This is going to be a long read. Sorry.
Emotions. The one thing that is common amongst all the diversities in this world: animals and the birds, savages and the civilized people, young and the old, criminals and the innocent, even mortals and immortals i.e GODS, and not tardigrades
All the actions that we take, are driven by some or the other emotions. Animals attack because they feel threatened, people commit crimes due to anger or jealousy or any other state of mind. Even though every emotion leads to its own action, there’s one state that is the end zone for many emotions.
The brain is like a big Petri dish or a crucible, home to many chemical reactions. These reactions are our state of mind, our feelings. Love is the release of oxytocin, that makes us see dancing comic unicorns around our partner’s body.
Crying, is a similar situation in which emotions trigger a response which has various effects on various people. Crying due to mental anguish like emotional Pain or psychological pain releases a chemical in the brain: leucine-enkephalin, which reduces pain and improves mood. Crying is the one of the end zone for multiple emotions. Most people associate crying as a natural response to a sad news or something bad that has happened. Whereas even if this is true, there are multiple other reasons due to which one might cry.
Apart from a sad news or something terrible taking place, Pain very well might be the second ranked. Pain can be emotional, psychological or physical. Physical pain doesn’t need much explanation I’m sure about that. Physical pain, as the phrase suggests, indicates physical harm. When you were learning to ride a bicycle as a kid and you fell, you cried. When your mom/dad hit you because of some mistake, you cried. Or in some grim terms, if someone is beating you up, you cry. Psychological pain is a sensitive issue, and the most common example would someone forcing themselves upon another person, often upon someone younger, defenceless and vulnerable. Psychological pain often is something that we don’t understand. Something that is unnatural, something that we didn’t expect to happen, something so adverse that only way that the brain deals with it is to cry. Emotional Pain is the most popular kid on the block: sadness. I don’t think that needs much explanation either. I’ve explained the emotional pain in short, below.
Every incident has a rating on the pain scale which is unique to each and every person. If the incident rates high then the brain’s response is to cry, which in turn helps people to deal with it. If the scale reaches up to extreme high readings, then it is what people call as “went into shock” which is commonly, sudden loss of consciousness, which is generally mild but can escalate into brain getting deprived of blood flow. And in more extreme cases, its called a stroke.
Next, comes a close relative of emotional pain- Sorrow. This includes loss of a loved one, or some form of betrayal. Everyone deals with loss and betrayal in different ways. Some people instantly start “hydrating their surroundings”, some people keep it in, process it and releases it at appropriate times, and some people can just push it down. Here, I would like to clarify the difference between sadness or Emotional Pain, and Sorrow. Sadness is your beloved partner doesn’t come through, or when you’re disappointed in someone. And sorrow is the something extreme, or a greatly escalated version of something that would make you sad. In summary, Sadness is a state of unhappiness or disappointment and Sorrow is a state of extreme distress.
Next up is an unusual one, yet its a common one. Anger. Anger is often associated with rash actions, physicality and verbal abuse. But what happens when that anger has no immediate release? That creates a sense of helplessness and whatever thing that angered you, starts mutating into tears. After all, anger is an extreme state of mind, and no extreme is quite reliable. Angry tears is a non-physical way of releasing the built-up resentment, usually when the person is not physically competent or when there’s simply nothing that you can do.
Even though the top contenders are Dark Emotions, Crying and tears is not always a dark thing. Situations such as seeing your hatchling achieve something, or getting a surprise romantic gesture from “the one”, or even some romantic or emotional scenes in your favourite sitcom, anything can lead you to cry. These are also called as “Tears of Joy”. People cry during moments of extreme joy or happiness as a mechanism to maintain the emotional equilibrium.
Emotions are such strong things, that even if we’re not the one experiencing the situation, we can experience the emotions. I like to call this, Referred Emotions. Death of a beloved character on a favourite TV show can make us weep. End of an emotional roller coaster series/situation culminating in the victory of 2 lovers can make us feel the prick of tears behind our eyelids. End of our most beloved TV show, even something as simple as a group of FRIENDS leaving an old apartment to go get coffee can make sob like little babies. Something as noble as a best~friend sacrificing his life and career to be with his dying friend can leave in tears.
Crying doesn’t make you weak, and at the same time not crying doesn’t prove that you’re strong. It is an emotional response to stimuli which is often a coping mechanism. Some people cry a lot, and they come out better and stronger from the other side. Some people don’t cry and can still be as efficient as criers. They are rocks, which are always a great deal of support to the ones around them.
Whoever you are, don’t be ashamed of who you are, for the criers need the rocks to support them and the rocks need the criers to “keep them human”, if you will. This combination, makes the best couple there can ever be.
