I never have.

I used to share your fear that once I started, I would go on forever, but it still hasn't happened. I still can't cry when I feel the need and still can't cry in front of witnesses. I feel the pain, but the tears simply will not come. My eyes get watery on occasion, but that is it. I am still more likely to get angry than to cry in front of witnesses.

Even when I am alone, the tears are few and mostly silent.

I do not think it would be a bad thing to break down sobbing in counseling. I think it would be honest.

I have cried hard in sessions and have remained upset sometimes even after the sessions have ended. I think it is healthy to cry sometimes, but I would try to structure the session so that we stop going so deep in time for me to recover when it's time to leave.

The 2011 mental breakdown festivities for myself included a period of "keening", where I would get in fetal position and cry like a wounded animal for a few hours a day.
I felt like I was grieving my own death, which had already, in the truest sense, happened, when I was 6.
Surviving that was very hard.

I do I do I do! But I now don't cry so hard I actually vomit or can't move for a day without aching from how hard I cried.... b/c I am learning to go ahead and do a little of it every day and crying as I need, and then re-centering in the present and distract myself....

Letting go and doing a big cry? i did one so epic they took me to an ER about a year ago. I ltierally was panicking-crying so hard I wasn't able to breathe right.

So speaking from personal experience? I know that sense you're "fighting down" a big one---that fear of what's under it---but therapy is probably the safest place to do it, so go ahead, let it rip---

It's freaking frightening, I know. I spent over a month wondering what had me waking in a panic---but till I had a good hours-long cry-down didn't get to it---and last year? Well, let's just say no more ER for me. THat scares me *worse* than my past.

Sorry to ramble, just letting you know, you aren't alone in that feeling of the about-to-burst dam----and tell your therapist if you haven't. Sometimes just admitting I want to cry helps me feel less presure building----and I don't ask why anymore. I have 20 years of sh*t to cry over. The why comes along when it does.

Big comforting purrs, and disregard all that if you want, just my op-ed on it..
Leo

Oh, and for what little it's worth? I was told that crying would get me in more trouble. That was hard and is hard to overcome. So if that's something you were told/taught, that can be a big issue.

Sure. I was taught as a guy boys don't cry. Then I had dissociation on top of that. So when I cried in therapy it was a big breakthrough for me. No one had ever cried for me and for what had happened to me. It was about time somebody did, even if it was me. I was just a sweet child nine years old going out for ice cream when that man threw that bomb at the car I was in and made it burst into flames. If that's not worth tears, what is?

Yes more than once. i bring a xanax with me, glasses and a hat. I also usually plan for some decompress time. This can be at a second hand store, or garage sale-ing list if the weather is conducive to it. Somewhere the people I may run into won't recognize me. I even went to a church sale and lunch fundraiser, so large that it too a while to get through, filled with positive people.
I don't fight it, because that is part of the healing and it only get worse when it's held in. I equate that to the same as having my voice taken away in the past. The counsiling is there for that reason, and the voice of reason. By hiding the hurt/pain...you don't help your councilor, help you.

Gentle hugs, Jewells

I let my councilor know when I med, since she can't see, if needed the also have a "carrer closet there...I go organize by size and colors(past job that I really liked) it helps them and gives me decompress time.

Well not in a counseling session, but anywhere without warning. I usualy am emotionless, but the tears lately are bubbling to the surface.

Good to know a few others have had the big cry. I am so embarrassed to do it in front of him but the last session I almost started. We were talking about events that happened after my husband's death and I started to tear up and my voice wavered then he said , "This really upsets you doesn't it?" I forced myself to shut down. I know he wants me to let it all out because when he sees it starting he pokes a little. I'm just so scared. I think it has been months since I cried...really cried and before that one time it had been years.

Opening the flood gates is like standing in a middle of a room naked and (this may not make sense) it is like giving up my control and giving him the power. he could destroy me if I let him see me bleed. I know.....he is not my enemy but it has been 5 years (maybe more) since I have let anyone in.

I know I need to rid myself of some of the crap building up inside but I don't know if I can.

I also have issues with crying and losing control in front of a therapist. For me, because they are an authority figure, it is especially important to have control around them. Crying without restraint makes me feel like a powerless infant, out of control of my body, spewing vile fluids. Is that helpful?

I cry best alone, and even then, it feels like some kind of surgery to let the pain out if its container. Certain TV shows and movies are the best for me for triggering the sobs. "Call the Midwife" on Netflix streaming brought on a lot of sobbing, between the helpless infants and the tragic stories. But not exclusively tragic so it didn't bring on depression, just relief.

Tell your therapist it's about control---he may decide NOT to poke and then you'll feel less pressured.... if that makes sense---- but it is a huge thing to be so vulnerable.

At the community college where I teach we had a Veterans Club meeting. One of the guys organizes the funerals for veterans in my town. After the meeting, he told me the story of a guy he helped bury. The guy had a dear old dog who wasn't allowed to be a part of the funeral.

The day after the funeral, though, the dog escaped the house where he lived. Somehow he found the cemetery. So the guy I was talking to said he found the dog sitting on the grave where his master had been buried the day before.

True story. I was so touched I choked up and my eyes welled up with tears, very embarrassed to be a guy crying while talking to another guy after a veterans' meeting. I apologized. The guy said exactly what I wrote here above: If this isn't something you can shed a tear over, then what is?

I couldn't believe the coincidence with what I myself had said earlier here above.

For the record, I don't cry all that much. I am glad, though, that I can cry now when it counts. Like the guy at the veterans' meeting today, there's no shame in that. It's just that we guys were taught boys don't cry. That's something my mother insisted on when I was growing up.

As an adult now I'm glad to see that the therapy worked. I'm able to cry and not just dissociate like I did for years and years after the war I survived myself. It feels good, it feels right.