can't cry anymore

for some reason i am unable to cry anymore no matter how upset i get. i have the urge to cry, but it is nearly impossible. has anyone experienced this before?

Yes, I went through a period of a few years where I experienced a lot of trauma and became so numb to my surroundings that I simply did not cry. I find myself crying over much different things then I use to now, and I still have a bit of trouble fully embracing emotions but I have gotten quite a bit better within the past couple of years.

I have had similar times when I couldn't cry either. And yes it has been due to too many tragedies at once.

Its like I just dont have the energy to expend on crying. I realise that life isn't fair and I cant sit and cry over it as its just wasted energy.

To me crying is a luxury. Its good to cry and get all the negative emotions out once in a while- like an emotional detox.

But when you cry and cry and cry... and things just get worse. Then you realise its not worth crying, it wont change a thing.

So in summation:

Every now and then, when life is good, its ok to have a cry and get negative feelings out and you feel better after.

But when things are just so bad, crying eventually becomes obsolete, as all your energy is needed to just survive.

My story is the same as chained wings again

well said.

I love how chained wings answered this one. I realized a few years ago that the only thing that crying does is help you feel better sometimes. I think most of the reason for that is that it exhausts you to the point where you just can't think about anything else for a while.

I don't think i've cried more than two or three times in the past five years, but like CW said, it just wastes energy that is too valuable to just throw away.

I wouldn't worry too much about the crying thing, when you can afford to cry, you will, but until that right time comes, don't waste the time or energy into tryin to figure out why you don't cry, or trying to cry

not crying's not really an advantage for me. i wish i wasn't able to feel sadness. the emptiness is still there, but the tears aren't.

I'm sorry. I honestly don't know what to tell you. When I was a little kid I used to cry a lot, I cried over everything. I hated that and I got teased about it a lot, so by the time i hit high school i just stopped crying.

I haven't cried more times than I can count on one hand in the past five years so I can't relate with you on this one. I thought i could, but I think I was wrong.

I'm not sure how long you've been incapable of crying, but i can assure you that when you can cry again, and I promise you that day will come, you'll feel a lot better. And I hope that day comes soon for ya.

It's kind of weird for me because I've only cried 3 times in the past year and a half - over relationship things... but other than that... It was 7-8 years since I cried last.

emotional trauma just forced me into not crying. ever. Not really because I didn't want to.. but because I was scared to cry.

But now that I'm not in that environment anymore, I feel like when the occasion comes I can let go and get it all out.

haha...being not able to cry...it was one of my question too, as i had the same problem as well.

I guess my explanation is thru psychology, crying is a expression for alarming others for help, it work well when we were little kids, cuz by aiding us, adult are able to be relived to stop our annoying cry . But as we reach adolescent - adults, crying wont work as effective and sometimes even with negative effect, such as labeled as weak in society . Thru operant conditioning, our subconscious mind will refused to let us cry because it thinks that crying is either worthless or being label as weak as result.

lol...just my 2 cents...and what help me sleep better at night.

A month ago things were really going bad for me, and i kind of forced myself not to cry.. because even though i know it isnt a sign of weakness i still feel weak if i cry..yes yes..that contradicts...I have almost no privacy within my home and the one thing i cannot do is cry in front of people.. i used to lock my door when i was at boarding school, im not even allowed a damn lock on my door, now what happened was that it built and built and just accumalated.. untill one day it burst and i became so suffocated that i went into the bathroom, locked the door and just lay in the bath with no water and cried for an hour... Dont worry about it, as a teenager i couldnt cry, i can say with my hand on my heart that the only time i cried from the ages of 13-15 was when i watched jack dawson die in the titanic, i was so pissed with the writers...i never cried because there was too much to cry about if that makes any sense... but it doesnt last.. as all posts are showing you.. it doesnt last.. crying relievs burdens... yes it will come and we have all been through it.. so you arent alone.

Hi well this is my first time on here and I just wanted someone to talk to seeing as I don't confide in anyone else, well I'm 16 and I don't or can't cry anymore and it scares me because I feel I'm emotionless and everyone says I'm heartless there joking but it gets me thinking because when someone tells me something serious about my dad or another family member or someone I'm close to I can't cry so please can someone help me and tell me what's the matter with me

I have the exact same problem. I've gone through lots of full on emotional carnage in the last 3 years and now I can't cry. Recently I was told my grandma has cancer and I felt nothing. We moved house and I moved away from everyone and everything I loved to an entire different country and I felt nothing. I feel so numb and I hate it, I WANT TO FEEL.