To ask how to stop yourself from crying

[Threefullskips]

Just that really. Does anyone have any tips to halt tears? I can't be the only one who sometimes gets overwhelmed and can't stop tears flowing involuntarily in public. Distract myself mentally, pinch myself, tongue roof of mouth, please share any discreet tips you have!!

I can't..the more I try to stifle it i make these weird oinking noises and its comes across much worse!! Also no one else get that awful pain in the throat that goes up to your eyes and head when you try to hold it in??

I end up probably look odder as I laugh, apologise profusely whilst blubbering..saying "I honestly can't control it" through sobs..

It feels like trying to hold in a cough.

Take Sertraline then you won't be able to cry anymore 🙃

I also find tilting my head and looking upwards helpful, also keeping my eyes really wide open without blinking. I didn't used to be a crier but I am now! I'm not depressed I just have very excitable tear ducts

Esther Rantzen's trick on That's Life, doing a v sad story, was to ball her hand, digging her nails into her palm.
I occasionally get the urge to cry in public - often over the strangest things - so I know how you feel. Often in the supermarket, I have no idea why!

When my first business was failing and I was trying to pretend to the world that it wasn’t, I do this a lot. I just let myself cry as when I did it I had been holding it in for some long that it HAD to come out. Ugly crying is good for you if you need to do it . Holding it in is not

#did this a lot

You sound just like me. I cry at all sorts of silly things. I feel so sad for other people (real or fictional) when something bad happens to them. I've got a chronic illness though so don't have many spare 'spoons' IYKWIM.

I would, however, like to make it clear that I have never cried in the Sistine Chapel!

My advice is to pinch the skin between your thumb and pointer finger whenever you feel you're about to cry. This really helps me.

Thank you to PP for the other tips too,

I’m ND and a real crier. I get overwhelmed by emotion very easily.

I clench my fists and dig my nails into my hands and try and focus on that feeling and slowing my breathing down

it’s something I really struggle with so I absolutely empathise

Overexcited tear ducts is brilliant 😂 that’s basically me, pretty sure I’m not depressed or ND, I’m just a crier!

Pretend I'm at work. I only cried at work once when I was on shitty performance review because "it was my turn" to meet quotas

I do this OP.

And I find it very hard to control.my emotions when I'm upset even if I'm in a public setting.

When I got my recent , very late, Autism diagnosis it was a bit of a relief to identity my behaviour as Autistic meltdowns.
Still embarrassing though but at least it's given me an explanation.

Yes you put your tongue on the roof of your mouth and look up.

Are you me? I'm a crier as well. I find I have to stop myself because I feel much, much worse afterwards.

I do have a history of mental health problems, and one reason I like the hypnotic type of sleeping pills is that you wake up in the morning and you have a fuzzy memory of whatever upset you the day before. It really takes the edge off.

and if I'm in public, it's incredibly embarrassing. Sometimes I can get away with saying it's allergies because I do have them sorry if it's just slight tears, that does work.

It seemed harsh at the time, but one time when my mum was very ill, some of her friends were finding it very difficult to deal with me crying. So I really had to pull myself together because if you're surrounded by people who cannot deal with a crying person, you really do feel like an idiot if you keep crying.

Anyway, I tend to think of myself as trying to channel any really tough person you can think of. It might be somebody you've worked with? Or I just say to myself "the show must go on". I mean, what if you were about to go on stage?

I say to myself "put yourself away" - I know that makes it sound like I've popped out of my bra, but you know what I mean.

If you know when it's likely to happen, giving yourself a pep talk in advance is helpful.

I do think it's getting better as I get older. I don't have any physical tips, I'm afraid. But have you seen that clip of Taylor Swift hyperventilating during a concert in extreme heat in Brazil? She's hyperventilating and then she snapped her shoulders back to stand up for the next song. Thinking of stuff like that helps me.

Im fascinated by people who cry because I probably cry once every year or two 😅
I just don’t get that sort of emotion, no matter the situation.

I’m the same. I thought it was because I am ND but then there’s lots of ND criers on here!!

I get this when I’m either talking passionately about something, listening to certain songs, or just because I’m depressed and sometimes my thoughts get the better of me and send me off.

I don’t know how I stop. I suppose I tell myself that I’ll get unwanted attention if I start crying.. and people will ask me what’s wrong and I’ll cry more.

just tonight I was explaining to my husband how I’m gutted that we can’t afford nicer things when we’re in our 30’s, I feel a bit left behind in life. That almost made me cry but o just told myself no 🤣

I’m also ND. I’ve made peace with the fact that I just don’t seem to emote like normal people. Death and things just make me go into ‘practical mode’.
If I do cry, it’s in private and I’m be back to normal within a couple of minutes.
I don’t cry infront of people, ever.

Completely relax your jaw, let your tongue hang out and make a silly flobby noise shaking your flaccid tongue around. It releases tension and also it's so silly it often makes me laugh instead

I hardly ever cry nowadays: it’s normally very minor things that tip me over the edge as opposed to something important.

I hate crying at work because its invariably used against you. But usually by the time I cry irs beyond the point where I can help it

What are you crying about? What thoughts are in your head at the time? If there’s a root cause then addressing that should be a priority. I’ve been having a pretty shit time of it for several reasons and have had a couple of public crying episodes. I find I can get things under control by very determinedly thinking about something else. The moment I start to even vaguely think about what’s upsetting me the tears come back very quickly. In these situations I have basically done my best to hold it together and rushed home to have a good blub and let it all out. I don’t normally have this problem, just at the moment I’m dealing with an awful lot of upsetting stuff. If you’re having this problem without an actual reason to be upset then I think you need to look for a cause. Hormones would be my first guess.

Yes I got told once to not look down and into my emotions, look up and out of them. Focus on blowing out. Ideally looking at the sky or out a window.

Sertraline TBH!

There’s a method of breathing, I’ll try to find a link but basically you inhale sharply, but then a quick extra one and then purse your lips and exhale more slowly. It helps calm the part of the nervous system that’s gone into overdrive. I’ve found it can help if I’m being emotional, rather than desperately unhappy. Also forcing a silly smile, much like the silly face above, can help me coz I suddenly can’t help but laugh.

This explains it better!

www.inc.com/jeff-haden/stanford-neuroscientist-this-5-second-breathing-technique-is-fastest-way-to-reduce-anxiety-stress.html

I’d like reverse tips - I very rarely cry and would like to be able to cry more because I feel like it would be such a welcome release sometimes!

I’m going through a divorce and have cried four times, about 2-3 tears each time. This is a massive amount for me in one year but obviously given the context is not very much at all.