The Right to Cry

We’re entitled to basic human coping mechanisms. 

TW: discussion of child abuse (physical abuse)

Yesterday, I had to take my elderly cat to the vet and have her put to sleep. It was incredibly difficult to do, but I also knew I was making the right choice. She had no quality of life left. As I left my house with her in the cat carrier, making one final trip to the vet, I wondered if I would cry.

All my life, I have struggled to cry. My childhood abusers beat it out of me. Using all sorts of different tactics, they shut down my ability to cry so they could hurt me as much as they wanted and I would just lie there and not respond anymore. One of the classic tactics from my childhood was, “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll whip you again.” My abusers would often exceed my pain threshold, but I was supposed to suck it up and not cry. Sure, I could scream while the beating was happening, but as soon as it was over, I was supposed to be stone cold stoic, no matter how much pain I was in.

You know.

So they didn’t have to feel guilty for beating the shit out of a small child.

As a result, very few things get through to me and produce tears, but as it turns out, one of the only things that can is the death of a pet.

I was standing in the exam room waiting for the vet to arrive, watching my cat shift around and knowing this was the end. My S.O., Keith, said, "You have the right to be human." I literally had to give myself permission to cry, but at his words, I managed to do it because I saw the truth: I felt like my abusers and all the insane abuse they rained on me for years and years had stolen my humanity. As a small child, I had stopped feeling human. I wasn't even allowed to have the most basic right to cry.

My first cat was hit by a car and killed when I was six. I didn't cry when I was told. I didn't so much as flinch.

My second cat was hit by a car and killed when I was eight. I didn't cry when I was told. I didn't so much as flinch.

My grandmother died when I was nine. I forced myself to cry on purpose because I was afraid I'd get in trouble if I didn't cry. And weren't people supposed to cry when a loved one dies? I’ll never forget standing in the middle of the living room floor thinking, Cry! Cry! Cry! They’ll be mad if you don’t cry!

My other grandmother died when I was in my 20s. I didn't cry. I didn't feel anything at all because I'd gone completely numb from all the abuse. My friends at the time were worried about how I’d react.

I didn’t react. My soul was a vast, frozen wasteland of dissociation.

So yesterday was a revelation. I realized I had stopped feeling human back when I was a child, and I realized that humans should have the basic right to cry. And I did my best to embrace my humanity and to let myself cry as my companion of 16 years passed away.

Today I am still trying to wrap my mind around it: I had stopped feeling human. I thought my humanity had been stripped out of me. And I blamed myself for that and thought I was a terrible person.

But that's not it at all. It's not my fault they trained me to not cry. It's not my fault I went numb from the abuse. And, if anything, shouldn't they be "proud" I managed to get through an entire funeral without crying? Damn, what a good job they did! I’m so well-trained in stoicism that I can stay dry-eyed through a family funeral.

No, it's not my fault, and I'm not a terrible person. Instead, I'm taking my sense of humanity back. I'm taking back my ability to cry.

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