Anita Rao
I come from a long line of criers. Rose Thompson, my nana, cried anytime someone in her life was struggling. With seven kids and 20+ grandkids, that was often.
Sheila, my mom, cries in all of the small moments. Most especially when she parts ways with one of her kids or grandkids, even if just for a few weeks. My sister, brother and I joke often about how crying in this family is contagious. There is no doubt that when one person starts, everyone else will be leaking tears within moments.
What's so curious to me about this family phenomenon is that while we cry big and openly, we don't talk much about our feelings. We move through the world, seemingly calm and collected, chatting about plans, tasks and to-dos — until there's an eruption. When what's been pushed down and held can't stay there anymore. It's got to come out with a good long cry.
This is Embodied. I'm Anita Rao.
Emily
The last time I cried was when a friend in the community died recently. Someone who brought a lot of joy and made music often with friends in the community, including myself. When I thought about all the time that I had thought I still had with that person to get to know them better and all the future gatherings where that person wouldn't be singing with us — those were the thoughts that brought me to tears.
Christina
The last time I cried was today, when I saw a neighbor's grandmother being assisted into a vehicle to go to an assisted living home. For me, it reminded me of my grandmother passing away last year, and just really brought back that grief. I'm finding right now that grief can really take me by surprise, or if I don't address the grief for a few days or a week, something random like babies or puppies in a commercial or finding something sentimental will trigger a cry.
Celeste
My boyfriend and I broke up recently, but we were together for four-and-a-half years. And then everything just fell apart. I've been crying a lot, everywhere. The last time I cried in public I was at a Durham Bulls game, and it was, like, a bring your dog. I was crying while they were playing the game because I was like, wow, he would really love this, I wish he were here. What got me out of it was looking at all the dogs because I love dogs, and I had my dog. And I was like, well, it sucks that he's not here, but at least I'm on a date with my dog.
Anita Rao
So many of y'all shared your crying stories with us, and I can't wait to get to more of them in this episode. The ones you just heard were from Emily, Christina and Celeste. Celeste is one of our colleagues and the person who actually planted the seed for this episode. All of the public crying she has been doing in the wake of her breakup has gotten her thinking about why crying can at once feel so cathartic and so taboo. And we found the perfect person to help ponder these questions.
Heather Christle
So much of crying is contextual, right? It's based on your subject position, all of the various parts of your identity, and then also, the people or lack of people who are around you. So how you perceive yourself in relation to crying, how they perceive you in relation to crying, how you imagine them perceiving you in relation to crying — there are all of these dynamics that are at play.
Anita Rao
That's poet Heather Christle, someone who believes that whether you're a frequent crier or a reluctant one, your tears are worth thinking about. A decade ago, she had the idea to create a map of every place she'd ever cried. After talking about it with friends, she realized that there was even more to crying than she had thought.
Heather Christle
And so I started researching and the science behind everything was so intriguing. And then, it started showing up in, you know, literature and politics. And it turns out that crying touches just about every subject you can imagine.
Anita Rao
All of this research led her to writing "The Crying Book," a work of nonfiction that floats between scientific discoveries and personal experiences. She wrote it over the course of a life phase full of transition: getting pregnant, birthing and raising her daughter. It's a time full of lots of hormones — and tears.
Heather Christle
Sometimes people have asked me if it was a, sort of, healing experience to write "The Crying Book." And I don't know that I could call it that, but I do think that it changed the way that I thought about crying. And I say that as someone who has been a lifelong crier and someone who hasn't always been as in control of my tears as would have been useful at some points in my life.
Anita Rao
It's so interesting to hear you say that because since reading your book and learning a bit more about the chemistry of tears, I have been so attuned to my crying. I was chopping onions yesterday, and I was paying attention to the speed of my tears and how they were flowing out of my eyes. And so I want you to talk about those kinds of tears that our bodies produce. And what are the types and how do they differ?
Heather Christle
So there are three different kinds of tears that our bodies produce. The onion tears that you're talking about are irritant tears. And so, they can be caused by, you know, the fumes of an onion, or if you get a speck of dust in your eye. And their job is to get that, you know, outside substance out. And so, they're quite watery. They're thin, and they'll stream readily down your face. Whereas basal tears, which are there all the time, they're just to moisturize your eyes to keep them lubricated so that it's not uncomfortable to blink and look out at the world. The third kind, which is the kind that most people are, you know, most fascinated by, are emotional tears — or psychogenic tears is what scientists call them. And these tears are different because they have a higher protein content than those irritant tears, and that makes them thicker. And because they're thicker, it slows the rate that they fall down your face, which means there's a greater chance that they're going to be seen. They last for longer, there's more of a chance that somebody might be able to catch that signal.
