10 Crying Sessions That Prove You’re Winning At Losing It
By Anupriya Pandey
The Perfectionist’s Crying Session
This is for those who don’t just cry; they curate a crying experience. You want to break down, but those obsessive-compulsive thoughts won’t let you unless the environment is crying-approved. So, you scrub every inch of your room until it looks like it belongs in a cleaning product commercial. You dim the lights to a moody level, because even your tears deserve the proper ambiance. You light candles—lavender or vanilla, never citrus, because that’s for the cheerful folks who have their lives together. You change into comfy clothes and pick up a hand towel, not a tissue, because this isn’t one of those moments where you need a quick fix, you dirty pig. It’s a ritual.
Sitting by the window, you reflect on the things that weigh on your heart and those you can’t fully understand yet. You close your eyes and let the tears trace your cheekbones, gently patting them away before they fall. This isn't the kind of crying session that leaves your shirt or couch stained with tears and snot. But it does dampen the insides of your heart.
The Dry Crying Session
This is the kind of crying that only a true connoisseur of melancholy understands. Your face twists, your throat tightens, your chest heaves, but nothing, absolutely nothing, comes out. No tears, not even a glisten. You have mastered the art of concealing your true feelings so well that you're a desert of crying, emotionally parched, and even your lacrimal glands are saying, "Not today." It's as if your body is stuck on a buffering screen, and all you can do is feel the sadness without the satisfaction of a release. You might find yourself pressing your lips together, trying to stifle choked sobs, staring blankly at a distant point, or clenching your fists so tightly that your knuckles turn white. But the emotion sits like a rock in your stomach. You're crying in a way that's almost existential, like you've transcended human crying and moved on to some spiritual level where tears are passé.
The ‘Thank God No One Has Seen Me Cry This Way’ Crying Session
This one is a classic, the pièce de résistance of emotional breakdowns. It’s the kind of crying that takes no prisoners. Snot flows freely, mascara runs down your cheeks, and your face looks like it’s melting off in a Salvador Dalí painting. There’s no grace, no dignity, just a raw, unfiltered, guttural sob that could scare off humankind. This is the cry that turns every soft surface into a biohazard zone. It’s the one where you try to speak sense to yourself mid-sob, but all that comes out are high-pitched, incoherent noises that sound like a wounded animal. It’s as if the insides of your body want to come out and check on you. This cry is primal, an emotional enema, purging everything you’ve held onto since childhood. You feel no shame. You are a beautiful, tragic mess, and this moment is yours.
The Secret Crying Session
This is the kind of cry where sound is forbidden, where the walls are thin, and roommates or neighbors are too nosy for comfort. You feel the wave coming, and you know you can’t let them see you crumble. So, you slip away as casually as possible. The door clicks shut, and then you let it all out—eyes wide, mouth open, a soundless scream of pain that echoes in your chest. You sob with your face pressed against the cold surface of a wall, or you curl up in a corner, letting the tears fall freely. It’s the quiet devastation of needing to scream at the top of your lungs, but all that emerges is a breathless gasp. It feels like drowning on dry land. Your chest convulses as if your body is trying to purge itself of the sorrow, but all you can hear are muffled breaths and uncontrollable shudders. You feel like a character in a horror movie, trapped in a silent house where no one can hear you scream, except the terror isn’t external; it’s inside, bubbling up like boiling water, but without the release of a whistle. Time is against you. You wipe your eyes, pinch your cheeks, take deep breaths, and practice a smile in the mirror, one that says, "Nothing to see here."
The ‘I Look So Pretty While Crying’ Crying Session
Something happens. As always. Someone gets under your skin. Your so-called best friend, who knows all your insecurities, decides to use them as ammunition. You come up with the perfect comeback only after you are alone at home. The guy you like likes the girl you can’t stand. The guy you don’t like likes your best friend. Everybody likes somebody, but nobody likes you. You twist your ankle. Again. You accidentally cut your fingers while chopping vegetables. Bad things seem to happen endlessly, and you cry. It’s a moderate cry, the kind that will pass in a few minutes. But then you catch your reflection in the mirror and wow. Where has this stunning person been hiding?
Your cheeks are flushed, your nose a lovely fuchsia pink, and your eyes and lashes are moist and sparkling. You blink a few times like a Disney princess, and suddenly, you see the most beautiful human ever. You look so good that you can’t resist taking a few pictures. You let your hair fall loose, debating whether to comb it or keep it messy for effect. You run your tongue over your lips or gently bite them for extra plumpness. You practice your anguished expressions, turning your head to find the most tragic angle. You give yourself a storyline, a dramatic monologue, maybe even a soundtrack playing softly in the background. As you watch yourself, you realize there’s a strange sort of comfort in the theatrics, a soothing feeling in pretending that someone, somewhere, is watching and caring about your pain. It’s a cry that feels a little too dramatic to be real, but deep down, you know the script was written by life itself.
