How often do you cry?

[pixieness]

I'm interested to see how often INTPs cry.

I recently looked up average times people cry within a month and most studies were around 3-4 times for women and 1 for men.

I cry about two times a day, maybe more, and I thought it was common to do so and then slowly realised it's not so. I never cry because of small things like watching movies or listening to sad songs. It's not that I feel sorry for myself either. I think it's the anger which triggers the crying, which is mostly caused by social disgust and a constant feeling of not being filled by anything. Like a giant void which whatever you do does not fill. You know?

Everyone tells you to be positive, but nobody tells you how. Tell me how, you intelligent people. By the way, you can answer the main question of this thread and ignore the ramble.

Here's a cat because I like cats:

 

[Ribald]

I cried yesterday because I saw a performance I really loved on The Voice. I'd say I cry about once a week, and it is 99% of the time because I was so impressed by something it made me cry tears of admiration.

 

[Jennywocky]

It depends. There are times when I feel more emotional and times when I feel less (and not associated with monthly swings -- I'm talking general periods of life where I feel more attached and engaged, and times when I feel less attached and thus less swayed emotionally).

There have been times I've cried maybe a few times in a month, other months where I don't cry at all.

Typically nowadays if I cry, it comes from one of two things: (1) I'm watching a TV or movie with something that resonates with me or (2) I haven't eaten and when blood sugar drops, I can get weepy sometimes.

If I get severely stressed about something and have no way to express it, on occasion I'll cry. Once in the last year, I remember going into the bathroom at work and crying momentarily because I was upset about a situation here and couldn't find a way to resolve it. But that's pretty rare.

I cry about two times a day, maybe more, and I thought it was common to do so and then slowly realised it's not so. I never cry because of small things like watching movies or listening to sad songs. It's not that I feel sorry for myself either. I think it's the anger which triggers the crying, which is mostly caused by social disgust and a constant feeling of not being filled by anything. Like a giant void which whatever you do does not fill. You know?

Everyone tells you to be positive, but nobody tells you how. Tell me how, you intelligent people.

What exactly are you angry at? Obviously there's a situation in your life triggering the tears of frustration, and once you resolve it in some way, your stress will lessen. That's how I get "positive" -- by thinking of a way in which to change my circumstance so that I will no longer have a reason to cry. I don't see a point in being "positive" in general just to not be stressed, unless I'm in a situation I truly cannot change; positive attitudes for their own sake are just band-aids. If you're upset, it's a signal to you that something needs to be fixed, not ignored.

 

[Puffy]

hum, I'm actually unable to cry properly. Whenever I feel the need to by the time a tear gets down my face I'll sneeze compulsively and find I can't muster any more. Remember reading the biological reason for that somewhere, but I forget.

Otherwise, haven't properly cried in about 8 years. Generally my emotional life seems to stay around an even centre, with little in terms of big swings in either direction. But that's just how I process things. I'd like to experience more but also somewhat suspect I probably store up a lot -- I'm quite emotionally guarded around others and wouldn't want to deal with the fallout.

 

[deadpixel]

I hardly ever cry, and times when im supposed to cry like lets say at a funeral or something like that, I dont, and ill think something might be wrong with me. Then the smallest insignificant thing can make me shed a tear, but never SOB. Its really strange

 

[Lot]

I cry easily from anime and sad or moving scenes in movies. Not like complete weeping. But the tears they do a come. I cried when I got my dog put down, and again with my cat. That was weeping.

In all reality I don't cry all that often. Unless I'm watching an excess of sad things. Although I recently laugh myself to tears.

 

[Ex-User (8886)]

The last crying was about 1-2 years ago. I am often sad, but it's really hard for me to cry. Tears coming only when something hurt my eye.

 

[Anktark]

Around 2-3 times a year maybe if the crying from laughter doesn't count. If it does, 2-3 times a month.

 

[Pyropyro]

I rarely do heavy crying especially that my life and family are a bit stable lately. I do occasionally moved to tears by good performances though.

