The Girl Who Apologises for Crying

“What’s one thing you wish someone told you growing up?”

Hm, love this deep question.

For me, it’s this: it’s okay to cry.

When I was a kid, I cried pretty easily. I was sensitive. I felt things deeply. If something hurt my feelings, I cried. If I was overwhelmed, I cried. If I was frustrated, I cried. It wasn’t dramatic — it was just how my body responded to feeling a lot at once.

For a while, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that.

Until someone told me that crying is my “weakest quality.”

I don’t even know if they realised how much that sentence would stick with me. But it did. It settled somewhere deep inside me and slowly turned something natural into something shameful. After that, every tear felt like proof that maybe I was too sensitive. Too emotional. Too much.

I started to see crying not as something human, but as something I needed to fix.

Even now, as an adult, I still cover my face when I cry. I turn away and don’t want anyone to see me. I wipe my tears quickly. I try to pull myself together as fast as I can. And almost every single time, at least once, I say, “I’m sorry.”

I apologise for crying. And if I’m with people, they say, “you don’t have to be sorry.” But the reflex is still there. That quiet belief that my emotions are inconvenient. That I should have handled it better.

I wish someone had looked at me when I was younger and simply said, “It’s okay to cry. There’s no shame in that.”

I think I would have held onto those words the same way I held onto the criticism.

Because the truth is, crying means I’m feeling something. It means I care. It means something mattered enough to move me, or something affected me so much that it makes me frustrated and I start crying, but all of that is not weakness — that’s being human.

Also, I’m not an attractive crier, and I know that some of you will relate to that. When I really cry — like full, from-the-chest, can’t hold it back crying — it’s not cute. My nose turns red. My eyes get puffy. My face gets blotchy. Especially when I’ve been wailing. It’s messy and swollen and very far from the single cinematic tear rolling down a perfectly lit cheek.

It’s not pretty. But it’s real.

And I’m slowly learning that real is better than pretty.

I think that we (and we meaning society) started treating emotional control like strength and tears like failure. We praise people for being “so strong” when what we really mean is that they didn’t let anyone see them break.

But maybe strength isn’t about never crying. Strength is allowing yourself to feel fully and not have to apologise for it.

I’m still unlearning the idea that crying is my weakest quality. I’m still working on not covering my face. Or not saying sorry. Or letting the tears come without shame.

As the days go on and I get older, hopefully I’ll get to a point where I’ll be able to cry without feeling like I need to hide.