Why can't I cry?

Since an early age I was taught not to cry. No matter the cause, I shall not cry where no man can see. Shoot, not even where man can't see. "It's a sign of weakness", Ive been told. "Better stop crying before I give you a reason to cry." No matter how big or small the damaging occurrence was, it was enough to make me cry. Crying was enough to get me yelled at. Almost every man experiences this. Mostly from our fathers, even some mothers pushes this damaging propaganda. It causes unhealthy vises, forcing us to find different, maybe toxic ways to convey our emotions. A plague this patriarchy we live in has caused. More personally, this plague runs rampant in black communities; among our black boys.

My mother is one of the most emotionally intelligent persons I have spoke with. Without knowing it, my mother specializes in observing, processing, and deconstructing others and her own emotions. Always reminding me to be one with my emotions. Explaining many times I can never logically think, if Im always pushing my emotions away. Being a very logically thinking person I could not understand what she was saying. Why my emotions had such a profound influence in my actions and reactions; There are 3 parts of your brain that controls the way you perceive and act. Your Brain Stem, Limbic System, & Cerebral Cortex. Our Brain Stem transmits every interaction your 5 senses experience. This means everything you see with your eyes, hear with your ears, touch with your body, taste with your tongue, and smell with your nose. After one of your senses are triggered the brain stem sends a message to the Limbic System; where your emotional responses are triggered and processed. Depending on your life experiences, trauma, and joyful memories, your emotions for certain situations will be different. Some situations may cause a small emotion response, for example, being assigned homework. While other events may cause emotional paralyses, where your Limbic System gets overwhelmed. Most times this is the result of an event triggering a response because of a past negative experience. Meaning your Limbic System can't send a message to your Cerebral Cortex; Where you rationally process everything that just occurred. Have you ever lashed out or done something foolish, then just 3 seconds later regret what you said or did? That is whats occurring between your Limbic System and Cerebral Cortex. Now I didn't know all of this when my mother was telling me to be open and one with my emotions. I later learned that accepting my emotions, and choosing to understand them, including my reactions to these feelings, allowed me to established proper communication between my Limbic System and Cerebral Cortex.

While my mother was telling me to accept my emotions, my father told me the opposite. Often explaining why I shouldn't cry and to suppress my emotions. When I would cry as a boy, I'd be met with disappointment and anger. This was often confusing and angered me as well. My father has a commanding presence, when he talks you listen. I did not fight back, I stopped crying. Im not saying my dad is a bad father, he simply was teaching me what his father taught him, and what his grandfather taught his father, and so on. It is whats expected out of men, especially black men. Along with holding up the expectations of being a man, black men in particular have had to a certain presence. Slavery, civil rights, BLM, every generation has had to fight. There was no room for emotion in the minds of black men, we had to overcome the fight. Staying strong for our families during hard times could not be done with emotions, there was no time or room to cry. My dad taught me his best. It later became physically hard for me to cry, no matter how hurt, confused, or angered I was. I couldn't cry. After years of holding back tears, the tears stopped falling. I remember when my grandmother passed away. I was 12 years old. My mother walked into my room teary eyed, attempting to stay strong enough to convey her message. I was playing my game console when she walked into my room. She sat me down on my bed and explained my grandmother had just passed away. I was distraught, not knowing what to think except how I should have called more. My eyes began to hurt, as my mom had already began crying, I was trying to hold back my tears, (As I write this now I can feel this happening). It did not feel right to cry, as if something bad would happen if tears flowed. My emotional response to crying was the connected with the disappointment and anger my father expressed. Eventually after fighting my tears, my eyes hurt so bad that I could hold back no longer. I cried all night. That was the last time I would cry until I was 16 years old.

As you have probably already realized, I am a very emotional person. So much so that I would get so emotional, and so many things would flood my mind, it would be almost impossible for me to hold it all in. I had to get the words and feelings in my mind out my mouth and off my chest. Usually this would result in me crying as a young boy because I did not have the emotional fluency to communicate all these emotions. As I got older, the result of these emotional overloads turned out to be avoidance. Rather than attempting to communicate, I would go silent, it was much easier than trying to get someone else to understand the emotions that I barely understood myself. This felt isolating, as I was the only one who could feel my emotions, but no one in the world could understand them, not even myself. I would lash out in annoyance and anger to anyone who made my emotions show, when I was really upset at the confusion and ignorance I felt at the height of my emotions. Many black boys experience this and because of this our emotions become a mystery. A dark cave that we put caution tape over with a big sign saying, "DO NOT ENTER." We respond in anger and/or avoidance since we have not attempted to grasp and perceive a different emotional response. There is a lack of emotional fluency in our communities. Your emotional fluency determines how effective you are at communicating with others what you are feeling, and what you need to improve your emotional state.

In my position on the Board of Education, it was very important for to learn effective communication and understand how to separate my emotions from logic and how to use my own and others' emotions to properly communicate my message. Although, I have been able to slightly explore this dark, vast cave, I still often times respond in avoidance to highly emotional situations. It is still hard for me to cry but I have learned that knowing your emotions are a sign of strength. Being a person who has never chose to surf your waves of emotions, then choosing to be open to and understanding your emotions can be scary and intimidating, but the permanent reward for our exploration is uncanny.

During this journey of exploring my emotions, my father also began to explore his, not shying away from his own emotions and finding different and new ways to communicate with me, which also turned out to be more effective for developing our relationship. Whenever my dad would yell, (which was most of the time ), I would tell him that the way he was speaking with me would not get his point across. Most times I'd be responded to with more anger, but sometimes, very rarely, he would subtly calm down his tone. Subconsciously my father began to listen to me, he learned more about himself and the most effective way to communicate with those surrounding him. He stopped yelling and lashing out in anger, (majority of the time), my dad started to ask me questions about how I'm feeling instead of calling me sensitive. Although it might seem impossible or stupid, your braveness to learn yourself invites others to learn themselves as well.