Cry, Baby, Cry

How stoicism and the need to look unfazed or to 'save face' sabotage our emotional health, true healing and connection with others

Photo by leungchopan

This essay was originally posted on May 8, 2024 and is now republished as part of the month-long collaboration with 12 other Substack writers who contribute to Victoria @Carer Mentor: Empathy & Inspiration’s September anthology on crying. Tomorrow, I pass the baton to

Rachel Ooi

to carry on the challenge to delve deep into this subject.

Why is it so difficult to be honest with our emotions and express them directly — both to others and to ourselves?

I believe this is largely because we are conditioned to fit our emotional expressions into a narrow frame — one that’s acceptable to our caregivers and our culture — so as not to rock the boat.

Don’t rock the boat

What does rocking the boat mean? It may mean disturbing the harmony within the family, workplace, or society at large. The fear of rocking the boat and the desire to maintain harmony exists everywhere, but is particularly prominent in Asian and other collectivist cultures.

In Asian cultures, the emphasis on preserving harmony has created a distinct set of norms and principles that guide people’s public and private behavior. These cultural norms exert a lot of pressure on us to protect one another’s emotions as a means to keep everything calm on the surface.

For example, in Japanese culture, there is a distinct separation of how people show up in the public sphere (friendly, polite, no talk of personal distress, no criticism of others, etc.) and how they show up with the folks they are closest to (revealing the most honest and vulnerable parts). This concept of wearing different faces is known as honne and tatemae and serves to preserve outward harmony in society.

In Chinese culture, there is a very prominent concept of “face.” On the surface, it may mean respect for someone in the public, so that they don’t get embarrassed, or “lose face.” However, it extends beyond simple acts of respect. It’s a silent social rule to help others “save face,” and to “give face” to others. In practice, it amounts to protecting others’ ego and emotions to preserve harmonious relationships and avoid conflicts. Saving face is also applied to the self, so that one won’t have to feel embarrassed. Oftentimes it means not showing weakness of any kind. There is a tremendous amount of shame associated with words and behavior that are considered weak, including crying and feeling sad or depressed.

How the poker face was born

When we feel we can’t be honest with our own feelings, we put on a socially acceptable mask. We may feel that we fit in, but the sense of belonging and connection is only skin deep. Why?

Emotions contain important information that tells us, among others, whether we are safe and alerts us of threats that could impact our survival. Each emotion sets off specific hormones that affect our in-the-moment reactions. For example, anger or fear can set off stress hormones like adrenaline or cortisol that prepare the body for fight-or-flight responses. So emotions aren’t inherently positive or negative. They are essential components of our wholeness.

By extension, emotional expressions are important sources of information that allow others to gauge where we are at in order to respond to our needs (or lack thereof). These expressions come in the form of spoken words, body language, including facial expressions, and so on.

Someone once commented on how vivid my facial expressions were, yet my high school friends had also commented on how they could not figure me out due to my bland facial expression. How did I come to embody such a dichotomy?

In hindsight, I can see how my highly sensitive self led me to exhibit what my parents and teachers considered “exaggerated” emotional expressions. Through their ridicule and disapproval, I interpreted my emotional expressions as a form of weakness, which was rejected by the people who were supposed to love me. I learned to suppress my sensitivity and hide my emotions. Gradually, I learned to wear a poker face — hence the “bland” facial expression.

You see, the young Louisa made up a story in her mind that it wasn’t safe to express her true emotions. “There must’ve been something wrong with me,” I thought, “or else my mom and teachers wouldn’t talk secretly behind my back saying how overly sensitive I was.”

In addition to this personal experience, the Chinese culture, in which I grew up, shuns certain emotions that are considered “disruptive” to social harmony. So I learned, through social conditioning, that it wasn’t acceptable or desirable to insist on having my emotional needs met. Instead, to become an accepted and respectable person in society, I must learn to lock my own emotions in a drawer and never show them in public, especially those that may cause disruptions or conflicts.

