Is Crying Weak?

Of course not. Crying is a natural reaction to a lot of situations, the physical act of an emotion (or a few emotions, if you’re an Aries/Cancer).

But for a long time and still today, I’ve felt so much shame around crying. Its not just the fact that I hate how I look when I cry, which is a big part of it – like, even after I’ve stopped crying, YOU CAN STILL TELL. Puffy, red-rimmed eyes, you can hear it in my voice. Just an absolute mess.

While I would never say, “I don’t cry”, because everyone does, I just don’t like the idea of anyone who isn’t my best friend or really close family to see me like that.

Allowing someone to see my face when I’m crying puts me into such a vulnerable position, almost like I’m giving someone power over me. I know people can’t weaponize emotions, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried.

I tend to find myself in these positions where someone targets me just to say they’ve cracked me open. My ex did that and I’m still healing from that trauma, my ex-boss attempted to as well and even though I haven’t seen her in months, she still manages to talk about me.

Call it the trauma or experience, or a lack of resources to really get in touch with that side, but I can’t bring myself to trust anyone enough to be that open with anyone else.

Maybe thats naive, but I’d rather play it safe and not let someone see that, then give yet another person the opportunity to use it against me.