What is wrong with me? Is anybody else like this?

[17caterpillars1mouse]

Ok my AIBU is am i unreasonable to react like this? What is wrong with me?

Is anybody else like this?

In day to day life I wouldnt say i'm anymore emotional than the average person, but in certain situations I get this ridiculous over emotion that floods me and results in me starting to cry and have to bite my lip to try and stop myself making a scene. It feels incontrollable at times and I dont remember always being like this.

The situations -

weddings and funerals starting - maybe not as unusual but it happens even if i barely know the person / people

Any kind of show - theatre, cinema, gig, kids nativity, especially if there is singing and music but there doesnt have to be

Every year when the year 6s leave at my kids school, even if i dont know any of them. Also school sports day even when my kids aren't participating in the race.

I cant sing along to the radio in the car without getting choked up and starting to cry. It doesnt matter what the song is / is about

Watching a parade at the weekend, had to hold back the tears - no idea why

When ambulances drive past, not every time, but around 70% of the time.

I don't know what comes over me and why, just a complete flooding of emotion. Why am i like this? It can be very embarrassing

It isn‘t just you - we are all bound to be crying in Tesco (Sainsbury and WR,
Asda and Morrisons) soon -
see thread on supermarket prices

My mum and sister are post-menopausal and they get emotional at the drop of a hat. Whereas I'm not post-menopausal and I don't get like that at all.

My dad also used to cry at all weddings and funerals, even when it was people he wasn't particularly close to. He also used to well up on his birthday when being given gifts and so on. And he used to cry at sad films.

I’m like this sometimes, I think it’s hormonal 😵‍💫. People winning medals in the olympics always gets me emotional 😭

twas meant to be funny, and an alert that I understood the reference…

so a real shame that you had to be so monumentally unpleasant on
a thread lauding empathy, with such an aggressive and hostile post

I cry like I'm trying to hold it back and I can't I find it very embarrassing!
Funerals are the worst !!
I went to a summer fete and a song came I love I again could not stop it came out of nowhere ,!
Carnival parade with the band's playing again !
My daughter doing her hair for prom !
I sometimes have to walk away and hide away because I get so embarrassed by it ,!!
Id love to know why I get this happening mostly 40s maybe declining hormones ??
I am super happy positive person and u would never expect me to be a blubbering wreck 😁

Me too. im shocking at funerals, weddings, movies, adverts, you name it. The worse is reading on the train, if a sad part comes up im in floods its so embarassing.

The year 6 leavers is one place I didn't feel emotional! Our junior school were trying so hard to make it emotional that it actually just annoyed me rather than feeling authentic sadness 😅

But...
-Humans doing good deeds 😭
-Dogs/animals saving people 😭
-People saving animals (but very wary of the staged stuff 😡)
-Jets flying overhead and I can feel it through to my bones 😭 (I live in the Lake District where they often flyover, I'm not talking about normal flight paths 🤣)
-Weirdly, watching the UTK march got me. I loved seeing white/black/Christian/Sikhs/English/non English... All coming together. I wish I'd been there. I think it's because it shows that not everything comes down to racism. It's (for me) not about colour. All (or atleast most) of those people marching were there because they all want a safer life and they had the support of all the strangers around them, all from different walks of life.
Do not come at me with any political view, I'm not interested in a debate and don't want to derail someone's thread
-My neighbour brought me flowers after hearing about a health issue I had going on, bawled as soon as the door shut. It was so nice that she thought about me and went through with doing something to cheer me up. Meant alot.

I'd class myself as an empath, I think I have some autistic traits, too. As a pp said, I do have a great, deep sadness inside me. I don't trust people anymore because of everything I've been through so when I see genuine, altruistic, good people, it just gets me.

I’m like that. But I never ever cry for me or anything in my life. So assume it has to do with that. Probably should mention it to my therapist some time….

I get very emotional with music too OP.

Especially live music, I immediately burst into tears when a concert or gig starts. (I’ve seen some amazing iconic bands but I even cried at Craig David 🤣) When I hear songs on the radio I get full body goosebumps.

I suspect I am neurodivergent so I don’t know if that has something to do with it.

I do this, infrequently and for no discernable reason (had to walk out of a supermarket and pull myself together when there was a local brass band playing Hark the Herald angels one Christmas) I think it's my brain telling me I might think I am in control, but I can be jolted out of the blue with a big feeling. I can live with this, it's probably good for me.

i get the same thing!! deffo not all of them but it’s very bizarre
can be a complete rando’s wedding too

always thought i was bonkers for it :D you’re not alone, OP!!!

