I'm a crier. I've been known to cry at Disney movies (and weep while watching more serious films), I cry when I hear a piece of beautiful music, I cry very easily in many aspects of my relationship...it's to the point that my nevermo SO has wondered about it. So I began thinking about why the waterworks are so easily turned on.

My parents and most of my siblings (the more-so TBM ones) are hearty criers...especially at the pulpit. When I think about it, crying has always been used in my family and the mormon community (at least the one I was raised in) to signify 'true' and 'significant' spiritual experiences. It's tacitly admired, especially when men in power do it. (My father is a bish and cries every Sunday at the head of the congregation.) It probably is also a natural inclination, but I think I've been socialized to cry more easily--it has become basically a natural response for me when I experience great emotion, happy or sad. I even googled it and came up with this NY Times piece about Glenn Beck's frequent breakdowns with an interesting quote from sociologist David Knowlton:

"Mormonism praises the man who is able to shed tears as a manifestation of spirituality."

The article goes on to say that "Crying and choking up are understood by Mormons as manifestations of the Holy Spirit. For men at every rank of Mormon culture and visibility, appropriately timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power."

So, RfM, do you think you cry (cried) more easily because of Mormon conditioning? (Also, I apologize if this topic has been raised before. I did a search but didn't find any mentions.)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2012 10:02PM by otherlives.

Yes - Mormons can fountain up with some of the bestest fastest Crocodile Tears on the planet, anytime, anywhere.

Hollywood actors: take notes.

I don't doubt that there are a lot of crocodile tears out there. But I'm not faking it when I cry--I just cry really easily. And I *think* my family/community is the same--the tears are sincere but just abnormally frequent. That's what I'm curious about...

I suspect it's a combination of nature and nurture. You naturally tend to cry more easily, and you've lived in an environment that encourages it. It's possible that in a different environment, you would have been taught to try to hold it in, and would cry less easily than you do now, but still maybe more than some other people around you.

I think this is one of the things the alienated me.

I have always been inclined toward the "stiff upper lip" approach (at least in public).

This is why I have always found testimony meetings to be agonizing.

Nothing against people that are criers--we all have our ways of dealing with things, but it just isn't my style.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2012 10:06PM by archytas.

Oh, believe me, I wish I didn't cry so easily. :) I get that it is one way of dealing with things. It's just now that I've moved away from the morg and Utah, I really don't see the crying around me as much. It's just fascinating to think about how Mormon (or any) culture affects things like emotional displays and ideas of masculinity.

I understand how mormon culture can still infect a person even after leaving.

In my case, the whole "perfectionism" thing has had a negative effect on my life and I'm still trying to shake it. Doing your best is a good thing, but seeing anything less than perfection has worthless is bad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2012 10:15PM by archytas.

My mother stopped crying when she went on antidepressants. I'm sure the cult makes her depressed.

ya know...take a well connected mormon in his ward, who talks for effect (and cries when he has to/feels it) and out him in a professional environment and watch him cry when he talks about something he feels strongly about........







awkward.....

Having been a crying Mormon and observed lots of crying Mormons
I've come to the conclusion that the tears have a strong inner-
tension component in their cause.

In Mormonism you are never good enough, Jesus only likes what
you CAN be and never really what you ARE. In Mormonism there is
constant pressure to appear to be a certain way. This leads to
a lot of unexpressed, un-vented inner tension. The tears are, in
part at least, a manifestation of the inner turmoil that goes on
inside of Mormons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2012 11:03PM by baura.

Interesting take. You know, I really don't cry often in public--maybe a couple of times in my life. But I haven't cried as much (and not at all in public) since I left the church and after the subsequent family turmoil. I think you might be onto something there.

"In Mormonism you are never good enough, Jesus only likes what
you CAN be and never really what you ARE"

that is a very serious statement..

Many people have a vision or thought about Jesus.

to ALWAYS think that you are striving to be someone so jesus will like you because right now (for whatever reason), he doesn't.

I would always feel like a hamster on a wheel...never getting anywhere....

I am of British extraction and it disgusts me to watch a man blubber. As much as I dislike my father, the man never wept at the pulpit, or at home for that matter.

I have cried my eyes dry, but only for love lost. And that in private. I think the last weepy man in my line was Emanuel, the polygamist, my great grandpa. I scoff at his memory. Thirty five children and not thirty five cents in his pocket. He wept when visiting neglected relatives.

Let tears be for unrequited love. Not for faux seers and prophets and polygamist screw ups.

Gotta love the Brits.

This is one thing I learned on the board. Mormons cry at church. It shocked me.

It also explained the look on my mormon friend's face when I was poking fun at the way the Muslim clerics wail every time someone mentions the 13th Imam's name.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2012 11:23PM by thingsithink.