BLOG 181: CRY

“All these feelings need to be felt. We need to stomp and storm; to sob and cry; to perspire and tremble.” John Bradshaw

How many times did you cry this week? Yes...it’s an odd question but think about it. Did you cry this week? If you didn’t well done, you got through seven days without someone or something making you feel rubbish.

With the exception of those suffering from some kind of hormone imbalance (when I was pregnant I cried when the loo-roll needed changing, when the only comfy shoes didn’t match my outfit and when a kitten went meow) most of us can document with stunning accuracy the times we have been reduced to tears. It’s not something we do easily or with any kind of abandon... it is for most of us an outpouring of extreme emotion. Crying is nature’s valve which is only normally activated when emotional pressure, frustration and grief arrive simultaneously and instant relief is called for.

On Tuesday this week I had a good old fashioned cry. I have to admit it did me a world of good. Once the tears had dried, I felt a surge of restorative power creep through me. “Enough”, I said out loud “Enough now”. I stood up, smoothed down my coat, squared my shoulders and walked calmly back into the fray and dealt with the issues.

It was an odd thing. I walked out of a situation where someone was passive aggressively having a go at me (loudly having a phone conversation with a commissioning editor, not mentioning my name specifically but making it clear to this person that it was me who was letting the side down). I barely hit the street when the tears came.

Crying in the street is the most bizarre experience in England. The English are a kind nation at heart unable to steel their hearts against the suffering of animals, children or anything nominally vulnerable. They give more to charity than any other nation of comparable size... they are uncomfortable with the idea that some must suffer. However running in tandem with this is the fact that the national default setting is ‘Avoid Embarrassment’. So to have a grown woman leaning against a wall with tears pumping down her face is a difficult thing to see for your average English person, who will lower their eyes to the ground and pass by quickly. Eventually though, a gentleman who was happily consuming a coffee in a local cafe could not bear it much longer and left his table and crossed the street to enquire if I had just had a nasty shock and was I going to be ok. English born that I am, I put him at ease (Rule no.1 in England is: Don’t make someone feel uncomfortable), I assured him I was fine and hurried away to a local churchyard where tears were more fitting and continued my emotional breakdown there.

As I said, I caught on to myself, after the release had worked and went back and dealt with the issue. Of course, the perpetrator of situation had calmed by then and all in the garden was rosy from that point on. But it has left me wondering about the restorative power of crying, because although my tears were private (from the person who triggered them), the fact I used this method to free myself for the despair of the passive aggressive attack really and truly helped me. Which is odd as turning on the waterworks has always been viewed by me as a weakness.

It turns out that crying is really good for you.

New York Times reporter Benedict Carey once referred to crying as emotional perspiration. Given that regular sweat has three important jobs to do, lubrication, regulating temperature and removing waste matter, Benedict Carey reckoned that crying works similarly in three ways; it blurs the vision, cools the hurt, and exorcises pain. He claims that with tear filled eyes you have to stop, with outpouring of emotion you have to revaluate and with having done so you get release.

I think he may be right, as I have to admit that having given in to an outpouring of frustration and hurt, I did reset my emotional temperature and negated the refuse dumped on me by the cause. It was not for nothing that the first words I said as emotional peace crept over me sating my tears were “Enough. Enough Now”.

Scientifically, crying has been proven to be fantastic for you. When people are mean to you your manganese level rises. (Bet you never knew you had a manganese level... but pay attention YOU do!). Manganese is a toxin that when an emotional disturbance takes place releases molecules that cause massive feelings of anxiety, nervousness, irritability, fatigue, and aggression which push every other emotion into back pockets of your brain. High manganese levels make you irrational.

Biochemist William Frey found that emotional tears have 24 percent higher albumin protein concentration, than regular tears. Albumin protein concentration is a little tonic the body produces during emotional crying and it transports the toxic molecules that amp up the Manganese level right out of your body. It is this process that powers the surge of peace and feeling of relief after a good old fashioned bawl.

What is really quite scary is that crying is often viewed as a weakness. In actual fact, the reverse is true. Suppressing the urge to weep will increase stress levels, and is well documented as a major contributor to stress aggravated diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart problems, and peptic ulcers – to name but a few.

I’m not a regular reader of Science Digest but I was struck by an article by Ashley Montagu in which she argued that crying fosters community. I think she may have a point. Even here in stiff upper lip England, a gentleman reading his paper and enjoying a cup of coffee saw a woman crying on the opposite side of the street and left his paper and coffee behind to see if he could be of assistance. This was no pick-up; this was the vulnerability of one human touching the humanity of another. There is little like crying to display obvious emotional distress, and in that moment where the man left his pleasure behind to offer help to a stranger... it was because he could empathise. In his words, he thought I had “recently had received distressing news” and wished to help. If that isn’t tears fostering community then I don’t know what is.

I can strongly recommend a big old fashioned bawl. On Tuesday, I was that lady in street with mascara down her cheeks, snot bubbles in her nose, shaking so badly I had to lean against a wall to steady myself. It wasn’t pretty – but it helped.

A stranger showed me kindness and I became strong enough to put one foot before another and walk to the church yard. In the church yard I sat and wailed and let it all out, the distorted feelings of injustice, attack and any other melodrama my amped up Manganese level had created. Then the peace came. The sense of proportion, the realisation that sometimes some people are just mean and they WANT you to feel rubbish and it is NOT all about you... it’s about them and who they are. Then I could calmly look at the issues and decide my culpability and how to fix what was within my power to fix. And once I did that... I could deal.

And I did deal. The article is going to run in her magazine – and it is running the way I wrote it after all.

What happened on Tuesday was not something traumatic at all. But it could have been if I let the conflicts and resentment build up inside the corners of the limbic systems of my brain and certain corners of my heart.

I found crying cathartic.

I let all those little devils out before they wreaked havoc with my nervous and cardiovascular systems. Best of all, having that rather public cry brought me to a place of clarity, strength and peace... it may be ugly (at least when I was doing it), but the experience was proof that what don’t kill you makes you stronger.

So to that editor... THANK YOU. But if the news that you have helped me by being so awful to me upsets you... may I recommend to you a good old fashioned cry?

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