In her book “Permission to Come Home: Reclaiming Mental Health as Asian Americans,” Jenny T. Wang, a licensed psychologist specializing in the impact of racial trauma and racial identity on mental health, writes:

“While there is nothing inherently wrong with keeping the peace between family members, the emphasis on peace and harmony might send the implicit message that conflict is bad and should be avoided at all costs, even if it means that we need to emotionally bypass ourselves in order to maintain that peace.”

~Jenny T. Wang

I resonate 100 percent with what Wang said. In fact, “emotional bypassing” was my specialized skill. And it seemed to have gotten me through life’s many circumstances where harmony was the rule of the game.

At the workplace, the ability to hide my hypersensitivity also seemed to pay off. Productivity and emotional needs don’t seem to go hand in hand.

I then migrated to countries — the United States and Sweden — where stoicism and the ability to control one’s emotions are equally, if not more, appreciated as in my own culture. To survive in my adopted countries, I doubled down on my effort to get my natural emotions under kontroll (Swedish for “under control”).

Emerging from the shame of crying

One type of emotional expression that’s often suppressed in adults is crying. All babies do that, often and profusely, as they haven’t learned how to express their needs with words. But in many cultures, once we’re out of the toddler stage, crying signals weakness. And weakness carries with it so much shame, especially among those raised to become men. This shame also exists among women, particularly in the last century when women rose in power and asserted our independence.

Looking strong is a way to acquire or boost self confidence and self esteem. But if we try to look strong all the time, we lose touch with the parts of us that feel vulnerable, hurt and weak, and therefore lose the opportunities to receive comfort and love. We may also miss out on the real healing effects of tears.

On the other hand, if we allow space for the vulnerable parts of us to emerge and express themselves, it can open up the door for others to pour love into our hearts.

Here’s a personal experience that happened recently:

I was at a gynecologist’s clinic and the doctor decided to perform a biopsy. I wasn’t prepared for that and the procedure turned out to be excruciatingly painful. I bit my lips even though I wanted to scream. Then I pulled my hair as I frowned in agony while cold sweat covered my face. The physician assistant trainee offered his hand for me to grab and I took it and squeezed hard. I toughed it out and didn’t cry.

But as I lied on the exam table afterwards, and was told to rise up to take a painkiller, I suddenly “lost it”! My heart palpitated, and I started seeing stars. I felt that I was about to faint, so I told the nurse about my sensations and my fear. “I’m so scared! I’m afraid I’m going to pass out! It hurts so bad!”

At this point, big fat drops of tears rolled down my cheeks. and I couldn’t control my emotions any longer. I sobbed like a crybaby and I couldn’t stop.

There was a split second when I became self-conscious and felt ashamed of my crying. My self-critic berated me and said, “Stop crying! Don’t lose face!” But the sadness, fear and agony were so overwhelming that they flooded my system and I couldn’t care anymore.

Noticing my gut-wrenching cry, the physician assistant called on the doctor and nurses for help. The doctor decided that I should be given an injection to stop the pain (the type that’s typically given after a C-session). Luckily, my pain stopped me from even getting up to take the ibuprofen earlier, which would have been counter indicative to the injection medicine. My crying thus became an accurate indicator of how much pain I was experiencing. If I had toughed it out as I always had, I might not have drawn the necessary attention and gotten the stronger pain medication that I needed.

This was an example of how crying literally saved me from excruciating pain.

But the story didn’t end there.

My sadness invited love

In my non-stop sobbing, I spilled my guts about how lonely I felt after my recent breakup, and told my care team that I was sexually betrayed. I also blurted out my resentment of being put into this condition as a result of that. The doctor immediately ordered an STI test, which turned out to be another essential response to my distress and well-being.

By allowing my emotions a free channel to flow, I ended up getting the care and love from an entire medical team — three nurses, a physician assistant and a specialist doctor. They stayed with me for longer than I thought I “deserved,” comforted me with kind words, held my hands, and saw to it that my pain was properly controlled before I left. I was stunned at how much love I actually received.

