This post came across my timeline on Facebook and I shared it to my group because I had just had this very conversation with my kids a few weeks earlier about not crying in front of them or anyone for that matter.
The amount if strength a woman possesses is unmeasurable and unexplainable but if you add a child or two in there it’s impossible to understand where it comes from when we need it the most.
I know many times as a mother I have saved my tears for the shower, the car or in bed at night because I thought I couldn’t show weakness. I assumed that it was just something women did but I have since found out that most men do it also. Men won’t admit to it because they have been conditioned from birth it’s girly or too sensitive to cry makes them less than a man somehow.
WHY?!
Crying is defined as: to weep, to express grief or sorrow, to shed tears. to let fall drops of water or other liquid; drip; leak.
It doesn’t say anything in the definition about being weak, or having to hide, shame or insecure.
So, by all accounts we’re human and we are made of emotions and we are okay showing joy and pride and laughter, jealousy, hatred, anger, and worry but not grief or sorrow.
We have been programmed into thinking if we don’t show our crying and weeping that we are strong or we are not hurting or that we have everything under control. That kind of thinking is false and fake. The fact of the matter is not freely and openly showing emotion is just as damaging as drinking poison.
What is the point that we are trying to prove by not crying in front our spouses and our kids or family?
Is the point that we’re strong? We already know that but yet we still hide our weeping from the world to show our strength. Growing up I don’t really remember seeing my mother cry much, does that means she didn’t see her mother cry either? So, we have a line of strong women afraid to cry.
Some times as mothers we think we have to keep up the façade that we have everything under control and we can carry the burdens of the family without breaking down. We can’t keep hiding because we hurt and we bleed and we fall down but we’re humans and we should feel like we don’t have to hide our feelings. I know for myself sometimes I hold my feelings inside so long that I sometimes feel like a ticking time bomb. Crying should be viewed as cleansing, wiping the slate and clearing our minds from feelings of things we cannot control. It takes the strength of Wakanda to hide our emotions from the ones we love, that’s some heavy ish, but we make it look easy which is terrible for our mental state.
Just like the women in the Facebook group that admitted to crying in the car, shower, bed, anywhere they felt secure enough to completely let their guards down and openly weep to lay down that sorrow and grief. When we have a cut and it bleeds that’s a sign that we’re alive but when we’re hurting, we cover up our pain and insecurities, we hid our tears. But just like a sore needs to breathe in order to heal so does the wounds and sores on our hearts and minds. We must allow our pain to be shown in the light just like a paper cut because with a paper cut we might not always see it but if you get alchol in that cut of you will know its there, internal pain is the same way. If you don’t believe it listen to music or watch a movie about what’s causing you pain, tears will flow like the Jordan’s river.
This is a very unhealthy trait where we are teaching our children it’s okay to hide your true feelings. How can we reverse this curse? I hate the thought of my children hurting on the inside but not feeling comfortable enough to express those feelings because of something they learned from watching me. Yes, this is a learned behavior, we picked up along the way, like learning to walk and talk. We inherit “stuff” good and bad from our parents whether we realize this or not.
Me and countless other women have found comfort in crying alone wiping our own eyes, picking ourselves up and facing the day like a superhero, as if we didn’t soak our pillows just hours before.
2020 only begun 5 months ago and it has been the toughest year mentally for our youth hopefully this is the year we heal because we’ve been forced to face fears and express concern for health and wealth.
With mental illness on the raise and seeking help has always been taboo in black communities until mainstream media made therapy cool, we started having conversations out in the open. We took the blinders off and realized we have real pain that needs addressing and now is the time.
How can we fix this damage to begin to heal? We have to start by crying right where we’re hurting. If you stomped your toe and it hurts, you would yell curse and scream right there, you wouldn’t think twice about expressing emotions weeping should be no different.
I was shocked and saddened at the responses that mirrored my own from many women that also cry alone. It seems as though we are not alone and maybe we should do one big group weeping series session.
Sis, Cry.
Seek help.
Heal.
