I Don't Cry

I don’t cry. I used to. I used to often. My eyes would flood at the smallest inconvenience and I would allow the tears to pour down my face. I am a sensitive person. I feel in waves. Big, harsh waves of emotion. But I don’t show it. I don’t cry. It takes a lot for me to cry and I don’t mean a big heart-wrenching event. I didn’t cry when she left. I didn’t cry when it was over. I didn’t cry when he broke my heart for the last time. Though it never is the last time, I suppose. No, I mean a big build-up. I like to say for me that crying is sort of a video simulation where a person is walking further toward a cliff with every heart-wrenching event and mild inconvenience in which any other person would cry. Then eventually I walk off the cliff and reset after a mental breakdown. I hate that about myself. When I need to cry, when I want more than anything to cry, I can’t. But when my mental breakdowns happen, when I fall off the cliff, I collapse completely into the hungry sea beneath me. I’ll cry for days in a row. I’ll be an emotional wreck and then the next week I’ll act as if it never happened. I’ll say “Oh that, that was silly. I’m fine now.” Because, after I cry I normally feel better, that's why I hate that I can't cry more. Another thing about crying for me is that I can only really break apart when I am voicing the thoughts in my head to someone else. It is especially rare and difficult for me to cry alone. When I cry you know it is bad. But when I cry alone it is me at my mental worst. That day I cried alone. Sobbing on the bathroom floor. And that is when I knew I wasn’t okay. That was the first time the feeling of overwhelming melancholia remained even after I fell off of my cliff. That was the first time I cried and afterward was unable to say, "Now I feel better."