Johnny Johnny, please don’t cry

This was the title of the first English song I knew when I was in primary school. Whenever I feel like crying, the rhythm of this song will somehow cross my mind. I can’t really remember if I was a crying baby when I was a child. I can only remember an incident when I cried hysterically during my primary school time. I was having very high fever and the whole family was surrounding me with my parents trying to calm me now. I was literally crying and crying. My dad was trying to console me by agreeing with what I said. I guess he must have difficulty in following all my requests, he then triggered my crying to the peak with a wrong answer. I remember vividly that I said I wanted to go to school the next day and he got it wrong and said that I should stay at home to rest because of my high fever. I burst out hysterically with a sharp cry followed by jumping and leaping on my bed shouting “I want to go to school!”.

Although I have not much memory to justify myself being a crying baby during childhood, I must be crying quite a bit at my early teenage days after I started experiencing problems in life. I developed a hatred for crying towards the end of my secondary school and forbade myself from crying anymore after an incident with my dad. I had no tear for quite a long while. I didn’t cry when my aunt committed suicide; I didn’t cry when my beloved grandma left me; I didn’t cry when I had difficult in life.

My house was robbed the first time after we shifted to this current one not long after a year. Although no one was hurt except monetary loss, it was quite a traumatic experience for the whole family. My dad was sitting in the living room a few days after the incidence and recounting it. He broke down in tear and suddenly shifted his target to me blaming me on all my faults. I was very hurt and felt strong anger developed inside. I disgusted with the incidence; I disgusted why things had to happen this way; I disgusted why no one come protecting me; I disgusted my dad’s crying. I saw crying as a weakness. I declared to myself quietly that I would not shed tear in my life anymore.

I forgot about the feeling of crying for quite a long long time until I met my first date. I saw the long lost friend of me in my face when thing didn’t go smoothly with him. Since then, I had less resistance to crying, I could only on and off control my urge to burst into tears. Although I still saw crying as a weakness, I had not much determination to resume the previous state again. I couldn’t say I was indulged in crying, but I did cry a bit more since the day I stopped seeing my first date.

I have been crying a lot again these few days, in fact a little bit too much. I think it is too much as I feel I am feeling more down after each cry. I am not too sure subconsciously if I am taking this as an avenue to release my emotional stress. Whatever it is, I want to make a decision as I want to see improvement in my situation. I want to make a decision not to cry anymore for a few reasons.

1. I tried the way and it is heading into negative direction now. Crying is making me weaker emotionally each day.

2. I need to re-compose and discipline myself in order to get back on track for recovery. Stop crying can be a form of discipline

3. I have also started working on different tools to get myself back on track like meditation, reading. I believe these are positive substitutes to crying.

4. I want to take this opportunity to build a stronger me emotionally by not crying.

I will not see tear again with all my effort from now.

wrote on 14 Dec 07