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

This. Not Sistine Chapel crying 😢 but overwhelmed and emotional.

I was diagnosed as autistic post menopause and the menopause and HRT pushed me over the edge.

Today for example hugely stressful and I recognised it and left work (I can work from home) and even then I’m hugely stressed so it is microwave meal and Tv and bed for me.

@DollopOfFun wet blanket? Wet fart conjured an interesting image! 🤣

This has just set me off thinking anout her and i wasnt even there lol

Yes this happens to me too, much worse since I’ve had children so I assume it’s some sort of hormonal thing. Especially with rousing music or anything to do with children potentially being hurt, even if it’s just a story or tv show.

I'm not a crier and am generally not sentimental or emotional. However if I'm in a big crowd I often feel like I could just randomly cry. It could be a concert or fun run or a busy train station. I don't know what it is but something about the presence of lots of people affects me.

You are definitely not alone in this. I experience the same. It’s known as collective effervescence

This is totally me. I am too emotional at many things. I can't even sing at choir if the song is moving. I'd love to know how to stop it!

I'm like this too. How about Athletes and sports people winning tournaments? I'm like a fountain! The Olympics is just a sobfest. I don't even really love sports?!

Reading this thread has made me feel a bit like an unemotional robot as I very rarely cry or get emotional. I don't think I have ever cried at a film or song. I think it comes from my upbringing, my parents were very unemotional too.

Oh my goodness. Yes. Literally anything sets me off. Fireworks, bagpipes, music, movies, adverts, Britain's got bloody talent. My teenagers laugh at me, every time a movie is remotely sad, they're like are you crying yet?? I wasn't always like this either. In fact, I very rarely ever cried. It started after I had my kids. It's ridiculous. I just avoid funerals. Because guaranteed I'll be crying more than the person's immediate family and it's embarrassing, but if I try to hold it in I'll have snot bubbles bursting out of my nose. My friend is a drama teacher in a secondary school, we go and support their two big shows every year. Why am I crying watching kids I don't even know perform in a show? It's honestly ridiculous. And I physically cannot stop it from happening. I think I just have a leak. But glad to know it's not only me 😂

You sound sweet. A lot of things make me feel emotional like art, music, scenery, cheesy scenes in films etc, some people just are more like that I think.
I am also neurodivergent so…
🤔

This is me too. I've never considered myself to be much of a blubber, never cried as a kid. I can hold my shit together for a funeral - was dry eyed at my own wedding, but tried to read Puff the Magic Dragon to my kids and couldn't keep it together. I was a mess. My kids and my mum were looking at me like, WTAF?

Other events I find triggering include marathons, school kids singing stuff, old people sitting on their own. Human kindness is a biggy. Can't bare it.

I used to think it was hormonal. Maybe it is? I'm menopausal now and I've gone back to being a normal person. Mostly.

Christ, I've had several times when I've gone to mush in a totally unneccesary way and feel embarrassed afterwards. It's worse if people usually perceive you as the calm and collected type as you get the "what's got into her?" side eye! A friend once said I was sentimental which I took to be a damning observation.

I went to see someone who was ill in hospital with my parents once and I hardly knew this person and they meant nothing to me but I sat there and blubbed as he looked so poorly. How to make someone feel even worse,eh? Mortified.

Another time a work colleague died unexpectedly and we were gathered together to be told what happened. Stunned silence from most, me sniffling and trying to hold back the wailing. Honestly, I hardly knew him and can't have said more than three words to him in the time he was there. Objectively sad but why am I getting so emotional about it? Aarrghh...

In real life I do not show emotions. Didn't even cry at my own father's funeral. Yet at gigs/films/tv/books/music even adverts can set me off in an instant. Had to step outside the class in English multiple times because my sobbing was distracting the other kids in class when we watched Of Mice and Men, Goodnight Mr Tom and Romeo and Juliet.

My DD thinks it's because in real life I have to be "in control" at all times as a trauma response to my chilhood but when consuming media my bahaviour isn't effecting the situation so I can release it. Think she is on to something to be fair.

