[Theta Z]

I very much need to cry, big time, in the worst way. For about a year.
And simply I cannot. And it's killng me. I really need to cry.

It's not a matter of dried up tear ducts, no.
I can feel my upper chest sort of make a whimper and I feel "all set" in my facial muscles , eyes, nose and all ready to cry. But it's always a dud.

Today on purpose I watched both Casa Blanca and Gone With the Wind.
I know myself to blubber bigtime watching those always in the past.
It was painful today, i.e. the physiological and emotional urges were all present.
Yet I am incapable of crying. It really is an aching hurt.

I'm suspecting lithium has become the culprit for many maladies for me.
I've read where it does deaden feeling.

Ts don't take this seriously.

Anyone with any similar experience, insight, wisdom? If so, thanks.

[mrsD]

Try moving up to better tear jerkers...

Simon Birch is one mega tear jerker. It has many long emotional rolls in it. You could test your "feelings" with it. Touching, funny and moving to a mega box of Kleenex crying potential.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124879/?ref_=nv_sr_1

I also liked The Bear, made in France...with no dialog...it is a purely empathetic movie...it would test your empathy quotient.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095800/

Both of these movies are "sleepers"... because they are not well known, but I found them very moving and beautiful.

I don't cry much either, but a good movie will really get me going.

There is always, Bambi. Or Old Yeller.... guaranteed to open those floodgates!

I don't think I cried at Gone with the Wind... I was pretty fed up with Scarlett by then.

[St George 2013]

I have the opposite problem....I can cry at the drop of a hat or anything else

I avoid sad movies because of this....lol

How about Steel Magnolias ...... Sally Field losing her daughter was just a tear jerker for me.....but I loved the funny parts too.

The women in that movie can also provide faith and strength to anyone who needs it.

Debi from Georgia

[Theta Z]

Thanks. Good suggestions all. However movies aren't going to do it for me, as it has been so for about a year. Something more fundamental, like perhaps the lithium?
Thanks again.

[boo_♥]

Ok. I had a more complete answer than this, but my phone sucks so this one will be a little shorter. Go be somewhere alone (preferably in bed, in the dark) and go through all of you're worst memories and think of what you could have done differently. That's my short answer. Though be warned, it could screw you up in other ways (make you depressed). That's what I do if I really need to cry but haven't been able to.

[ginnie]

I wish in a way I had your problem. All I have to do is turn on the news, and it is so devastating as a rule, that I cry. Two hundred children were abducted from their school bus, several hundred more, may be lost at sea. Between the shootings, and horrible events taking place internationally, this is reason for all of us to shed that tear.
I also think of the folks right here Theta, those in pain, physically or mentally. Some of the posts break a persons heart.
I find the difficulty in that I do cry, because there is so little I can do but pray.

I read a book last year, Called "The Dove Keepers" by Alice Hoffman. I cried for days. It takes you into the lives of the people who held out at Masada. You are drawn into their lives, and you see how they end. I had trouble reading the end of it at all. That is a book that will stay in my mind and heart as long as I live.

I wish you peace Theta, and that tears that are healing may come to you. ginnie

[mrsD]

I often cry or at least tear up during some news broadcasts too.
The SandyHook shootings were especially painful for me.
CNN Heros segments often trigger me too.

I sometimes have to censor my TV viewing. It seems to go in waves though. Sometimes I get rather immune to it all.

I also used to cry reading the paper...but I don't read newspapers any more.

[ginnie]

That is why I had to get rid of the TV. It wasn't just the money. So much sorrow around us, and here we sit helpless to do anything at all. I suppose that Is why I come here , to offer what comfort can be had over the internet and NT. I already know you hear of others pain on this site, or you would not put the effort in, to help those in need. You have a deep knowledge of medicine (Must have been in the field) and you have compassion. May God bless all of us, those who cry too much, and the ones that can't. People need people to exist. ginnie

[Lara]

Theta, you said that the physiological and emotional urges were all present. If it was the Lithium "dulling" your feelings, then I don't think you would feel that way. I find it interesting that tears can give so much relief. I think that scientists have actually tested emotion based tears and found they differ in their make-up from our tears from peeling onions etc.. Really interesting.

I was just talking with someone a couple of days ago about the fact that when an old relative of mine died many years ago, I didn't cry. I wasn't sad. I wasn't angry. I didn't actually feel anything. She was not always a good person. I often wondered if I'd over thought it all and had just worked through it all and by the time her life was over, I just had no feelings left. It's not as if they're inside my head somewhere just hiding. They're truly gone.

So, maybe actually trying to cry is not the way to go about it.

Recently my daughter and I visited a Buddhist temple in the hills near where I live. I am not a religious person, but I do have an interest in learning everything I can about everything I guess. lol

Anyway, we sat in a meditation session and afterwards I spoke to the Nun about some particular issues regarding actual meditation techniques and she suggested that I was thinking with my mind and forgetting to think with my heart and that I could learn in my meditation practice to bring that "light" down more to the centre, to the heart. I thought it was very interesting and true. I do tend to overthink things.

So, maybe you're trying too hard to release those actual tears? Maybe they'll just flow when you least expect?

[Theta Z]

Thank you each one and all here. Truly.

Yes, I too was even just last year still one of you who cried at tv news, tragedies around us near and far, tv biographies, etc etc.
Oh to still have that aliveness to feel and to emote.
This deadwoodness is not a life.

And it is but one piece of the brokenness.
And yes, I have thought of the chemical makeup of tears and that in fact they may truly be healing. I remember, what a cleansing afterglow.

Much appreciation to you each here. It means so much.
I am otherwise way too much alone with all of this.