Anita Rao
And there are, and I'm not asking you to answer this as a scientist because I don't know much about the science, but you did also, kind of, study that physical phenomenon of a lump in your throat, which is so fascinating to me. So talk to me about what is the lump in your throat?
Heather Christle
Yes, I love this because it's the opposite of a lump. So most, most of your listeners will recognize the sensation of if you're about to cry, or sometimes as you are crying, you get that sensation of there being a lump in your throat. You try to swallow and it feels like you can't, it feels like it's blocked. It turns out that what's actually going on is your body knows that you're in distress. And so, it thinks, "How can I help? What does this person need?" And it thinks, "Oh yes, this person needs oxygen, oxygen is going to help" — whether it's to, sort of, soothe you, or to give you enough breath to run away from the distress. And so, in order to help you get as much oxygen as you can, your body holds the muscles of the throat open. And then, when you're crying, you have all of this fluid that's involved that runs down the back of your throat. And so when you try to swallow — which is the immediate instinct — your throat is actually resisting that closing. And so it feels like a lump when, in fact, it's an opening.
Anita Rao
It's so wild, it's so wild. And you say that, kind of, learning about that helped you realize that the opposite we think of — like, okay, the opposite of crying is laughing. It's, like, the expression of, you know, happiness in the extreme. But you said you actually thought about how the opposite of crying is singing, because you can't cry and sing at the same time, which I'd never thought about before. So talk to me about that and how that fits into this oxygen piece.
Heather Christle
Yes, well, in order to sing, you need to be able to have control of your throat. And when you are crying, you've surrendered control of your throat to this, sort of, overriding system that says, "No, you need oxygen. It's not singing time right now, sweetie." But of course, that sometimes gets used to beautiful effect by artists when you hear their voice break because they are so moved in the song that they're singing. But yeah, it is true, I think, that laughter and crying feel more to me like siblings than opposites.
Anita Rao
I've heard so often that crying will make you feel better, and that's something we hear echoed a lot and an experience that many people have. And in the 1980s there was this biochemistry writer named William Frey. And he wrote this book "Crying: The Mystery of Tears" and really popularized this physiological idea about crying that it's the way the body expels toxins. So tell me more about this and this response to the question of whether or not crying makes you feel better.
Heather Christle
I think it became a really popular idea, in part, because it makes a kind of sense to us that our feelings are something we need to get out. And then, also, these, you know, toxins in our bodies or these stress hormones are things that we also need to get out. So there's this sense of, I have this bad thing inside of me and crying is the thing that will get it out — which leads back to that concept of, you know, the good cry. And I know that I certainly sometimes have felt better after a cry, and many other people report that as well. But there are also studies that say the opposite — that say, no, most people, after they cry, report feeling worse. Although, I, sort of, question that because it's difficult to get the full sense of what it's like to cry in a laboratory. And if I were crying in a laboratory, I think I would probably feel worse afterwards as well.
Anita Rao
Well, it also depends, right, on who you're around and, maybe, how they are responding to you. And people have said this, that, you know, you might feel better crying, kind of, based on how you — what your beliefs are about crying. So talk to me about that.
Heather Christle
It turns out that if you're looking to feel better after you cry, the best possible situation to be in is with one other person. And that's probably because that's the situation in which you're most likely to elicit a comforting response, which is going to make you feel better. Whereas if you're alone, it's a little bit harder but still possible. I mean, I love that story about the dogs, right? That the listener was talking about — that she managed to find a kind of company and comfort in the presence of the dogs. If you're with a group of people, then things can go in a bit of a different direction, in part, because so many more of those social dynamics get activated.
Anita Rao
So there's folklore around tears, there's mythology, there's science, but tears are also really political and politicized. And you are intentional in this book about really addressing how we tend to discount some tears and elevate others. And white women, in particular, are a group whose tears have really been elevated throughout history. As a white woman yourself, talk to me about when you approach your own tears with a healthy skepticism.
Heather Christle
Yeah, it felt like a really important element of writing this book because I could very easily imagine thinking: white woman poet writing a book about crying and just, sort of, cringing until I fall into the basement. Because, yes, white women's tears, historically and in the contemporary moment, are frequently weaponized by white women and by other people in order to continue the harms that white supremacy practices against Black people, Indigenous people, people of color. One of the most famous historical examples is when Emmett Till was accused of whistling at a white woman. It was later revealed that she had been lying about this and that accusation led to his murder. But it also can occur in much more, sort of, mundane situations where, say, as a white woman, you get called out on having said something that, just, doesn't sit right with a colleague of color. And in the meeting, instead of, sort of, acknowledging and receiving that a person might cry, which in some situations then leads to the meeting turning towards comforting her as opposed to dealing with the actual, sort of, matter at hand.
