How To Ugly Cry
Today I cried.
I cried long, and hard, and ugly. I buried my face in a pillow to try and smother the sound so that I wouldn’t scare my children. I writhed in emotional and physical pain on the pull-out couch where I have spent the last six weeks sleeping. I felt like my breath was stuck in my lungs and my chest heavy, as if my heart were literally breaking. I cried so hard I gave myself a headache. I cried until I felt nothing. Which was the point — getting to empty. Getting everything out.
This was the first time I had cried since my husband informed me our eighteen-year marriage was over, nearly two months ago. He has been unhappy for years, and has taken that unhappiness out on everyone around him, especially me. Because I have spent years being disappointed, being disrespected, being ignored, and being threatened with divorce, I thought I had already grieved for the loss of our love. I thought there were no more tears left in me. I thought I was going to make it through our separation without an ugly cry.
I was wrong. I just needed the right trigger. When my husband spent an entire night at another woman’s house, and then returned home on Easter Sunday, in the middle of a pandemic that has me living in the basement of our home, it was just too much. It was exactly what I needed to start letting go of eighteen years of pain.
I imagine my pain as a solid mass sitting heavily in my chest threatening to suffocate me. I like to think of tears as melted pain. The more I can cry, the more pain I can release and the better I feel. Science backs up my own experience of crying as cathartic. Emotional tears release oxytocin and endorphins that help alleviate pain, both physical and emotional. In addition, crying is physically cleansing for our eyes and contains lysozyme which has antibacterial properties — take that COVID-19!
But I also realize that there are many people out there who hate crying and avoid it at all costs. For you, I have a beginner’s guide for the ugly cry. Use as needed.
The Trigger
For me, my husband’s blatant lack of consideration for my feelings, along with the isolation of social distancing for the past month, was the trigger that allowed me to finally break down and cry. All my rage and resentment bubbled to the surface…
