So emotional it's embarassing - is it normal?

[babytime]

Since having children expecially now I have become so emotional that I feel my eyes welling up with tears when watching kids tv!!!

When I tell a story to someone with a touching moment or sad ending I get all choked and to my embarassment have to pause to stop myself crying - honestly its SO embarassing!!!

Why is this?

I am not depressed and quite a happy person.

I just dont understand why I cant control my emotions, if i see an ambulance fly by with its siren or see a child hurt themselve I feel a lump in my throat and a knot in my stomach.

I saw a lady who was clearly mentally unstable yesterday walking along shouting at herself and I could have easily cried.

these feelings of empathy towards everyone around me is surely not how the average person feels surely?

my sil always laughs saying "oh, look you're goung to cry now"... in a joking way of course.

Every thing sets me off now, I understand the feeling. I dont know why. Watched 'My kid wont eat' last night and cried though that.

yep, me too at times

I have this problem. I was reading out a text to my boss today and got choked up. It was from a colleague who had a baby last week but FFS. It is embarrassing.

If you are going to cry, sipping water helps you to control it btw.

I always feel like crying when an ambulance goes past me too, glad I'm not the only freak sensitive person

well, i'm like you babytime - i actually cried when i was giving one lovely pupil an end of year appraisal, and always got teary eyed when talking to parents of students i adored on parents evening (and this was mardy old secondary pupils!) i always said i had a cold!!!

Yes its embarassing, but at least we care! I've found thaat since having DS im more active in trying to change things i disagree with, rather than getting all sad and depressed and incapable. Its probably because i feel i HAVE to make the world a better place for him.

Dont change. I think the world needs more empathetic people

oh - have you read 'the highly sensitive person' at least i think thats what its called. i bought it years ago, and it helped me realise that its fine to be upset at injustice etc, and my mum read it and said that it really helped her to understand me better. Aah - i love my mum (sniff sniff, watery eyes....exits to find tissue...)

I think it's very normal to become more emotional after having children - it definitely sensitises you towards children's issues such as childhood poverty, abuse, etc I think.

I have this with birth videos. I'm totally fine, enjoying watching some poor woman in agony the miracle of labour, then the baby pops out and I sob and have to stifle tears. It's weird, and never happened pre-DCs.

I over-empathise far too much since having kids. I quite often cry myself to sleep thinking about various horrors that have been inflicted on children, for some reason I can't get the Holocaust out of my head. News items about children set me off big time.

My mum reckons it's all part of making us very alert to any potential danger to our own children, a heightened awareness of what could happen but TBH I find it too overwhelming sometimes.

another one here who can cry at all manner of things......

I too cry at my children's stories and films, and am left having to explain to the poor confused dears why, eg, I can't help crying in Mary Poppins when their dad won't let them feed the birds for tuppence, and then looks at the tuppence in his hands later on and realises how silly he was... sob...

Oh Gawd, I'm crying laughing at the Mary Poppins thing! That bit is sooo sweet...blub blub

sniff sniff...

i'm trying to stop the tears reading your messages through smiles ... i need to get a grip

I am so glad I am not alone, I have mentioned this to my friends who have children and they dont feel this way so that is why I came on here so thanks to all you fellow blubbers I feel its ok to blub at anything and that I am just sensitive

the whole emtional thing is not how i grew up, in my whole life I have only "heard" my mother cry ONCE through her bedroom door when she had a miscarriage. She is an iron woman and I think blocks out what upsets her which is not always good but works for her. I could never be a police woman or nurse, I'd be crying at every casualty or injustice

POOTER - will read that book.

x

I am only ever a nano-second away from tears, I hate it! I was never like this before having the DDs. And blimey, if I have to sit through a school assembly....

I am crying more for sure since having DCs (DS1 now 11)and even more so nowadays. One very embarassing moment was when my DS1s reception teacher said goodbye (she was going back to Oz) and I unexpectedly burst into tears.

usually though I manage to stifle it. Got a jaw and throat ache/spasm watching Sex and the City movie the other week stifling tears (much of it was relevant to me ie divorce,and the Carrie/Big thing (haven't been jilted though thank god)). I went back to see it alone the other day and spent most of it crying in the dark!!

Yes any little thing can set me off. Have managed to contain myself at work though except for a couple of occasions.

Even cartoons sometimes, soaps. Titanic from start to finish - it's the old lady looking back on her life that gets me and the music.

ExH used to really really scoff at me for this but surely better to be like this than unemotional and buttoned up!!

Mind you I did work with someone recently who welled up all the time (if she was recounting something emotional). I sort of admired her but it made me feel uncomfortable.

I am sort of cry alone (or with kids) type of person.

I found myself crying at Desperate Housewives the other night - dh was completely nonplussed

I get a lump in my throat when I sing with my choir sometimes - couldn't ever do a solo, I just well up when I'm least expecting it.

Another one here. I have always been shall we say, on the sensitive side; but since having dcs I am awful! It can feel really embarassing. Sometimes I'll just be telling dh something and my voice goes all high and quivery towards the end of the sentence - I have to tkae a deep breath to calm my emotions.

Isnt it funny how we all feel we have got worse since having kids?

I read an article recently that said people who had suffered from any kind of depression gained a stronger empathy then they had before so made them better people and good in jobs that require understanding of people. I can understand that. I have suffered from depression in the past and when I meet someone who has I am sympathetic towards them.

Also since becoming a mum I feel I have become a "nicer" person and let things go nmore than I would of before.

They say it should also be considered a kind of intelligence as its not something you are born with and many people do not find it easy or never acquire it in their whole life. It is apparently something you gain.

So we should give ourselves 10 out of 10 for empathy intelligence levels

Still embarassed I have to stop myself crying over the silliest things!!!!

If only I could control it!

I have always been emotional, it was worst when pregnant and just after giving birth, I would describe it as feeling as though a layer has been removed leaving you much more vulnerable. It has got better, but if you have always been emotional it is part of who you are, do you feel it is worse at certain times of the month as PMT can be an aggravating factor with me?

babytime - me too. i am much more emotional since dd now 2. Songs, films, news stories.

I also have find that where i used to love horror films, I just cant stomach them anymore. Even mildly horror. For example I watched Deathproof a couple of weeks ago. Usually I love this kind of film, this time, I had to ask DH to turn it off. He did not, and I enjoyed the last part, typical tarrantino but the first part made me feel sick with fear. Would never have done this before DD.

pavlovthecat - yes i have that too, my fav film s were always horrors and violence in them did not bother me but now if i see a violent scene the image stays in my head or i have to look away... strange.

i was never the sensitive type before and i'm not saying i've become a big wet lettuce but i just get emotional over seeing things bad happening.

i also find it harder to argue now and keep my cool, i argue and cry at the same time - so annoying when you are trying to convince someon you are right about something