 

[NormannTheDoorman]

When I don't blink for a long time.











Couple of nights ago I cried for the following reasons.


Obama is president, Norway isn't a world super power, and I'm not the ruler of the world.

It was something similar to that..

 

[Hawkeye]

I very rarely cry, but today I was reduced to the fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably when upon returning home I discovered my dog lying peacefully in a slumber he'll never awaken from.

 

[Architect]

As often as I can. Feels good. Unfortunately doesn't happen all that often.

 

[nanook]

1 or 2 times per year, the full extent of my past and future failure becomes conscious to me. but then i fall right back into happy delusions about being in control of it all.

crying for movies doesn't count as crying in my book. happens though.

 

[TimeAsylums]

As often as I can. Feels good. Unfortunately doesn't happen all that often.

x9000

just talked about this yesterday

hum, I'm actually unable to cry properly

I very rarely cry

1 or 2 times per year

^ ^ ^

//where da Fi mane

 

[Spirit]

There is a very clear hormonal connection between the giacomo gland and the brains limbic system associated with emotion. Stifling the bodies need to cry in emotionally difficult situations is unhealthy.

 

[The Gopher]

^ and because of that I sometimes force myself to cry even when not upset.

 

[Brontosaurie]

lately once or twice per week on average

previously never

 

[redbaron]

Last time I cried was about 8 months ago I think. Before that it had been almost two years, when my cat got hit by a car. I held her the entire trip to the emergency centre, but I didn't end up crying until I'd given her to the nurses there. When I went to say goodbye where they'd put her, it was when I first realised I'd probably not see her again - since it was 3AM and no surgery could be done, we had no idea if she had internal bleeding or anything. We just knew she was bleeding badly from a mangled leg/tail. I also first noticed that I was covered in her blood at that point, which is when I first started crying. Anyway she survived.

I don't hold back tears, but I don't feel the need to cry very often. I had to hold back laughter in a cinema recently, because the way everyone was wailing at the sad part of the movie was cracking me up.

 

[Variform]

So far we have:

A lot : 2
Average: 2
Rare : 15

I can't remember crying between 2001 roughly and the end of 2013. The last months I cried plenty. Tears don't come easily for me. It may be weird but I'd like to cry desperately, cause I feel that way, but it just won't come out. I think it would be a good release. But even that is not permitted for me.

Above numbers include me.

 

[EditorOne]

More lately, but I've been trying to let it happen. Previously I could go several years without crying. Like Hawkeye, the death of one of our dogs set me off a few months ago, and it was crying based on pure sadness. I think that for a lot of people, INTP or other, crying isn't consistently sadness related, but simply the physical device any extreme emotion takes as a handy outlet for expression and purging.
But I still don't like it.

 

[The Void]

0

 

[kris]

I get misty-eyed at sentimental movies/ performances, but I've never managed to have a tear actually fall from that.

With regard to real life, the last time I cried was when my first hamster died. I was around twelve, so that was nineteen years ago. I feel things and whatnot, but it just doesn't come out in tears ever.

I never really felt much catharsis from crying that I can recall, though I do understand that's how it works for many. I deal with feelings by putting things into perspective much more than outward expression.

 

[Jennywocky]

I had the "brief cry jag" last night -- it was totally because I was just really stressed in lots of areas in my life and kind of the "body purge" approach, my body wanted to alleviate stress. I didn't plan it, it came out of nowhere and hit me for about 15 seconds or so, then stopped.

 

[Methodician]

I almost never cry, even when things get really sad. At a recent funeral I felt really awkward because everyone was constantly sobbing and I only cried a total of maybe 15 minutes that day. Those around me literally spent like 5-7 hours sobbing and complained of eye problems and systemic puffiness I could not understand.

Odd thing is, when my girlfriend cries I often shed a few tears too. Maybe just mirror neurons... It's not like I'm crying right along with her, but I do cry a little and it often comes as a shock since much of the time I don't resonate with her grief. I just care for her and want disparately for her to be happy and jovial so it upsets me when I can't "fix" her...

