I’ve been going through a lot recently. Multiple jobs, bills piling up, and my current relationship is falling apart. I want to cry. To bawl my eyes out and scream at the top of my lungs. But I can’t. It feels like there’s a wall between me and my emotions. Anyone else deal with this?
None of what I’m about to say is advice, just my experience. I’m an oldish person who’s been dealing with this for decades. I lost a parent when I was a preteen and sort of slammed the brakes on my feelings as a way to cope.
I apologize in advance for the indelicate comparison I’m about to make, but I recently had my first experiences with psilocybin, and found that (at least for me) it acted as a sort of “emotional laxative”. It didn’t cause me to immediately break down and sob or anything, but over the following weeks I had brief moments where I actually felt some of these clogged-up emotions and was able to open up the release valve a bit.
Afterward, listening to certain emotionally-charged songs or certain types of cinematic scenes was occasionally enough to tip me over into a short crying jag. This would last a minute or two, then I’d suddenly be back to “normal”, but with a strong sense of relief from getting some of that out of my system.
Thank you for asking. I’m not sure, I haven’t been able to put my finger on what exactly gets me. I think I’m a sucker for stories that are about the flaws and fragility of humanity, that are told in a particularly honest way. Recent examples would be:
- Hamnet
- Train Dreams
- The Wild Robot
- The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
Everyday life doesn’t really ever make me feel that way, I just don’t find the ins and outs triggering that emotional response.
That being said, I am a prolific crier at movies. So I guess I am still regularly washing my insides, just with a different stimulus.