Yes! Every year the whole school makes an arch on the last day, and all the year 6s run through the arch to symbolise their journey through the school. I don’t know these children and I probably won’t think about them again but this makes me so emotional. As in can’t quite hold back the tears. Woman has a baby on TV, I know it’s not real, crying. This is only since I had kids and I don’t know how to stop it.

I get like it with videos on Youtube of people having cochlear implants and hearing for the first time, football crowds singing you'll never walk alone or sunshine on Leith, missing dogs being reunited with their owners.

But other emotion-inducing things can leave me cold. I particularly dislike videos of someone being given a teddy bear with the voice of their deceased relative inside it. Because I would hate to receive that myself and find it emotionally manipulative, especially when filmed.

Same goes for 'reunited with Dad/whoever after X years'. Unless it's been explained away by travel restrictions, I always think they were in prison or some other bad reason so not sure I should be emotional about it.

You have described me

I get the chin wobbles at the cinema, theatre, any type of church service. choirs, music on the radio, watching a bunch of school kids singing carols

I walked away from our spring fair the other week with tears streaming down my face - after watching Rock Choir

Dont get me started on any pageantry

And yes I was one of those that cried for days when Diana died, the first flower hitting the coffin did for me and when a year after The Queen died I visited where she had laid in state in Edinburgh, the tears came again

Ive always been like it

Im also AuADHD if that makes a difference.

Yes I get this. I would say I am actually very emotionally reserved, rarely show much emotion outwardly but the moment a show starts in the theatre I get the overwhelming urge to cry.

Watch Pottery Throwdown on Channel 4 to see Keith the judge in regular sobbing mode over an averagely nice teapot

Some people do react to certain kinds of music in this way. There’s s a scientific name for it that I cannot recall.

I don’t attend church regularly but when I do I am triggered by certain hymns but I’m able to avoid audible sobbing thankfully! This still happens to me post menopause. I have never screamed in the Sistine Chapel or elsewhere ( unless startled by large spider!)

The dad thing makes me think of the fictional character ‘Fav’ ( Lord Alconleigh) in Nancy Mitford’s books ‘ Love in a Cold Climate’; The Pursuit of Love’ etc. She tells us that he sobbed loudly at a theatre production of Romeo and Juliet and blamed it all on the nurse. 😁

Yes, I cry or have to hold in tears at film musicals, and musical theatre, it's the music score I think, which is why adverts asking for donations work, they have emotional music in them.
I can also well up at natural landscapes such as mountains, and the first glimpse of the sea on holiday
I get emotional when groups of kids are singing, I hate Christmas Concerts they're just too much
Funerals are always sad, I mean someone has gone forever, even I didn't know them that well, it has an effect on me
I'm generally not that emotional in day to day life though
I do really love music, and think that it can affect us really deeply, why that is I don't know, ( I would love to know) but pair music with a sad or joyful event and it seems to amplify the emotion so much

Oh I am so emotional, I think I'm too empathetic sometimes.
i watched the tv tribute to Sir David Attenborough and was on the verge of tears all the way through!
I do wish I wasn't quite so emotional but it is what it is, I'm 70 years old so I don't think it's going to change xx

Yes, I’m very much like this and it’s especially bad if it’s anything animal related, whether that’s animals being hurt or being cute, and films. My friends still take the piss out of me that I’m probably the only person who ever cried watching Oldboy!

But I get it with things like Christmas carols, despite not being religious, or a really beautiful view, too.

I am like this, it's like complete overwhelm. I always feel embarrassed if I cry at the funeral or wedding of an acquaintance. The slides at funerals completely set me off. Poetry is another trigger, oh and the Lion King when the characters come down the steps at the theatre and the voices build. I was a mess!

Oh and that video where the little girl gives the busker a coin and a whole orchestra joins him and they play to therapy crowd gets me every time even though I must have seen it a hundred times at this point!

On a slightly related note, there’s a feeling of general bonhomie and gladness - a liking or love for people in general - that comes upon me on occasion in circumstances like some have described here, often - but not always - after drink has been taken! A lovely feeling of quiet joy in life and humanity.

On reading Alexander McCall Smith, I discovered that there’s a name for this - agape. A new one on me.

Are you emotional out of sympathy/empathy, or is it that these events lead you to think and feel things about yourself and those you love?