Anita Rao
You write about this so poetically — well, that's obvious, you're a poet — but in the book you say that white woman's tears shift the gravity in the room. And it makes me wonder what kinds of questions you think we should be asking in moments when we see that gravity shift and the focus is really being turned to white folks' tears.
Heather Christle
Yeah, so I think that the question is, what are these tears making happen? And really physically looking at what is happening in the wake of these tears. You can look at the ways that people are moving their bodies, the places where they're making eye contact, the people who maybe sigh and pull away. And then ask, is this what we want to be happening right now? Is this what needs to be happening right now? So, yeah — and I think that, you know, as a white woman myself, if I noticed myself tearing up in some, kind of, public situation, I do try to ask myself, what am I about to make happen right now and do I need to stop myself? Or do I need to, at least, say something that acknowledges that race is an element of what is happening right now?
Priska
The last time I cried was earlier this week when there was, sort of, a work situation that — something that had been in the works for a long time. I thought it was resolved, somehow it was not. And someone was asking me questions about it in a, kind of, rude way. I did my best to stay calm in the moment, but when I have an experience like that, I just, like, walk away and, just, often, just, burst into rage tears.
Yulia
Yesterday, I cried because of my accent in a foreign language. In Danish, I was talking to my boyfriend, and at some point, he kindly corrected my pronunciation. So I tried it again, and it was wrong again, and then I tried and I tried, and he really kindly tried to help me, but it was all wrong. I felt so desperate I started crying. Because I'm too old to learn pronunciations in foreign languages properly, and I speak three foreign languages. I just cried because of that.
Chessa
I cried the other morning because I had this big professional accomplishment happen on a Friday, and I woke up that morning, and my partner had put streamers up in the kitchen and had made biscuits and cut up strawberries and whipped cream. And I was, just, so touched and proud of myself and tender that it was, just, a nice little happy cry.
Anita Rao
That was Priska, Yulia and Chessa. Yulia had a lot more to say about crying, and I played this part in particular for Heather.
Yulia
A year ago, I cried a lot. I cried a lot because the country where I was born invaded Ukraine. I wasn't sure if I had the right to cry or not, but I cried because I couldn't not. And a year later, I cried because of this stupid word. In comparison, in perspective, why would you cry about this? But, our emotions are not always rational.
Heather Christle
Yeah, I mean, it's so familiar to me. And I think, probably, to many people that there are times where you're surprised to find yourself crying, that you didn't know that you felt an emotional connection to whatever it is that is going on. I have a friend who recently went to go see an exhibit at the Guggenheim and found himself crying, he told me, because there was just so much paint. And so, I think that it's helpful to, maybe, try looking at the crying with a little less judgment or a sense of expectation that your tears are going to precisely align with the hierarchy of events that you understand to exist in the world. It's also worth knowing that sometimes we don't know why we're crying. Sometimes we cry, and we can make up an explanation for it, and it might even sound reasonable. But I think that the tears, often, are elusive, and mysterious and difficult to pin down in their entirety.
Anita Rao
You mentioned a friend crying in a museum, and there are very interesting relationships between place and crying. And there are a couple of these that you examine in the book, and one of them is airplanes. And you cite this survey that, I think, is fascinating, of Virgin Atlantic passengers. And it found that 41% of men said they'd hidden under blankets to hide their tears while on a plane, while women reported hiding tears by pretending they had something in their eyes. So what is it about airplanes and airplane crying?
Heather Christle
This was really funny to me given the recent, sort of, story that circulated on social media of the man getting very upset about the baby crying on a plane because I just thought, no that's — everybody cries on planes. That's what they're for. So, my thought is that there's so much emotion and stress wrapped up in travel, there's a good chance that you are, you know, saying goodbye to somebody, or that you're on your way to something that you have some kind of an emotional attachment to. There's the deep stress of getting through the, sort of, militarized security zone, there's trying to get to the airport on time. And then, all of a sudden, after all of that, sort of, emotional experience that's very compressed, you're on a plane, and it's just empty time. And all of those feelings that you, maybe, hadn't had time to fully acknowledge start to make themselves present. And then, of course, you might be watching, say, a movie like "Inside Out" — not speaking from experience at all — but you might find that such a movie makes you sob as you're sitting in your airplane seat.
