The Caring About Crying Anthology

We All Cry. You’re Not Alone.

Hello, Dear Reader! Welcome to our new Carer Mentor community members!

I’m Victoria. You can read why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why?

In July, A Special Carer Mentor Collaboration had a ‘Jerry Maguire moment. Planning happened in August with our thirteen-strong team. Here we have the full content of …not just our team but also contributions from writers/creators who accepted our invitation to Care About Crying with us!

Please ‘❤️’ LIKE the article

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Collaboration Background:

The Carer Mentor Collaboration Premise and Background.

These four articles sparked the ‘Jerry Maguire’ invitation to collaborate.

1. Don't Be Sad, He Said. Putting the Cancer Grief into a Box by KRISTINA ADAMS WALDORF, MD  at After He Said Cancer

2. Good News! I Cry Pretty Now Progress. . . I Guess By ANNE at The Future Widow

3. Memorial Planning as a Way to Avoid Grief Processing. I'm not actually recommending it. By ANNA DE LA CRUZ at GenXandwich

4. Sacred Tears How to be with others as they cry By CHRISTINE VAUGHAN DAVIES at Journeying Alongside

September Anthology Index:

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

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

2. Sept 2 & 14 Crying: 'Did you know?' Resource: Tears the science and some art. By Victoria at Carer Mentor: Empathy and Inspiration

3. 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

4. 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

5. Sept 5 ‘My stoic mom's parting gift. Making peace with tears’ By

   Sarah Coomber
   at
   Sandwich Season

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

7. Sept 6 ‘ICU Special Edition: There's Crying in Baseball?’ By

   Nurse Kristin
   at HCT: Heal Cure Treat

8. Sept 7 Triggered. Caring About Crying Anthology By

   Kristina Adams Waldorf, MD
   at
   After He Said Cancer
   and
   Anne
   at The Future Widow

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

10. Sept 9 AWC Town Bulletin - On Crying A Discussion Thread

    Tiffany Chu
    bakhtawar

11. Sept 10 The Healing Power of Tears. How giving myself the permission to cry a good cry helped me process unspeakable pain and lifted me out of deep depression. By Louisa Wah at Lily Pond

12. Sept 11 My Tears are not a Grief Gauge. Crying through Ages and Stages By

    Anna De La Cruz
    at Gen Xandwich.

13. Sept 13 Sweet Relief. After He Said Cancer | A Memoir By

    Kristina Adams Waldorf, MD
    at
    After He Said Cancer
    .

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

15. Sept 16 Crying While Parenting: A Mindful Approach by

    Amber Groomes,Ph.D.
    at Dr. Amber_Writes.

16. Sept 17 Cry, Baby, Cry By Louisa Wah at Lily Pond

17. Sept 18 Why we stop crying by Rachel Ooi at Conscious Living

18. Sept 19 Carer Mentor Collaboration: my cup overfloweth with my tears By Christa Lei (They/Them) at Is This What You Want?

19. Sept 20 Rain, Drought, Whereabout? An essay on crying, and its impact on those who care. By

    bakhtawar
    at Stories and States

20. Sept. 22 Dark Night of the Soul: How Spiritual Crisis Can Lead to a New Dawn by Christine Vaughan Davies at Journeying Alongside

21. Sept 24 We Need a Cultural Container to Hold Each Other's Pain and Tears by Louisa Wah at Lily Pond. And thanks to

    Beverley Dickson
    for this poem

    

22. Sept 25 An Inheritance of Silence. On an heirloom of hushed tears, and rejecting this legacy for the next generation by

    Tiffany Chu
    at Notes from the Town Hermit

23. Sept 27 Why are Queer Tears Not Enough? by

    christa lei (they/them)
    at Is This What You Want

Articles shared by readers/authors in the invitation

• "Constructive Wallowing: How to Beat Bad Feelings by Letting Yourself Have Them" by Tina Gilbertson

• Bylsma L.M., Gracanin A., Vingerhoets A. The neurobiology of human crying. Clin. Auton. Res. 2019;29:63–73. doi: 10.1007/s10286-018-0526-y. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

• Taylor Coffman (Rare Disease Girl), thanks for sharing the video. Happy tears, and capturing your 'Happy Ever After Moments' (Sept 8)

  ‘After everything you've been through makes so much sense, and is a great tip for caregivers as well. When I was caring for my Dad, I used to 'memory capture' the moment - use all my senses to imprint the memory. This is how I found 'piercing joy' in the darkest moments’. - Victoria

• Neha Dhami wrote this beautiful poem Empathic Echoes: Reflections of the Soul (Sept 7) Tale #16: Reflections of Empathy that explores 'the deep resonance of human connection and the powerful echoes of our shared experiences.'

• Dr. Vicki Connop shared this article 'The antidote to depression may not be what you think. Reflections from both sides of the therapy room.' (Feb 25, 2024)

  The most powerful antidote to depression may not be what you’ve been led to believe. My decades of working through my own pain, and sitting alongside other people as they navigate theirs, have taught me that we’re often looking for it in the wrong places. It’s not joy, or gratitude or positivity. It’s not exercise or eating well – though these things can undoubtedly be helpful.

  The most powerful antidote I’ve found to depression is to fully feel your sadness. Or rage. Or shame.

  Does that sound paradoxical?

• Louisa shared this article by Susan Frybort. IT'S OKAY TO CRY...It's Okay Not To Cry (Feb 16, 2024). The reflections resonate and match those shared by Reverend Benjamin Perry in our conversation.

  It's okay to cry. It’s okay not to cry. It’s alright to take your time and wait for the primary emotion to surface and allow the immediate response to hold the space.

  Whatever is coming up for you in the moment works or whatever slowly makes its way out after awhile is valid, too. Because emotional responses can be raw, mixed, complex or have their own method of being known.

• Cheyenne Hardy
  at Cancer Diagnosis has written ‘I Cried In Front of My Patient. And she wrote me a letter.’ This is a touching example of how healthcare professionals are torn in the moment with tears. I’m glad that Cheyenne received such a lovely affirmation of her empathy.

• Janine De Tillio Cammarata
  has written a beautiful poem. Those last lines! My Tears Flow Like a River Wild. Her publication is Pathways of Connection. Tissues, please.

• Jeannie Ewing
  takes us on a journey, sharing her childhood censorship of tears to the relief, release and catharsis she felt delivering her beautiful daughter, Sarah. The day I cried in public again.Tears are not a sign of weakness. They are cathartic, and they heal. I dare you not to be moved by this!

• Broadwaybabyto
  has written this article for the collaboration. I’m bearing witness to all she has to go through. I see you, you don’t need to hide from us! We see you, you’re not alone. All the Tears I Can Not Cry and All The Pain You Will Not See. I'm allergic to my tears - I can't cry. I've become excellent at hiding my pain. But why should we hide it? Why shouldn't we allow people to see our suffering? Ask them to face our disabilities?

• Keisha Kokonezi
  Thank you. Conquering the Battle With My Tears. A Story About Culture & Healing. An eloquent, vulnerable, yet fiercely brave journey of your tears. The words ‘Ancestral pact’ are powerful.

  My earliest memories are filled with many stifled tears culled from a multitude of fearful moments and physical or emotional pain. They floated around inside me like scarred over wounds that became imperceptible through the years. My resilience eventually outshining them.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE INVOLVED AND CONTRIBUTORS!

I hope to share the team’s thoughts and specific highlights on September 30th/soon after.

High-stress, exhausted tears are being shed right now! Thankfully, I can tap into all this empathy! xo