“Apparently the rule was ‘big boys don’t cry…where others can see them.’”

“Growing up there was one rule that was pounded into me and that was “big boys don’t cry.” To cry was to automatically show a vulnerability embarrassing for both those who saw it and myself. As I got older I learned that if, for whatever reason, I felt the need to cry I needed to hold off until I could find some place alone to really get my cry on. After my dad died, I was told by my mother that he had, in fact, cried quite often away from us. Apparently the rule was “big boys don’t cry …where others can see them.” My favorite place to cry is in bed a night … alone. I cry for others as well as my self, but always with a destructive sense that i am somehow weak for doing so. I do tell myself that my childhood training was wrong, that it is OK to cry, but I don’t really believe it. There is much more to tell — times that I’ve cried in front of someone who should have understood, but used it as weapon instead — but I’ll leave it here. Thanks for calling attention to this post.”