Yesterday morning, I was feeling upset about something, and I had been holding it in all morning while getting my family up and dressed. Once everyone was downstairs, I was finally alone, and I could feel so much pressure built up against my eyes and in my throat. I turned on the water, and instantly my face collapsed into a lip curl as I let a few tears come out through a silent sob. I got into the shower and just let myself cry. I stood for a couple of minutes leaning against the shower wall, sobbing quietly into my hands, my shoulders shaking and my hands against my cheeks. I could feel the tears mixing with the water on my fingers. I spent the next 10 minutes or so intermittently sobbing, letting the water wash away the tears. I’d stop for a couple minutes, and then the feelings would flood back and I’d pause, face uncovered, sobbing quiet but high pitched rapid sobs, punctuated by shuddering gasps. There was something so satisfying about the hot water washing away the tears as I cried them, and just letting myself release it with the sound of the water around me.

I felt quite a bit better afterward. When I was done, I looked in the mirror and saw that my eyes and face were quite red from the crying and hot water. I splashed cold water on my face and let my face cool while I finished getting ready. Some more tears did continue to leak out, along with some residual silent sobs.

I'm actually pregnant with my first right now, but I think it's healthy for your children to see you cry. I hope to teach our son that tears are a natural reaction to a variety of emotions, and that there's no shame and no reason to hide them. This is true in any situation, but especially after a very upsetting event - I think that while (young) kids shouldn't be responsible for comforting/caring for their parents, NOT seeing your parent cry after a death, for example, can lead them to think they should repress their emotions and not let them out, even around family. My dad's father died when my dad was just a kid, and he never saw his mother cry, not once. He grew up pretty uncomfortable with emotional expression (his own and others'). He's gotten a little more comfortable as he's aged, interestingly.

Anyway, I always felt slightly uncomfortable seeing my mother cry (or my dad, the couple of times I did), but I think this was partly because of my fetish.

Lately, I keep coming back to a fantasy I have about comforting another woman in a public bathroom. I imagine that I either enter the bathroom while the other woman is already in a stall, or she comes in while I'm in a stall. Either way, we don't actually ever see each other.

In the fantasy, I hear some soft sounds that I think might be sobs, but clearly she is trying to control her breathing. Eventually, I hear a gasp that is clearly an uncontrolled sob. Once I've figured out she's crying, I imagine that I ask her what's wrong and talk her through letting it out, while just listening to her sob more and more intensely and letting her know that I'm here to listen. Afterward, she thanks me for being there, and I leave. Again, we never see each other.

This is such an unlikely situation to happen in real life because I think if I were in this position, I'd feel pretty awkward about actually talking to the woman. I've seen women crying in bathrooms before, but nothing beyond wiping a few tears and washing up at the sink (and not for years). I've never spoken to any of them because I figure they don't want to be calling attention to their tears, and they've never looked upset enough that they need immediate help. But the thought of talking someone through their feelings while they anonymously sob a few feet away from me is incredibly arousing to think about!

This is random, but my husband's laughter shares some traits with his crying - similar vocalizations, belly hitching, Adam's apple bobbing. Of course, it sounds like laughter, but if he's laughing really hard, my mind sometimes makes the connection. I noticed this when we were lying in bed, and I had my head on his stomach - he started to laugh, but it was so similar to his sobs that it started to turn me on.

This got me thinking about similarities between laughing and crying, and I'm wondering if everyone's laughter and tears share some common traits. I think my laughter is somewhat similar in pitch to my sobs, but I actually inhale much more sharply after laughing hard than I do after even very intense sobs. I don't notice the subtleties of laughter nearly as much, though I was also thinking that anyone with a laughter fetish is lucky to get much more frequent observations!

A lot of books have made me tear up or sob briefly. I don't know if I've ever sobbed with that intensity, but probably. I read a lot, so I'm sure something has made me cry more than just a couple tears; I just can't think of what right now. We're currently trying for our first child, so anything about children or babies makes us both emotional.

There was a book recently that made my husband cry; I can't remember what it was right now. He finished it at home while I was out at the store, and he texted me that he couldn't read the last few pages because his eyes were so blurred with tears. He then expressed disappointment that he hadn't waited until I got home to finish it, and that he would have if he'd guessed that he would cry.