• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Why does being happy make me cry???

Status
Not open for further replies.

Lionheart

Not Active
Sponsor
I am happier than I have been in a long time and this is good, but for some reason every time I feel happiness, I get emotional and cry my heart out.

Every time I am laughing, having fun, and feeling loved and supported, I start crying really hard and that seems weird to me. Does anybody else have this problem or know why this would be happening to me?

Someone said that the pleasure centers in the brain are damaged by trauma and that's why I do it...... I don't know if that is true or not. Does anyone know about this?

Thank you in advance for your replies...

Lion
 
Last edited:
I do more often than before. To me, it's a sign of healing. Allowing yourself to feel loved and content is allowing yourself to be vulnerable, it sometimes hurts.

If you look at how far you've come, it's pretty amazing. Finding laughter in everyday things was something that at one point you didn't think would return. And now it has. I'd shed a tear or two.
 
I am happier than I have been in a long time and this is good, but for some reason every time I feel happiness, I get emotional and cry my heart out.
I'm tearing up reading this at excitement for you! I think it's progress. You are allowing yourself to feel good emotions. Although good, those are emotions we are not used too and can be both exciting and scary. Congrats on progress if that is what this turns out to be! I hope so!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I believe I can empathize with what you're feeling, Lionheart, and I see FridayJones's post and know that's a thing, but when this has happened to me in the past, I don't experience it as tears of joy. I have shed tears of joy perhaps twice in my life, whereas I have cried while feeling loved many, many times.

I've found I cry whenever I feel overcome with emotion. Anger, sadness, frustration, and love or happiness. I say it's different than crying tears of joy for me because in such cases, I feel the reason I am actually crying is because I am overwhelmed with vulnerable emotions, as @Nam said, versus crying because I'm simply so elated.

Some songs will trigger very powerful, overwhelming emotion in me (of all kinds), and I'll surprise myself by suddenly beginning to cry. The first time this happened (ever, it was the first time I cried so spontaneously), I was seventeen, had just left the T I'd been seeing for five years, and I was listening to a song I love. I just started crying, out of nowhere. It had nothing to do with my session. I think I opened up somewhere that day, maybe even that week, and let more emotion into my life, and I heard that song and was just overcome with feeling.

Perhaps it's a bit like the Deaf getting cochlear implants. They are unused to processing noise, so everything seems so loud and foreign, it's overwhelming. Between the ages of 13 and 15, I had really shut emotion out of my life. When feeling started to come back and really set in, maybe it was just overwhelming because I was not used to processing my feelings, and I began this crying business.

I would agree, though, that in any case, this is good news for you, Lion. I'm happy for you. :)
 
I've found I cry whenever I feel overcome with emotion. Anger, sadness, frustration, and love or happiness. I say it's different than crying tears of joy for me because in such cases, I feel the reason I am actually crying is because I am overwhelmed with vulnerable emotions, as @Nam said, versus crying because I'm simply so elated.

Yes, thank you @Simply Simon ...I am overcome with love and happiness like I have never known before in my entire life, because I love and am in love with, the best friend I have ever had. This may well be the reason I am crying like I am.... I think it is partially because I have allowed myself to be vulnerable and share my heart and soul (within a healthy loving relationship) and it has made me feel overwhelmed.

I think that the child self part of me is crying inside because he is both happy and afraid at the same time....my younger self did not experience love the likes of which I am feeling now. I also think that younger self is healing in a big way and that's great, yet a bit frightening and intense..

I really appreciate everyone's response very much....thank you!!!!

Lion
 
This may well be the reason I am crying like I am.... I think it is partially because I have allowed myself to be vulnerable and share my heart and soul (within a healthy loving relationship) and it has made me feel overwhelmed.

Omigoodness. This. This. Yep. It's a combination of "This can't be true, it's too good..." and "I can't lose this or I might die..." And taking that risk anyway.

The younger child in you is just cautious is all. He has learned that all things that are good can be taken away. But the you now knows that it just might be worth it. And that is scary, wonderful, sad, and a relief all at the same time.
 
Omigoodness. This. This. Yep. It's a combination of "This can't be true, it's too good..." and "I can't lose this or I might die..." And taking that risk anyway.

I think that being in a healthy adult relationship for the first time ever is overwhelming and just so awesome and like you said, "that is scary, wonderful, sad and a relief all at the same time!"
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top