Ok to Cry
How often do you cry? Crying doesn’t follow a schedule. Sometimes it will hit me out of nowhere, suddenly something will cause my chest to feel tight and my eyes to start stinging. Other times it will build up slowly. I won’t notice the pressure until it finally spills over. When I was little, I cried all the time over anything. If something didn’t go my way, or if I didn't get what I wanted I would cry. It helped that I had an older sister who would baby me no matter what, so I knew that crying worked. My parents would also usually give in, and crying kind of became my default reaction. As I got older, that changed. Crying started to make me feel weak, dramatic, or that I couldn’t handle things. I have always been a sensitive person. I overthink small reactions and moments that other people brush off. I notice tones in voices and faces and take them personally. I remember one time in middle school, I was sitting at lunch with my friends, and one of them told me to move so ...