The ‘I Miss That’ Crying Session
You miss things. Big things. Small things. You can’t be in the city you love, with the people you love, or have a job that fuels your creativity. You can’t make new friends. You yearn for familiar foods, the hands that prepared them, and the people to share them with. This cry comes in waves, triggered by the unexpected: an old song, a whiff of a familiar scent, a photo hidden in a dusty drawer. It’s a bittersweet cry, sneaking up on you like a memory you thought was buried but was just waiting for the right moment to resurface. Every tear is tinged with longing for something you can’t quite put into words. You’re crying not just for what was lost but for the feeling of losing it—the what-could-have-been, the paths not taken, the faces that once smiled back at you in a different time.
You’re not prepared for this. No tissues, no sunglasses, and certainly no place to hide. So you become a master of stealth, turning your head slightly and pretending to be fascinated by the yogurt collection in the dairy aisle. You fake a cough, subtly wiping away a tear as if it’s just a speck of dust. You sniffle in rhythm with the background noise, hoping no one notices the tiny sobs escaping your lips. You’re performing an emotional magic trick, trying to make your sadness disappear in plain sight, even as a few tears betray you. And you hope, pray even, that no one asks if you are okay because you know that would be the final straw. It’s a cry that feels both comforting and cruel, bringing back what you loved only to remind you that it’s gone. Sometimes you cry with others who feel the same way. Sometimes you cry with the many parts of yourself that miss these things.
The ‘I Will Punch You In The Face’ Crying Session
It is dangerous to be around you right now. Your words are so sharp they could slice through steel. You are not just shouting at people; you are hurling insults at inanimate objects, too. “Shut up, you stupid fire alarm! Don’t steal my thunder!” You can’t decide whether it’s the anger that’s making you cry or the crying that’s fueling your rage. It usually starts when you have been bottling it up for so long that all the pent-up emotions explode at once, unsure whether to make you cry or fume—but they end up doing both. Your brows are knitted in frustration, and your fists are clenched tight. Your face feels as if it has been slapped by a thousand hands. Then it erupts like a volcano that has been simmering for centuries. Your voice cracks, your tears burn with fury, and you are engulfed in raw, unfiltered rage mingled with sadness. Maybe you are yelling at someone who isn’t even there, or perhaps you are venting your frustration at the universe for making you feel this way. Every tear feels like it has a little bit of fire in it. You end up exhausted, panting like you just ran a marathon—but it is okay. You have burned through a thousand emotions in one go, and somehow, it feels kind of exhilarating.
The Hollow Crying Session
This is the cry that emerges when there is nothing left to feel. No anger, no sadness, just a hollow emptiness that stretches across your chest like an endless desert. The tears flow out of habit more than anything else, as if your body remembers to cry even though your heart has forgotten why it needed to. You are not crying because something particularly bad happened; you are crying because you are exhausted. So exhausted that your body has no other way to process it but through tears. It is the cry that follows all the other cries, a quiet, final surrender to a feeling that no longer has a name. There is no drama, no heaving sobs, just a slow, steady drip of tears that feel almost mechanical. You are a faucet left slightly open, leaking slowly because closing it all the way seems too hard. The tears are not cleansing or cathartic; they just are. And in that moment, you wonder if they will ever stop.
The ‘I’m Fine’ Crying Session
This is the cry you deny with every fiber of your being. It creeps up on you unexpectedly, a lump in your throat during a commercial, a tremble in your lip when someone asks, “Are you okay?” And you lie every time. “I’m fine,” you insist, as your voice cracks like brittle glass. You blink rapidly, fighting back the tears like a soldier on the front lines of an emotional war. You smile, a shaky smile that fools no one, least of all yourself. This is the cry of stubbornness, the cry of “I refuse to break,” even though you have already fractured in places only you can see. It is the cry that keeps up appearances because you are afraid if you start, you might never stop.
The Leisure Crying Session
This is the cry born of boredom, not from pain or heartbreak, but simply because you have time to kill and no other plans. You are lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, flipping through channels or doom-scrolling through social media, and you think, “Why not?” It is a cry born of sheer existential dread, a way to pass the time when Netflix feels empty and reading feels like too much effort. You let the tears come, not because you need to, but because, frankly, what else is there to do? It is almost like an activity, a way to fill the space between yawns and sighs. You are not even sure what you are crying about, maybe everything, maybe nothing. And when it is over, you do not feel better or worse; you just feel like you have done something today.
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Author Bio: Anupriya Pandey is a nonfiction writer from India with an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School in New York. Her writing navigates the depths of the human psyche, where unspoken fears and hidden longings intertwine with the absurdity of existence.