I'm exactly the same. If I see a homeless person on the street, or an injured or dead animal on the road, i think about it for the rest of day. The other day I crow staggered into my house with a broken leg, obviously in pain. I put it in a shoe box and took it to the RSPCA (despite knowing that crows can be vicious). And don't get me started on hearing about horses that are injured or die whilst racing 😮‍💨

I rarely well up at films, but singing - that’s my Achilles heel. Whether it’s hearing sweet little childrens’ voices singing plaintive songs, or singing such songs in a choir myself - it’s really annoying when my mouth trembles & the welling up starts, I don’t want to make an exhibition of myself but it just gets me!!

I occasionally cry with happiness as well as being moved easily to tears- I guess I’m just very emotional.
Have felt very embarrassed at a as couple of recent funerals where I wasn’t close family, when they were holding it together but I think everyone is in their own emotional bubble so didn’t notice.
I spoke to a friend who is a psychiatrist and I don’t wish to label myself but she thought that i probably have mild PTSD. When I was 14 my father committed suicide and I didn’t cry hardly at all, but now when I attend funerals it all comes flooding out.
I bit like all the sobbing when Princess Diana died- they weren’t really crying about her sad death but it triggered unresolved grief that they were holding on to.

I used to be like this. I used to cry a lot in situations which were quite normal every-day not tragic things for everyone else. It was awful and horribly embarrassing too, I’m sure I came across as an attention-seeker, but I really couldn’t stop.

On the other hand, in real serious emergencies like an accident or someone in hospital I would always completely keep my cool and just deal with it, without showing or even feeling any emotion.

It wasn’t until I was in my early thirties that I understood that I had been a victim of abuse throughout all my childhood and formative years. Now, many years of therapy later, I very rarely am overcome with tears in ordinary everyday life. On the other hand, I’m no longer completely dissociated when there is a real tragedy (I realise now that is what was happening); now I can feel and show appropriate emotion in those situations.

It took a lot of time and a lot of therapy!

It might not be at all relevant to your situation OP - I just thought it could be interesting to share this perspective.

I've never been a hard faced bitch but pre kids I was certainly much more stoic/practical, rarely cried etc. However my eldest was born and bam suddenly I get all the feels and the swell of emotion/tears at stuff that doesn't remotely affect my life/complete strangers! I blame hormones 🤷🏼‍♀️

happens to me too - often at events with crowds , theatre , football matches, it’s embarrassing

Same, Queen same. 30's pr 40's? Perimeno or menopause. We are also living in a rapidly evolving and changing world; and that world right now, is very stressful, nasty, hard, fast paced, digital. We've lost a lot of traditions, homely gatherings, family time, kindness, respect - It’s a lot to carry on your shoulders. I find myself feeling increasingly overwhelmed and upset, add to that my AuDHD, perimenopause...I'm an explosive tear bomb.

You could also be extra sensitive to music (it's a thing! Look it up!), to triggering noises - Subconsciously worrying whether the person in that ambulance is OK. It could be that you're an extremely empathetic person and you feel strongly about the contemporary world around us.

Cry as much as you need to, but do remember to look after yourself. Join a mental health group, speak to your GP. There are things out there to help you. It's OK to ask for help. We all need help at some point in life.

I think it's quite distasteful to call this empathy. Not the normal responses, like to a wedding or funeral, if it is in reaction to seeing the bride be incredibly happy or the mourners be devastated.

But empathy is the ability to read and understand other's emotions and a lot of what OP is talking about is her projecting an assumption about the meaning of something she's seeing and then reacting to that. Which isn't empathy at all. It's more hyper-sensitivity than hyper-empathy.

When I first went to see the Pandas in Edinburgh zoo I balled my eyes out so much multiple people came over and asked if I needed help 🤦🏻‍♀️
Nope just crying coz I've seen a real panda in real life like an absolute potato 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

I also cry at cute chubby babies 😬

I do this OP, but it's not even at typically emotional occasions. I'm worst at fireworks displays! Also churches and live music make me cry.

I am just thinking of times this happened to me - various weddings, once when my friend’s choir performed at a Catholic Church in Germany, it used to happen when I saw babies. Tess of the D’Urbervilles absolutely finished me off, and I remember having to leave a restaurant and take myself somewhere private while reading Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
Elgar’s Enigma Variations (due to all the war connotations) and ABBA’s The Winner Takes it All always set me off as well.