 

[Variform]

To cry with a girlfriend. Pure blissful divinity, heaven on Earth. Every tear is a drop of gold. To hug her, embrace her with four arms and tell her you love her and that it will be alright, that you are there for her is what makes life worth living.

I wish I had such tears.

 

[Josteen]

People cry when they are in a frustration, a condition when they know or sometimes don't know about what they wanted and the drive to get out of that situation is so overwhelming yet the person cannot or was unable to think of anyway or do anything in their power to change what they want to be changed, out of reaction and outwitted by the situation, the person reacts by crying, which is a useful reaction on the situation because it decrease stress,pain and relieve the mind of the thoughts.
Crying is how your own self tries to comfort itself when it felt powerless in a certain condition, there is nothing wrong in crying and there's also nothing wrong when you cry less often than others.
Its not the crying that have to be changed

 

[Polaris]

Lately about once every few months. Usually tears of frustration more than anything, like Josteen pointed out. Once I cry, I never really know quite what I'm crying over. My emotions confuse me.

Before recent, I could never cry. I wasn't in touch with my emotions due to something I can only put down to some sort of early trauma. I was numb. It was comfortable.

Then I woke up and realised there were other people, and that these people affect me.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

I only cry in times of accute crisis.

One time i cried when a love relationship has ended,
the other time when i was wrongfully accused of a misdeed and i could not believably defend myself from false accusations.
(And i felt deeply hurt for the accusant being able to think of me in this context,
because i thought he should have known me better by that time, having spent five years together.)
The last time i cried was when i had a nervous breakdown caused by multi-factorial stressors.

When my dog died, i was terribly sad, but i did not cry, i was just very sad for three years.

 

[Hawkeye]

I only cry in times of accute crisis.

One time i cried when a love relationship has ended,

the other time when i was wrongfully accused of a misdeed and i could not believably defend myself from false accusations.
(And i felt deeply hurt for the accusant being able to think of me in this context,
because i thought he should have known me better by that time, having spent five years together.)

The last time i cried was when i had a nervous breakdown caused by multi-factorial stressors.

I can totally relate to that. When I was a younger, I was accused of strangling a child at school. I was pulled out of my class and publicly accused in front of all the other kids. At first, I thought it was some sort of test or example, but no... they were very, very serious.

For the following two weeks, I was given military grade interrogations where the head of the school who would yell at me from about a foot away. She would demand reasons for why I did it and how could I possibly do such a thing.

I've never cried so much in my life. I didn't do it and there was no way to prove I didn't. It later transpired that the "strangled boy" had had a nightmare in which I strangled him (this was triggered from a fight that never took place).

I received no apology and was mentally altered from the experience.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Hehe, sounds familiar.
One time a girl had a crush on me, and i explained to her that my interests in her were purely platonic.
Her love turned to hate and bitterness.
She continued to take every opportunity to to harass and torment me for a few years.
I could not understand that, it was a bit sad, but not enough to cry.
One day, when i was with another girl, that bitter girl reported to the teacher that i had slapped her face.
This was totally ridiculous, i would never slap anyone.
Since i was together with the other girl the entire day, she could witness on my behalf, but i can imagine how it would have turned out, if the circumstances were not in my favour.
It's totally riddling to me why one would invent false accusations,
i just can't understand what goes on in the head of someone who initiates that.
(And i wonder how those people can look in the mirror without disgust...)

 

[Polaris]

^When I was nine, my fanatically religious grandmother accused me of stealing her earrings. I was utterly astounded at this accusation, and I could do nothing to defend myself.

She started telling me that God would condemn me and that I would receive punishment. She went on and on. I remember thinking if there really was a God, he would not punish someone innocent. What hurt though, was the brutal fact that someone I had trusted suddenly turned on me with such vehement distrust when they had absolutely no reason for it.

