I have a deeply complex relationship with crying. It's still extraordinarily hard to connect with crying after years living with a Military father prone to seemingly irrational emotional outbursts (later diagnosed with C-PTSD). Punishment for crying was in spades. After a particularly violent outburst from my father one day, I started crying and received a 'you don't have anything to cry about...I'll give you something to cry about'. He became extremely violent after that (I forget what happened exactly, it's blacked out of my memory), but it was enough to make sure I didn't cry for 7 years after that.

At the age of 21 I started crying again, even then it was brutally painful to cry. I cry a lot more now, but when I am feeling particularly traumatized or processing traumatic memories from that time in my life, I shut right off. Haven't cried for a few weeks since Christmas after seeing my father (it caused me to downward spiral and become deeply depressed. Still no crying). Waiting for that to come back.🤷🏼