Celeste
I've been crying at the movies, at the grocery store, at Target, at work, like, in our offices, restaurants.
Priska
I cry at my desk. Just, like, silent crying. Just, letting the tears flow, they just need to come out. For me, it's very cathartic.
Celeste
I've, kind of, gotten over caring what people think. I'm like, you know, whatever. I'm crying in the middle of a Target aisle in the cleaning products, but it's fine. No one has ever said anything or ever been mean to me, which I appreciate.
Priska
I remember one time, like, one of my work friends — my, like, main rock at work — was leaving, and I was, just, on the DC metro, like, weeping. Just, like, tears like, you know, snot running down on the metro and, like, at, like, rush hour after work, and no one said anything.
Celeste
In a weird way, it makes me feel happy that I can cry because I know crying is a healthy way of releasing all these feelings. But, it still just sucks.
Priska
For me, it's just, like, an expression. And often, I can't really think, or, like, regroup or move on until I just, like, flush it out. To me, it's not anything to be, like, ashamed of or anything. For me, it's just, like, part of my process.
Anita Rao
That was Celeste and Priska. I, too, usually have no qualms about crying in public. The only issue is that I'm kind of a snotty crier, and that is when public tears become unsubtle really fast. Last summer, I went with my sister and her kids to a local science museum. And it was somewhere between the waterplay area and the toddler train that my tears got the best of me, and I was snotting all over the place. There is nothing quite like trying to explain your public breakdown to an enquiring preschooler to bring you right back down to earth.
In the past few years, crying in one very particular public place has really taken off — and that's the internet. You may remember that crying selfies became a thing on Instagram and Tiktok. In the fall of 2021, Viorel Tanase posted a photo of tears running down his face as part of his 23rd birthday post, and it turns out that he was actually ahead of the trend.
Viorel Tanase
I posted that photo right before the crying selfie trend. And so to see that all come to light was actually really, kind of, like, cool because I didn't intentionally do it to be part of a trend. But to see it, kind of, work that way, and, like, you know, when the photo start to get, like, actually picked up, I thought it was, like, really cool that people are finding space just to be vulnerable. You know, I feel like that being vulnerable online is very rare. And I think it's something that everyone should have with themselves, and people should be able to be vulnerable with themselves. In that certain moment, when I took that photo, I was actually at a friend's house. And I was, just, feeling very emotional about a personal situation I was having with, kind of, like, with a little romance situation. And I was, just, getting really, just, frustrated, but, kind of, like, working myself through it. You know, I'm pretty honest with myself, and I'm also pretty honest with my online presence. And, you know, in general, me including that photo with my slide was, honestly, more for myself because I felt safe and secure with myself. And the whole point was to show moments that I really cherish from from the past, like, year, like, you know, 23 was such a roller coaster year for me. And, you know, I'm very, like, emotional and very sentimental. And I, just, wanted to include different phases and emotions that I was feeling that year — just, to really bring it all in to celebrate my birthday and this life.
Anita Rao
When you shared about this crying selfie, you said that you did it in part because you wanted to push back against a society that thrives off of hyper-masculinity. And I'd love to know more about that and some of the conscious things that you've done to build a version of masculinity that embraces crying.
Viorel Tanase
Well, I just feel as though there's, just, a stigma, you know, forced upon men, and it separates us from the nature of being human. And, you know, I've said it many times before, like, that, you know, crying is my catharsis, you know. And it may not be for everyone, but, for me, you know, the way I feel comfortable with sharing my emotions, I don't care about this sense of hyper-masculinity and what people define as masculinity. You don't get to decide how I feel, or how I present myself, you know. So I've always been about, you know, this is my boundary, and this is what I feel comfortable with sharing. And I'm no less of a man because I'm comfortable with crying or comfortable sharing with other people about how I feel.
Anita Rao
Heather, you talk in your book about various theories about gender and crying, and a lot of the folks that have studied it are coming from a place of a very binary view of gender. Talk to me about how you interpreted those theories, and what of them you found compelling and where this curiosity about gender and performance of gender and crying led you?
Heather Christle
Yeah, so there's — there's lots of really interesting writing about it. I think bell hooks is especially good at looking at the question of masculinity and tears. But yes, there's a lot of science that thinks about crying in terms of gender, as if gender were synonymous with sex and if there were definitely two sexes, two genders, with two separate sets of crying behaviors, which feels a little simplistic to me. I think, especially, because historically, there's been a lot of variation in the expectations around crying and gender. So there may be, at the current moment in the United States, a certain set of ideas around what sort of crying is appropriate for masculine identified people. But that was different in, say, the Romantic era, when to be, you know, a man was to be a man of feeling, and crying was part of the significance of that. So I think that it's easy for scientists, when they're looking at, sort of, culturally influenced phenomenon, to get stuck in the current moment and fail to step back and think, "Oh, the world is broader than this. Gender is broader than this, history is broader than this, and there are more possibilities than we might be able to describe within a binary."