The next day she told me she had found the earrings. No word of apology. I was deflated, not even relieved. Like Hawkeye, I had from that day a completely different outlook on the world, although his experience would probably have been a lot more traumatic.

 

[Variform]

Hehe, sounds familiar.
One time a girl had a crush on me, and i explained to her that my interests in her were purely platonic.
Her love turned to hate and bitterness.
...
i just can't understand what goes on in the head of someone who initiates that.
(And i wonder how those people can look in the mirror without disgust...)

Do you think that her reaction is linked to the way you handled the girl? Could you have expressed yourself to her better, so love didn't turn to hate?

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Do you think that her reaction is linked to the way you handled the girl? Could you have expressed yourself to her better, so love didn't turn to hate?

I was thinking about that at the time.
I had a few tries, always calm and friendly.
I guess her mode of thought was
"If he does not want me, no one else should have him in return",
or something along those lines.
Female logic can be puzzling sometimes.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Some people brush it off, others are impacted, but eventually overcome it and others develop social anxiety.

 

[Etheri]

I've had points where I felt genuinely sad and wanted to cry, should have crield but didn't. This didn't occur when I was younger, but now I just can't cry easily at all, especially due to sadness.

I do sometimes cry when someone angers me, and I can get emotional on movies / music / scenes to the point of crying when emotionally vulnerable (which in my case is staying up longer than 24 hours).

I know it's a prejuidice, but for some reason I associate crying in public with arbitrary emotional rollercoaster people...

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Well, since it's hard-wired into our behavioural panoply, it must have a function.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1995563/?report=classic

 

[Hawkeye]

Babies cry in minor chord voicings.

 

[BigApplePi]

So that's two: Hawkeye and Polaris who've had this experience. I got no apology for mine. (I believe I told one story about my experience on this very forum.)

So now the question is how can my bitterness and anger be assuaged? Whatever the answer is, it seems like a loss on innocence on my part: someone I trusted has lost my trust. I am now responsible for my own defense even if accused of guilt and I'm innocent.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

I think it depends on what specifically was targeted.

 

[OrLevitate]

I often go years without crying. I'm uncertain as to whether I'm Fi or Ti though so I'm no help with your research of INTPs.

 

[Variform]

I was thinking about that at the time.
I had a few tries, always calm and friendly.
I guess her mode of thought was
"If he does not want me, no one else should have him in return",
or something along those lines.
Female logic can be puzzling sometimes.

I understand it I think. There is a coupling between the depth of your desire and the difficulty in accepting the impossible.

You feel so much love and yet it is rejected. Personally I find it one of the great human tragedies, that we as sentient beings with all our psychology and history and accomplishments would be a naked ape type creature with the ability to love, to create art and to be altruistic, but that we also have a possibility of experiencing unrequited love.

Lately I have been considering this. Unrequited love is a form of grief that ends up in regret, which is the most bitter and sour pain a person can have. It is easier to lose a child in a car crash or from disease because then you get closure. But unrequited love that is not dealt with in terms of grief relief, that is to say, dealt with through grieving that leads to coming to terms with it, is worse than anything else. Because you cannot go back in time to try again.

Love not returned is the worst thing you don't want to inflict upon another.

So I get the girl. You love someone dearly but the feeling is not mutual. And yet the feelings are pure and deserve to be responded to in kind. The problem is the other, who doe snot feel the same, but the love as natural human feeling needs necessarily to connect, you see, to anyone. In the moment however there is only the object of desire.

And so it becomes a case of entitlement. The object, you, in this case, is not available and so the entitlement issue gets focused on you. 'If you would only see how true my feelings are, then you would respond in kind'. Since that is not happening, your motivation must be less than true, it must be evil and hateful.

So then the girl will feel rejected and spiteful, because yo are withholding love deliberately where she is entitled to receive what you withhold. And so the very passion with its great energy value will turn into spite and hate with the same energy value.

There will be grief, but it cannot be dealt with and so there is regret that the feelings are not returned. Nothing begets its reflection so much as hate. And so the girl had no choice but to act as she did, it was her only relief, to attack you, hurt you and in doing so, grieve and grief, so she could overcome you.

