People assume that being a psychologist means I have my emotional life figured out. And honestly, in a lot of ways I do — just not the way they’d expect. There’s an unspoken assumption that we’re supposed to model vulnerability, sit with discomfort, and feel our feelings in real time, openly, and without apology. I do most of that. But crying in front of people? That one has always eluded me.
To be clear- it’s not that I don’t feel things deeply- far from it. I can intuitively sense how someone is feeling by noticing the slightest wrinkle in their forehead, the briefest pause in a sentence, or the teensiest octave change in their voice. Joy spills out of me easily; I tear up at sentimental commercials; I lose myself laughing hysterically with my sisters. And don’t get me started on injustice. If someone I love has been wronged- I have no problem accessing my anger and taking a stand. But sadness- that emotion I have to meet on my own terms.
When I’m deeply sad — and other people are around — my feelings get stuck. Instinctually, automatically, I compartmentalize. The feeling goes into a locked box, shelved for later, and I keep functioning like a perfectly effective robot. I’ve done this for as long as I can remember. When my little sister cried as I left for school in kindergarten, I told myself, “Just get on the bus and you won’t have to hear her.” When I said goodbye at the airport to my long-distance boyfriend (now husband), he’d be tearing up and I’d go oddly gruff and formal.
I’m not suggesting this is the ideal way to respond to sadness- but I’ve made peace with the fact that this is how I’m wired. My loved ones, too, have come to understand and accept this about me. If I’m sad in a group, they’re not going to see me fall apart. I’ll be in full all-business mode. I’m not rejecting their care or pretending I don’t hurt — I just tend to process sadness privately, on my own terms.
The problem is that life rarely gives me a moment to fall apart. Sometimes something upsetting happens and I’m pulled straight into the next obligation — a meeting, carpool duty, or putting my kids to bed — and the feeling gets stuck and stays stuck.
I know that leaving them there has a cost to me- just as it does for all humans. Unprocessed emotions don’t just quietly wait. They build. Stress hormones accumulate, sleep gets disrupted, and that heavy, dull ache of unexpressed grief starts to color everything — throwing off my patience and my energy, like I’m dragging around a weight no one else can see.
So over the years, I’ve developed a few go-to strategies for letting my sad feelings out — for cracking the locked box open on purpose.
I’ll reread a text conversation with someone I’ve lost. Or I’ll pull up a gut-wrenching scene from a movie or TV show. These days I’m drawn to A Man on the Inside (all the scenes about loss and dementia). In my teens and twenties- the Bette Midler classic Beaches did the trick. Something about encountering someone else’s grief- and connecting to it- gives mine permission to surface. Something shifts. And then the waves come: the sobs and the heaving, until I’m a total snotty mess who can’t open her eyes they’re so puffy.
At first I’m crying only about someone else’s experience. And then, a few minutes in, I’m crying about my own— longing for what’s gone, aching over what’s changed, grieving what I couldn’t say or do or fix. When it’s over I’m completely wrung out, emptied, exhausted, and after some time- at peace.
I know others who do versions of this too. Playing the same song on repeat until it breaks something open. Looking through old photos. Rereading a painful section of a meaningful book. Driving past a place that holds dear memories.
It turns out there’s a biological reason a good cry feels so relieving. Our need for release isn’t just emotional — it’s physical. Our nervous systems hold onto unexpressed emotion in the body. When we finally allow ourselves to cry, shake, or release a long-held breath, we’re giving that stored tension somewhere to go. The shuddering exhale after a good cry, the way your shoulders drop when the sobbing slows — these are signs of your body completing a stress cycle, moving through activation and back toward calm. Emotion isn’t just a thought or a sensation — it’s something that lives in the body and needs a way out.
So- What’s your version of the sad movie or old text thread? Most of us need a way to crack the box open sometimes. If you haven’t found yours yet, it might be worth looking for it- because crying isn’t falling apart- it’s often how we put ourselves back together.