Anita Rao
Viorel, what messages did you learn about crying growing up? And where did those messages come from?
Viorel Tanase
You know, I think I've dealt with the typical thing. You know, having, you know, both having immigrant parents. Talking to them about, like, emotions and mental health has always been, in a sense, taboo. You know, they just grew up in a different lifestyle. You know, my dad grew up in, like, in a communist era of Romania, you know, where a lot of, like — everything was very brute. So I think more so, growing up, it was very hard for me to be able to express my emotions. Even as a sensitive child, with my parents they'd say, "Oh, why are you crying, you don't need to cry, or, you know, you're a big boy." But I think, like, you know, growing up now, it's like, kind of, helping my parents unlearn, like, those things about themselves, where even now, helping my parents in today's world, to be more comfortable talking about how they're feeling. You know, how's your anxiety, you know, why are you sad, and like, you know, just be more present now with the mental health talk.
Anita Rao
I love that, and I really identify with that experience of, kind of, breaking that cultural silence with your parents and holding space for them to cry in ways they haven't before. What spaces do you feel most comfortable crying in, and what is feeling seen when you're crying look and sound like to you?
Viorel Tanase
Honestly, I can cry wherever I want to. To be completely honest, if I'm feeling, like, you know — I get very empathetic, you know, I'm much, very much an empath. If I see my friends sad, you know, I'll probably, you know, cry with them. Or even if, you know, I'm on the train, and I'm feeling a type of way, I don't mind if, like, a little tear falls down, you know, I could just, you know, wipe it off. So I think, you know, my whole conversation, you know, even with, like, my friends or even, like, you know, just, out loud to myself is that it's okay to be vulnerable. And it's okay to — if you're feeling emotions, you're — you forget, like, we're going through this very human experience, and crying is a part of that human experience. And I don't think it's something that we should always shy away from, you know.
Anita Rao
One thing I realized as we were putting together this show is that while I can access my own tears pretty easily when I'm feeling sad or mad, I've only cried tears of joy once or twice in my life. But talking to Heather about this gave me some solace, because she hasn't always found them easy to access either.
Heather Christle
There was a while where it felt a little bit thwarted by all of the reading that I was doing because I think tears of joy are always a bit more fragile than tears of deep sorrow. Tears of deep sorrow really insist on themselves. Tears of joy are usually a little bit less abundant. So, there's already a kind of fragility. And because I had been doing all of this intellectual thinking and analysis about crying, I found that if I was feeling these tears of joy, that I would notice them and become self-conscious enough that I would start to think about, what are the cultural implications at the fact that I'm crying from joy in this moment? And am I fulfilling an iconographic, social role? And so they, sort of, interrupted that ability, but I found that it's returned. You know, it's been a little while now since I wrote this book, and I've had time to go on and think about all sorts of other things. And so it's easier for those tears of joy to sneak up on me which I'm grateful for.
Anita Rao
Embodied is a production of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC, a listener-supported station. If you want to lend your support to this podcast and WUNC's other shows on demand, consider a contribution at wunc.org now.
If you have a story to share with us, thoughts about a recent episode, or ideas about a topic you want us to cover, leave us a message on our virtual mailbox SpeakPipe. Find the link in our show notes.
Today's episode of Embodied was produced by Kaia Findlay, who cries at any overwhelming emotion. Paige Perez also produces for our show. She's an inconsolable and puffy-eyed crier. Madison Speyer is our intern, a spontaneous weeper. Jenni Lawson, a very private crier, is our technical director. Our theme music is by Quilla, a loud and hiccupping crier, and our editor is Amanda Magnus, who says her tears are abundant, hidden and often tears of joy.
Amanda Magnus
The last time I cried I was actually taking a little break from work and scrolling through Instagram reels, and I found one that made me laugh so hard. I was crying just, like, screaming, crying, laughing — it was glorious. And I, of course, sent it to my husband, but he was out. He was walking our dog, and as soon as he came back, I made him watch it with me because I wanted to share that feeling with someone so badly. And I started crying all over again, I just could not control myself. So yeah, that's the last time I cried.
Anita Rao
Until next time, I'm Anita Rao, taking on the taboo with you.