This is one of the saddest of human experiences and for many it leads to suicide. And I know this from personal experience, I have had a suicidal depression because of unrequited love. That was 14 years ago and now it is back again.

The universe should have been made such, that no love ever goes unanswered.

 

[BigApplePi]

I often go years without crying. I'm uncertain as to whether I'm Fi or Ti though so I'm no help with your research of INTPs.

When I was a child I cried. When I was a boy I overheard a mother say to my mother, "Does he still cry?" I realized I was at risk of being exposed. I'd better stop crying right away. A boy who wants to become a man can't cry. Real men don't cry. I stopped crying.

A good many months ago I decided to revisit this. I noticed when I went to the movies sometimes I would get a lump in my throat. I wondered why this was and decided I would relax my inhibitions and let go ... at least until I could find out. So what was happening in these films which had so little to do with me? Why would I now shed tears?

Apparently it has to do with suddenly and unexpectedly getting love. If a baby crying feels pain and the need for love, here in the movies people were duplicating the experience. Let's say a simple experience of achievement against great odds ... as often happens in the movies. This brings tears because there is the pain of prolonged dragged out almost certain failure follow by joy at success. The joy at success underlines the pain of failure and gives permission to overcoming impossible odds. Likewise when your favorite pet dies, one feels the pain the dog must feel for its loss of life ... as if it were aware it had lost it.

What do you think of this theory?

Spoiler

Musical reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTlhWixsPv4

 

[Josteen]

WARNING: This is going to be long



When i was younger, I got into a fight with a girl in my school, out of no reason she harasses me and she mocks me with the usual unoriginal 5 years old's sarcasm.

At that moment i was eating lunch together with a few friends and they just laugh it off as if it was just something completely normal, but i was indifferent to their action. This girl's provocation was so real to me that I became so angry and i lashes out my own unoriginal 5 years old sarcasm to her, and i remember i was screaming and she was screaming too, but people used to say that i got a very loud voice and in that contest of screaming at each other's face i was winning.

Then she got desperate and began tufting my hair, my reaction to this is to also tuft her hair.
The teachers came in and separated us, she began to cry until we reach the classroom. I was interrogated by the teachers as if i was a criminal that have committed an unforgivable crime so heinous that there's actually 3 teachers that ganged up on me and asking me questions.
I said repeatedly that she started it and i merely responding to her act, yet that girl kept crying and telling stories that was completely made up.
Then the teacher asked the other kids that were present when the fight happened. I thought that they would tell the truth, yet they were supporting this girl and follows on the girl's made up story and adding several details to spice things up in their liking, such as me punching that girl and smacking her around.

I was completely frustrated, and i could not even form a sentence to defend myself. I cried that day, i cried till i got home and when my mother asked me why i cried i am still unable to speak properly.
The next day my mother decided to come with me to the school so she can ask the teacher what happened to me yesterday. At the sight of my mother that girl, decided to apologize to me of her action the other day and admitted to me that she was making things up. I didn't answer her question and i just nodded, and then she pulled me to where my teacher and my mother is and cheerfully told them that we have sorted things out by ourself and that we have forgiven each other.
After that day i never even bothered to talk to her and any other girl and any other kids that relate with the girls in my school, my experience have made me cautious towards the opposite gender.

There's an unmovable image in my mind that lingers to this day, that girls are an extremely manipulative and egocentric beings that better be avoided for my own good, it can be explained as a trauma or some kind, and i still struggle to overcome this fear to this day.
That is the most frustrating moment of my life in my opinion, because the frustration carries on to the me right now and manifest itself every time i am near a girl who i assume to be around my age.

 

[Variform]

WARNING: This is going to be long
...
That is the most frustrating moment of my life in my opinion, because the frustration carries on to the me right now and manifest itself every time i am near a girl who i assume to be around my age.

