you are safe, keep telling yourself that. remind yourself that you're safe, every second that you remember too. you're body will begin to feel it, and you're tears will follow. sometimes you have to put some bricks up to survive something scary, and hell, the world asks us/requires/EXPECTS us to on some level. AND it's not fair. i only care about you. you work hard, you're always on the go. there's the everyday pressure that can build up, and the false expectation of how someone is supposed to "act" after a trauma that really doesn't add up. that kind of stuff pisses me off! get angry, get sad, or don't listen to a word that i've said. i mean it. follow your instincts, it brought you to us today, to here and now, it made you post about it. if i were there, i would cook you dinner, clean up, and let you stay in your shower for a long time. i think you would feel safe enough for it to come out then. i love you cords, i'll fight along side you to the death. hearts, d c a fire breathing/green scaled mistress production! I'm biased here, but I believe your muscle memory is holding onto trauma. I'd get some good massage or structural integration work with an emotional/trauma component to it. whatever you go with, be it yoga, massage, acupuncture or even chiropractic, i think it could help. i struggle with holding onto shit, both physically and mentally, and i do find that whenever i work to release what i am holding onto in my body, particularly in the pelvis, tears come. with acupuncture, when she stuck the needles in me and i felt parts of my leg that had been numb for years, tears just flowed. i didn't sob, it just jarred itself loose. this is nothing new for me, i've felt it with yoga too. it takes a while and you have to feel like you're in a safe space, but it can happen. This is very wise advice. I wish I had thought of it. If you choose to go this route you might give the practitioner a heads up that you plan to cry The heart has its reasons whereof Reason knows nothing. it might help. I went through something sort of similar when one of my grandmothers passed away in 2003. I remembered feeling, for months, like there was no time to grieve, no room to grieve, like I was all frozen up inside. Then the fifth Harry Potter book came out, and my favorite character got axed in the end. Something about that relationship resonated with the way my grandmother and I had always related - like we were two like-minded oddballs who stuck together, like it was us against the rest of the world. After reading that book I cried for like five days straight. I second Mamaneen's suggestion - if there's something out there, a book, a movie, something that seems sad to you, check it out. The ancient Greeks were onto something when they used catharsis in theatre to release their emotions. Good luck, mama, and hugs. That accident sounded like some scary shit. "Too weird to live. Too rare to die." - Hunter S. Thompson but it worked for me. growing up, i was taught in no uncertain terms that crying was weakness, and weakness was unaccpetable. so, i didn't cry, um, ever. somewhere in my adolescence, i decided that this wasn't healthy, and i needed to teach myself how to cry. what worked for me was to cry for someone else - it was absolutely emotionally easier for me to sob my heart out at a "china beach" episode than it was to grieve my own shit, so i did, and it helped. in recent years, pregnancy/birth/motherhood just shattered the substantial remains of my stoicism, and i cry all the gotdamn time it seems, but back in the day, a good tearjerker straight outta hollywood was the trick. what's your favorite sad movie? i'd recommend sitting down with it and some popcorn and some tissues and having a go. ps i sometimes sob and shed tears post-O. apparently, this is much more common than i had realized. yay! for emotional release!
"if i pass for other than what i am, do you feel safer?" ~ lani ka'ahumanu dragon knows dragon |
Do this for yourself Corde.
I am definitely going to look into them as soon as I am done with the semester. My sister thinks that once the stress of finals is over that I'll just naturally relax and release it all. I certainly hope so but really do appreciate the help you've offered.
"I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." - Virginia Woolf
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." - Rose F. Kennedy