“Why are you crying?” This is a question I’ve heard dozens of times throughout my life by school teachers, dance teachers, coaches, my parents, babysitters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and—of course—boyfriends. They say it because I have a puzzling talent for bursting into tears over the most trivial of things, specifically maladaptive stories I’ve manufactured in my head.
The first time I recall this happening, I was five years old and in a gymnastics class in Huntington Beach, California. It was 1984, and Mary Lou Retton had just killed it at the LA Olympics, so all the little girls in the OC flooded this huge gymnastics studio called SCATS with dreams of Retton-type stardom. Some of those spoiled little blondes even wore Retton leotards.
So one night, the gymnastics instructor—a 4’9” fat-free 30-something woman with a gaunt and angry face—ordered us all to do cartwheels across the mat. That’s when I experienced my first panic attack.
I could not do a cartwheel. I still can’t do a cartwheel, actually. The reason I couldn’t do a cartwheel is because I was too neurotic—even at four-years-old—to try one. The whole idea of plummeting yourself toward the ground with outstretched arms, then bouncing off the ground with said arms into the air, seemed extremely perilous. Surely I’d break my neck or my wrist! So when the instructor demanded we do them I found myself crumbling to the floor and sobbing into hyperventilation. That’s when the fat-free teacher crouched down next to me, her angry face turning perplexed as she asked, “Why are you crying?”
“Because I can’t” (choke) “do a cartwheel!” I said.
She didn’t seem so much concerned for me as baffled. She kept her gaze on the other girls as they hurled themselves across the mat while also trying to talk me off the ledge. I could barely breathe at that point, and my mother must have been watching from the parent section or something because she came running up in a near-equal state of hysteria convinced I’d broken a bone. We all decided it would be best if I left the class; I certainly didn’t want to stick around.
That was the end of my gymnastics career. Yep. I just flat-out quit and never looked back, which is fine, actually, since I became quite tall and there’s no way I would have made it to the Olympics with my 5’9″ frame.
I’m not sure what I thought my teacher would do to me once she discovered I couldn’t do a cartwheel—perhaps beat me up and execute me? But I do recall experiencing a thick wave of shame deep inside. I was wrong, bad and defective for not being able to do the goddamn cartwheel. This is obviously an aberrant reaction.
Around seven years later—when I was 12—I found myself sobbing during a ballet class that was far too advanced for me. The teacher, as alarmingly fat-free as my gymnastics teacher, kept banging on the floor with one of those big sticks and I just couldn’t keep up with the movements at the barre or to the tempo of the classical piano tune playing in the background. I panicked, convinced she’d start yelling at me, fell to the floor and burst once again into choking tears.
“Why are you crying?” she asked, bewildered. I don’t think I even answered; I just continued to sob and then, once again, left the dance class and went home feeling like a total failure.
Other examples of me bursting into unwarranted tears include when I got benched during recess in the fourth grade because I forgot to cover my social studies textbook in a paper bag, when I accidentally broke one of my cousin’s plastic glitter bracelets (all the rage in the mid-80s) and when I went on an interview at USC for a job I was totally unqualified for and the interviewer asked very difficult questions and I felt so stupid I just couldn’t keep it together. Thankfully, I kept the tears under control and didn’t hyperventilate, so she didn’t have to ask “Why are you crying?” There are many more incidents, too many to list.
For so long I beat myself up for being sensitive, convinced that this kind of wiring was greatly pathological and that I should sort of be killed for it. That’s how you think when people bug out their eyes at your tears and don’t acknowledge that great pain welling up inside you is really painful and really real. I know if I had a kid, there’s no way I would invalidate his or her feelings by brushing off the tears with the flippant statement, “You’re overreacting.”
No, we’re not overreacting. We sensitive types are reacting the way our hearts, minds, subconsciousness and souls are wired to react. Sorry. Lately I’m on this kick of just not giving a fuck if I’m pathological—if I’ve got stupid low self-esteem or cry too easily or get obsessed with the latest dude who’s getting me hot and bothered, well, so what?
It’s become clear that this so what attitude is actually very Buddhist. Not giving a fuck, accepting my neuroses, if you will, epitomizes the principal of non-judgment and loving kindness toward yourself. Miraculously, it just takes the edge off and allows me the space to actually work on these unhelpful thought patterns—no, they are not sins or character defects or issues or problems. First, I have to accept them, then I have the peace of mind to start to gently work toward excising them little by little from my mind.
One thing people don’t acknowledge is that there’s an upside to having super thin-skin and being hypersensitive to rejection, criticism and what people think of you. Those of us who trudge the world with this kind of wiring often treat others with the same kid gloves we wish to be treated with. We are compassionate. We are patient. We are mindful of what you’re feeling and can read your facial expressions. We know when you need a shoulder to cry on and we’ll give you both to do so. We also know when you want to be left alone, and we’ll let you do that in peace.
At least that’s how I operate. For the most part, I do try to do unto others as I would have them do unto me. It makes me a shitty boss and supervisor (as I hate ordering people around), but it does allow me to be a good writing tutor and teacher, as well as a good friend and not-so-shabby girlfriend.
So yeah. I cry easily. I break down like a fool and I suppose I should be embarrassed by it. But today, I’m okay with it. Judge the shit out of me, call me weak and maladaptive; I don’t give a fuck. We live in a world that values super-charged self-esteem, confidence, bravado and thick skin. Everyone’s constantly telling me to toughen up—from boyfriends to my bosses to my writing teachers. That’s fine if you’re tough, that’s fine if you think I should be, but I’m not going to apologize for my tears. I won’t apologize for my limits.
If you have a problem with that, I may cry—and that’s okay.
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