Good, beneficial, insightful or emotional stories are always long. Thank you for sharing this. I understand your pain and difficulties that come out of it. Although my trauma is different, the process of it is the same.

At the age of five brains are still under development. Anything that happens then becomes part of the neuro-development. Billions of neurons are still connected to each other.

Parents do not realize how vulnerable the child's brain really is.

I bet you are a person today who abhors injustice.

 

[digitalbum]

I know now why you cry. But it's something I can never do.

 

[Ex-User (9062)]

Thanks for your response.
I have to think about it for a while.

 

[Cherry Cola]

I think average almost once a day. If someone starts crying in a film I start crying, or if I think about something sad or profound. Or if I read something profound or sad, or listen to something.. yeah it happens easily. Not like I start sobbing like crazy but I shed tears easily so to speak. It wasn't like that when I was younger and more hardcore rational.

 

[Puffy]

Lately about once every few months. Usually tears of frustration more than anything, like Josteen pointed out. Once I cry, I never really know quite what I'm crying over. My emotions confuse me.

Before recent, I could never cry. I wasn't in touch with my emotions due to something I can only put down to some sort of early trauma. I was numb. It was comfortable.

Then I woke up and realised there were other people, and that these people affect me.

I used to wonder that, but the only event I could rightfully consider traumatic in my life was my birth, as it was especially complicated (I couldn't see for the first six months of my life until my vision semi-miraculously came back after hitting my head on the floor from falling off an ironing table).

My emotional life is odd in that I generally have a high emotional intelligence with regards to other people, to the extent that many have found it easy to confide in me. But I am very awkward and distant with regards to my own feeling. My guess is that historically I never felt close to anyone or had close friends I felt comfortable with until around 20ish, and so my stance towards people has always been reconciliatory and observational -- reaching out to their needs and perspective while negating my own on account of feeling they wouldn't see or recognise it.

 

[Absurdity]

Every few years it seems. Although 16 was a rough year.

 

[OrLevitate]

When I was a child I cried. When I was a boy I overheard a mother say to my mother, "Does he still cry?" I realized I was at risk of being exposed. I'd better stop crying right away. A boy who wants to become a man can't cry. Real men don't cry. I stopped crying.

A good many months ago I decided to revisit this. I noticed when I went to the movies sometimes I would get a lump in my throat. I wondered why this was and decided I would relax my inhibitions and let go ... at least until I could find out. So what was happening in these films which had so little to do with me? Why would I now shed tears?

Apparently it has to do with suddenly and unexpectedly getting love. If a baby crying feels pain and the need for love, here in the movies people were duplicating the experience. Let's say a simple experience of achievement against great odds ... as often happens in the movies. This brings tears because there is the pain of prolonged dragged out almost certain failure follow by joy at success. The joy at success underlines the pain of failure and gives permission to overcoming impossible odds. Likewise when your favorite pet dies, one feels the pain the dog must feel for its loss of life ... as if it were aware it had lost it.

What do you think of this theory?

Spoiler

Musical reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTlhWixsPv4

I think your theory has an obnoxious chorus! But more seriously the not having love forever and then suddenly having it is much more accurate than what I thought about me crying at the times when I realize how miserable I am, since I only realize my degree of miserableness because of the contrast of the 'love' being present in my life at that time. It's almost completely about emotions not realizations though.

Yes I had the same thing as a child, but it was my father who I remember mockingly and un-proudly said 'When I....(somethingsomethingsomething) he just started crying." when I was little. I went like 5 years at least for a time through high school and college without crying.

When I started dating my first real girlfriend at 20 years old I had a really hard time expressing myself emotionally. The emotions were all there, probably to a scary degree for her, but I just didn't know how or feel like it was okay to express them.

Only had a good cry about a few months ago (in my own time, while under the influence of alcohol) when I was overwhelmed with people (co-workers) around my age who provided that 'love' that I hadn't had in so long being the lonely hermit for years and years and years. I had no boundaries having been used to 0 human contact so I asked out my boss and got fired.