How do I not cry?
I don’t know why but if I am yelled, in an argument or someone is visibly upset/angry at me i just start to feel the urge to cry. Also when I’m having an argument and I just cant not cry and it stops me from having an argument cos I just cry and get really annoyed. As I guy it feels quite embarrassing to cry as well. How do I stop this from happening?
I get intimidated by people especially who have a rough tone or a harsh voice and people who have an attitude, and try avoiding conversation with them as I feel scared
Also the remarks , insults personally hurt me and curses as well. How do I develop a thick skin to it?
Please help guys
Comments
This is likely a reaction from your childhood. Not wanting to disappoint your parent or care giver. Feeling intensely afraid when you’re being accused of wrong doing, or criticized. Perhaps because you felt your parents didn’t believe you. Perhaps because you had pressure to always be the good child. From my own experience, it comes from not wanting to disappoint my parent or make a mistake. It’s the fear of being at fault, doing something wrong, making a mistake – when someone yells at me, it’s because they’re angry with my mistake or behaviour (rightfully or wrongfully) – and I panic because I feel I’ve done something wrong and I’m in trouble. So it’s the childhood trauma of wanting to avoid trouble and always be the good child who doesn’t cause problems. I didn’t want to upset my parents.
Emotional reactions like these are always from childhood trauma, as the kids say.
The way you can fix it, is by going to therapy. Learning the root of this reaction. And learning to undo that damage or fear. Healing the childhood trauma.
Also, practising confrontation in safe settings, so you can become more used to it and learn how to react better.
I used to feel the same way, but let me ask you—are you skinny, and could you defend yourself if necessary? I bring this up because once I started working out and learning self-defense, I realized that if I ever needed to stand up for myself, both verbally and physically, I’d at least have the confidence to hold my own. Even if I couldn’t necessarily win a fight, I knew I could defend myself well enough to come out okay. On top of that, I started intentionally seeking out arguments just to get comfortable with debating and handling confrontations, even when emotions were running high—strange as that might sound, lol.
I am sorry this happen’s to you! I think you may have some unaddressed things around conflict and perhaps some harmful relationships when you were a child maybe? Were you allowed to have a voice and speak up as a child? Did you feel safe with your emotions?
A good therapist could help you understand what is triggering this reaction and help you work through those things they are under the surface and you can improve your life so much!
Whenever you have intense emotional reactions to things that don’t necessarily call for it ive learned that that is a clue that you need to work through something from the past. That’s often the kid in you popping up. When the adult you is present and you’ve worked through any stuff you will be able to have a much more adult reaction and emotional control on those situations.
Honestly, you might benefit from talk therapy.
I’ve never been where you are, so what I’m about to say is me just sharing my personal strategies, and not trying to in any way tell you what you “should” be doing.
If I start feeling any kind of overwhelming emotion in a conversation, I end it then and there. If it’s a mutually respectful exchange, I’ll just suggest we continue later.
If it’s because the other person is being rude/loud/disrespectful, I tell them I won’t be talked to like that, and shut them down completely.
Im not saying ive mastered this yet lol but so far, if someones mean you dont need any fancy elaborate mean comeback, you just gotta practice confidently responding something – anything , thats reasonable, even-toned, concise, and you sound sure of yourself – like if someone snaps at you just take a breath and try to say clearly, “I wont accept the tone of this discussion but we can try talking later when we are both calmer” then walk away lols.
Another thing that helps is that when im trying to have an argument but start crying -in frustration or whatever but dont want to look like its from being intimidated i just dont leave the argument if ive gotta finish it now and say “im just crying because im not sure how else to let out some of my frustration, but i still want to figure this out with you” and keep talking lols if theyre amicable to it even if u gotta keep feelin kinda tearful through it – or else i tell them “i think this discussion would be easier for me to do clearly through text so i can read my words if thats okay and maybe after we take a moment to calm ourselves”-even if you have to text each other from the same room or building, ive seen that done when thats the easiest clearest way to talk through something or i say calmly but firmly say i was just trying to help. -Like when someone snaps at you because they thought your idea was dumb or something
Lastly something that helps calm me when i wanna cry when getting yelled at us telling myself during the experience that Who does this person think they are anyway, thinking they have the right to talk to me disrespectfully and i dont deserve it? Just because theyre aggressive when they talk doesnt mean necessarily that what theyre saying is even rightt so i have no real reason to be intimidated because at least im not talking to people so inappropriately ! Just psyching myself up with reasons why even though theyre loud, i have no great other reasons to be intimidated by them!
Good luck!!!
Its years in the making. Not a easy thing to do.
For little insights on my background
I grew up in a pretty disciplinarian environment—dad was ex-military, and I was in boarding school most of my life. So handling emotions wasn’t really a big part of how I was raised. Mostly I had to live up or be shown as strong actually Maybe there’s something to unpack there.
And this saddens me that i never could shape myself up despite this experiences I had
Sometimes I cry, but I do my best to keep a level head despite that.
Like, “yeah, I’m crying. I know. To be fair, we’re not exactly having the funnest conversation right now.”
Anti-depressants
Practice.
My dad teased me my whole life in a joking, fun way. Would find our faults, tease us, then compliment us for ignoring it or, better yet, a witty retort. Always made us feel built up about it rather than put down. He said it was to get us prepared for bullies. I’ve honestly never had a bully and maybe it’s because I was able to joke about my faults with people.
It’s simple yet pretty bloody difficult- stop giving a fuck about what anyone thinks of you. People who judge you or insult you aren’t the type of people you should be concerning yourself with , these people are leeches who survive on other people’s negative emotions and energy.
Fuck those morons bro 🤙