Also, please state if you are a male or female.
Female, although quite a few don't seem convinced.
1. I'm trying to figure out how much it would take for you all to be reduced to tears. Unrequited love? A death?
I cry out of complete and total frustration over situations where I've exhausted every possible potential resolution.
I cry sometimes when my hopes are completely dashed, especially because I can be so optimistic. If there's a still a chance, I can think "Just keep trying! Try something else!" But when reality completely erodes a possibility I've been struggling for ... tears.
^ That, and then, I lock myself in a room and scream and bawl. Gut-wrenching tears. Same with death of a close loved one (including pets), even though these don't hit me right away but after a time, and at random triggers some time after.
I also cry over books and movies and music.
My crying over books, movies and music has to be if the pieces are well-crafted. I generally do not cry in movies where most of my other friends do; if anything, I've been known to laugh at those 'pivotal' scenes, most don't make it past my 'cheese' factor, but if they do...lone drops may escape, but mostly watery eyes...
My friends hated taking me to see
The Notebook.
(but then again, I could smell the plot from a mile away in such films, thus, 'prepared')
When I was a kid, I cried over rejection but I don't think I've cried over rejection by another as an adult...mostly because I've never not seen it coming. I am aware of when/how my relations (close enough to induce emotiono-meter) will act/react. So, there's no tears when it does happen as I am 'prepared' for it. And finally, those that I've been close enough to induce that emotiono-meter have never truly rejected me, ever. They're all still in my life.
I.e., very few things blind-sight me in life, cuz I am usually pretty good at foreseeing them coming, or rolling with the punches. I think being unprepared (mentally) would catch me off guard enough to cry, which doesn't happen to often.
2. Would you say you feel more sadness/sorrow over personal or global issues?
Most definitely the latter. I feel a tightness and a jolt of physical pain/sorrow through my body when I see animals being abused, neglected, mistreated, especially. It's a toss-up between extreme sorrow and rage, both vying for dominance within me. It's quite the visceral reaction. Oh, and also children, and vulnerable populations (like the physically, mentally, intellectually diabled). War atrocities also induce that same real visceral reaction of palpable sorrow and anger. I can and might cry when faced with any of these above, but, it's more of a watery eye than any tears streaming, and definitely not bawling. If someone close to me gets hurt, I also feel a tightness in my body, as if I'm swallowing their pain, like my mom buring her hand accidently while cooking. It's very tangible, the sympathy (empathy?) pain I feel.
I'm very empathetic to nature and anything to do with it - a weird oddity of mine. Like, I feel constricted, helpless and anxious if I know that my roommate had forgot to turn off the light in her room when she left for work, and that's just electricity being wasted...for nothing. (and I don't even pay the electricity bill as it's included in the fixed rent,
she does) Initially, I had this huge inner battle with going in to turn off her light versus invasion of her privacy, but the former won out, and I spoke to her about it later. I'm a firm believer in not taking anything/buying anything/any resource
more than you will use, and I
try to live by that. I'm so weird sometimes.
On the flip side, I rarely feel sadness over my personal emotions, as I don't often have complete access to fully understanding them; I always jump to rationalizing them, which supresses the actual
feeling of said emotion. I'm hoping to work on this, though.
3. On a scale of 1 to 10, how sensitive would you say you are in comprehending sadness? [10 being the most sensitive]
8-9
4. On a scale of 1 to 10, how sensitive would you say you are in responding to sadness? [10 being the most sensitive]
3
As soon as I start to understand, to its deepest level, that very understanding in its clarity makes my responding very detached, it's more action-oriented, like, 'okay, this is how you feel, now what to
do with it'. So I don't always respond to the required depth [of what the other may expect] as sometimes, in hindsight, I know the others just wanted me to
do nothing, just offer sympathy, which I'm not very good at. It's hard for me to just 'be' without offering some sort of rationalization or action to remedy the situation.
You're a generally optimistic bunch of people, so please, do tell.
Thank you for asking.
Btw, I'm trying to recall the last time I cried, even got watery eyed, and I can't....wait, no, I got watery eyed 2 weeks ago, watching a documentary on sharks, and human atrocities on them, called
Sharkwater