My lonely soul was suddenly surrounded by a community who cared. It was totally unexpected (considering how we are usually treated in our healthcare “system”). I was tremendously grateful to these kind folks. I was also grateful to the instinct of crying, which clearly served its purpose in this case to summon the empathy from others in the moment that I badly needed it.

This was the first time I let myself cry full out in front of total strangers — with no underpants on, no less!

Yet this has become one of the most empowering moments of my life, because I reclaimed my authentic emotions, had the courage to express them and was rewarded for doing so. Saving face would never have gotten me this far.

Prompt: Do you have any trouble expressing your emotions? Which emotion is the hardest for you to express? Are you aware of why it’s so difficult to express it? Please share your thoughts by clicking the comment button below.

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Care to Share?

An article, a Substack note, a poem, art, a great quote or music?

A personal experience with tears or crying.

1. Here’s how:

   1. Create a piece about your tears or crying

   2. REFERENCE The Carer Mentor Collaboration ‘Caring About Crying’ OR Simply draw a Heart with ‘I CARE’ inside it.

   3. SHARE the URL Link in the comments below with the TITLE in CAPS

   4. FIND and READ someone else’s piece, comment and restack.

   A few catalyst thoughts: When did you last cry? Tell us about your most profound experiences of crying. Do tears come easily? When someone cries, what do you do—how do you receive tears?

Here are some great Substack resources that I recommend for anyone trying to understand the complexities of grief:

1. Debbie Weil, writer of Bold Age:  Please don't say "Sorry for your loss"

2. Victoria Chin, writer of Carer Mentor:  Grief is Messy: It’s Not a Tidy Five-Stage Path

3. Anne, writer of The Future Widow. ‘Intentionally Building Resilience One Day at a Time’

4. Victoria Chin, writer of Carer Mentor: Grief Resource Articles

The Caring About Crying Anthology. We All Cry. You’re Not Alone.

• Sept 1 Launch article: Caring About Crying. We All Cry. You’re Not Alone By Victoria at Carer Mentor: Empathy and Inspiration

• Sept 2 Crying: 'Did you know?' Resource: Tears the science and some art. By Victoria at Carer Mentor: Empathy and Inspiration

• Sept 3 Cry, Baby. Why Our Tears Matter' A Podcast Interview. Dan Harris and Dr Bianca Harris of Ten Percent Happier with Reverend Benjamin Perry. By Victoria at Carer Mentor: Empathy and Inspiration

• Sept 4 ‘In Conversation with Rev. Benjamin Perry’. Victoria interviews the Author of 'Cry Baby: Why Our Tears Matter' By Victoria at Carer Mentor: Empathy and Inspiration

• Sept 5 My stoic mom's parting gift: Making peace with tears By Sarah Coomber at Sandwich Season

• Sept 6 We Invite You to 'Care About Crying'. By Victoria on behalf of the team.

• Sept 6 ICU Special Edition: There's Crying in Baseball? By Nurse Kristin  at HCT:Heal Cure Treat

• Sept 7 Triggered. Caring About Crying Anthology By Kristina Adams Waldorf, MD at After He Said Cancer and Anne at The Future Widow  

• Sept 8 'Can't Cry. Want to Cry??' A Caregiver's Paradox of Human-ing. By Victoria at Carer Mentor: Empathy and Inspiration

• Sep 9 AWC Town Bulletin - On Crying By Tiffany Chu and Bakhtawar at Asian Writers Collective

• Sep 10 The Healing Power of Tears By Louisa Wah at Lily Pond

• Sept 11 My Tears are not a Grief Gauge By Anna De La Cruz at Gen Xandwich

• Sept 13 Sweet Relief After He Said Cancer | A Memoir by Kristina Adams Waldorf, MD at After He Said Cancer 

• Sept 15 When was the last time you cried in public? Moving from private grief to community healing By Mariah Friend at Heartbeats

• Sept 16 Crying While Parenting: A Mindful Approach By Amber Groomes,Ph.D. at Dr. Amber_Writes.