Crying Excessively in Many Different Situations

Reader’s Question

I am a 20 year old woman and I’ve been known to cry excessively in many different situations, both major or minor problems, daily. Many situations in my life have ranged from relationship problems, to family issues, to personal low self-esteem issues. The problem is, my uncontrollable crying. I cry immediately without truly understanding the problem and addressing it. I just start crying and crying. I’ve researched online and most websites have connected excessive crying with depression. I don’t believe I am depressed. I just don’t know how to release my emotions in other healthier ways. I cry when I’m angry, happy, sad, and sometimes I just cry when I feel like it and I don’t think I had a major nor minor issue that bothered me. Please help me with different ways to express my feelings instead of crying, and help me learn to control my excessive crying when I deal with situations. If you could help me with a step-by-step process on controlling my crying, I would greatly appreciate it.

Our Consulting Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Most likely, you’re running too hot. Imagine the temperature gauge on your automobile. If your auto runs hot due to poor cooling or other factors, it doesn’t take much for the temperature light to go on — driving up a hill, driving faster, sitting in traffic too long, etc. Emotionally, crying is often our “temperature light”. When we live under a lot of emotional, social, and personal pressure from jobs, family, money, relationships, etc. — we are emotionally stressed and running hot. Like the auto, it doesn’t take much to start a crying spell. These frequent and uncontrollable crying spells are high stress indicators and warnings. Like the temperature light in the auto, frequent crying spells tell us we are emotionally operating under a lot of stress.

Like the automobile, we need to cool down. Emotionally, use stress-reduction techniques. Consider counseling to deal with your major stressors. If others signs of stress and depression are present such as sleep problems, thought racing, poor concentration, etc. — you should seek consultation with a physician. A small dose of an antidepressant (such as Zoloft) can often be very helpful. There is a good chance that a depression is sneaking up on you as most depression is related to prolonged exposure to high stress levels — not a single bad event.

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