The bottom line. Some people cry more easily than others, and that's normal. People are different, so it stands to reason that emotional expression varies from person to person. If you can't cry at all, you might have a hard time working through your own emotions, and you could also find it tough to connect with others ...
Some people find it difficult to cry because of societal pressure or their internalised beliefs about crying. For example, if we believe that crying is embarrassing and childish — or if we're simply scared of being vulnerable — it's only natural that we'll try to stave off our tears.
The inability to cry can have numerous possible causes. Antidepressants, depression, trauma, personality factors, social stigma, and certain medical conditions can all inhibit us from tearing up. Fortunately, many of the reasons we can't cry can be successfully treated and reversed.
In the short term, it can cause pesky problems such as irritability, anxiety, and poor sleep. But over time, repressing your tears can lead to cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension — or even cancer.
Being unable to cry isn't necessarily a problem. Some people have honed healthy ways to feel and process emotions of sadness without crying.
Just because you rarely, or never, cry doesn't automatically mean that you are repressing your emotions in an unhealthy way. It could just mean that you haven't had anything happen to you that causes you to feel sad.
Having alexithymia can make it hard for you to express or identify your emotions. The condition can occur with certain conditions, such as depression, neurological conditions, and brain injury. Alexithymia is a broad term to describe problems with feeling emotions.
What Is Emotional Blockage? Being emotionally blocked means having an unhealthy relationship with your emotions. You may be unable to express and communicate them, or you might experience difficulties understanding why you feel the way you do.
Feeling emotionally numb is associated with a number of mental health disorders, including anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. Emotional numbness can also be a sign of schizophrenia, depersonalization/derealization disorder, or dissociative identity disorder.
Crying is normal in healthy amounts—but what is a healthy amount? With no hard numbers as to how often we should cry, the American Psychological Association states that, on average, women cry emotional tears several times a month (30 to 64 times a year), while men may cry once every month or two (5 to 17 times a year).
Feeling emotionless can often be a symptom of mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic disorder so it's not something to dismiss or downplay. In these cases, seeking the help of a professional is crucial. So remember you don't have to work through this alone.
What Causes Emotional Unavailability? While there is no one explanation for emotional unavailability, it can be caused by a number (or combination) of factors. These include attachment styles developed in childhood, history in relationships, trauma, mental health conditions, and one's circumstances and priorities.
Shutting down emotions can be a normal part of human experience, as a coping strategy in stressful situations. Under high stress, it allows your body and brain to protect itself from perceived threats or harm.
Ever since people's responses to overwhelming experiences have been systematically explored, researchers have noted that a trauma is stored in somatic memory and expressed as changes in the biological stress response.
The energy of the trauma is stored in our bodies' tissues (primarily muscles and fascia) until it can be released. This stored trauma typically leads to pain and progressively erodes a body's health.
Eddy notes that even after the stress is gone, the tension may still linger in the body and hip area, contributing to things like headaches and lower back pain. “When someone is really traumatized, certainly the hips are an area that's holding it,” Eddy says.
“The reasons we sometimes—or most times—bottle up our emotions can vary, but they all seem to stem from a fear of vulnerability. Out of this fear, we react through self-protective emotional measures,” says Dr. Colleen Mullen, PsyD, LMFT. “Bottling up emotions provides a false sense of emotional safety.”
Apathetic means uncaring. It's an adjective form of apathy—the state of not caring. It can also mean the absence or suppression of emotion or passion. Apathetic is especially used to describe people with a lack of interest or concern about things, especially those that others find important or exciting.
Of course, there can be many different reasons why we may find it difficult to receive love. It could be past trauma, unfamiliarity with receiving, feelings of unworthiness, and much more. Regardless, it is very common to feel resistance to receiving love in compliments, affection, accepting help, and more.
Chan, however, says that if you feel emotional and want to cry, it is best to let it all out rather than holding it back. “Crying can be helpful in some situations, but remember that it's only a means for you to express your feelings, be it anger, sadness, anxiety, frustration or grief,” he says.
Most commonly repressed emotions
We commonly repress what we fear others might consider as negative feelings like frustration, fear, sadness, disappointment, and anger. People don't typically repress positive emotions like joy, love, and happiness.
The main reason they can't talk is they're too stressed, or their anxiety levels are too high in that social setting that no word comes out of their mouth. People with selective mutism literally can't speak in certain situations. The disorder literally means 'being mute in selective situations. '
A nervous breakdown (also called a mental breakdown) is a term that describes a period of extreme mental or emotional stress. The stress is so great that the person is unable to perform normal day-to-day activities.
A 2021 study conducted in Italy during the first wave of lockdowns showed that when we regulate or ignore our emotions, we can experience short-term mental and physical reactions as well. “Suppressing your emotions, whether it's anger, sadness, grief or frustration, can lead to physical stress on your body.