Boys Don't Cry: Part II

Part two of our interview with Scott Janssen on men, grief and emotions

Jan 12, 2024

See part one of our interview from last week. And, if you’re interested, check out this piece that Scott wrote for Huff Post.

Crying is a pretty common manner that which people express emotions when they are mourning, grieving, or just sad. There are some of us out there, though, that don’t cry. Frankly, I don’t remember the last time I cried for any reason. What switch is missing in people who don’t cry? It’s not like you can practice crying, right?

I love the way you framed the question. It reveals some of the ways we put people in boxes when it comes to grief. There is a common assumption that all people will cry when a loved one dies. It makes sense since a majority of us do. But viewing this as what so-called ‘normal’ people do can leave those who don’t cry wondering, hey, what’s wrong with me? When the world seems to be crying during times of loss and you are not, some people may engage in self-criticism, believing a lack of tears reflects a lack of loyalty to the deceased, or a flaw in their ability to love or to be a “good” son or father or spouse. Or it may lead others to judge people who do cry as being overly emotional or undisciplined.

Another bias that people often have is that grief and bereavement are mostly an emotional experience. But grief also impacts our thoughts and beliefs (mind), our bodies, relationships, spiritual life, the stories we tell about who we are and how the world works, about our past, present and future. Stories about what is and is not possible. There is plenty to chew on and crying is just one possible response among many.

I’ve worked with people who report that they do not cry. At the risk of overgeneralizing, they tend to fall into three camps: people who are grieving okay, but just don’t cry; people who stuff their tears, using distraction or suppression to hold them back; and people who are disconnected from their emotions and who may not even be able to name their feelings.

With the first group, maybe a death occurred after a long illness where a loved one had dementia or was unhappy or made it clear they were ready to go. In situations where death follows prolonged suffering, relief, a sense of a difficult road finally ending, is a common experience for survivors. So maybe there is sadness, disorientation, maybe regrets, all human, but also a sense of peace. Now, some people will feel guilty about feeling relieved, which raises other issues, but that’s another topic.

Sometimes people have a perspective that gives them comfort about death being part of a natural cycle. Maybe they are comforted by spiritual beliefs about an afterlife or practices which bring peace.

Some people just express their sadness in other ways. Tears are a good channel for releasing sadness and grief, but for some, journaling or music or poetry or walking alone in nature are also ways to feel and release sadness.

Now for the potentially problematic reasons why some people don’t cry. For one, religious convictions can cut both ways. One may draw strength from God or in trust of “God’s plan”, but I’ve heard people say they resist their tears and stuff them because they worry this would be seen by God or their religious community as a lack of faith. “I know she’s in a better place so why am I so sad and angry? Who am I to question God’s plan? I should be happy.” Well, okay, but you’re human, right? You just lost someone you love. People can really put themselves into traps. Sometimes I remind those with a Christian orientation that Jesus cried when Lazarus died, not to try to get them to cry, but to encourage them to lighten up on themselves if they think they shouldn’t.

There may have been psychological trauma and/or interpersonal violence in a relationship. Some have told me “I’m glad he (or she) is dead. They made my life hell and I’m glad they are gone.” I always have deep compassion for folks in this kind of situation. Not all families or relationships are safe and supportive.

Sometimes when people in these kinds of situations do find themselves crying, they are mystified. Why would I shed a tear for someone who raped me when I was a kid or who belittled me all the time? One of my areas of specialization is working with people who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There are lots of reasons someone might still cry despite a history of trauma and abuse from a deceased person, despite not wanting to. This is beyond the scope of our talk, but it’s good to keep in mind that psychological trauma and grief can entwine. In fact, losing a loved one can actually cause PTSD in some cases. Different topic; different day.

So, what about men specifically? I don’t know of any studies about whether men are less likely to cry, but I have seen over and over that they tend to be more self-conscious about it, resist it more, judge themselves as weak when they do, and are more apt to hide whenever the tears start to come. In his book A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis talked about feeling pressure not to cry after his wife died because it seemed to make people around him uncomfortable. Who knows whether it was his or others’ discomfort? Probably both.

Some men resist tears because it can feel like a loss of control. I’ve heard more than one say, “I refuse to cry because I’m afraid if I start, I won’t be able to stop.” Or maybe they don’t want to cry because they think they need to “protect” or “be strong” for a wife or a child who is “really the one taking things hard,” as though someone else’s grief matters more. We do not need to compare ourselves to others when it comes to grieving. One person’s grief is no more or less important.

As mentioned, boys often grow up getting messages about being tough, controlling or their suppressing emotions, being able to deal with adversity without flinching. When I was a kid, I often heard things like “big boys don’t cry” or “shake it off; get back up” if I or another boy got hurt or felt sad. Boys who cried were often ridiculed as crybabies by other kids, even by adults.

Think about it. If you cry or show that you are hurting, you are told that the way you are acting, what you are feeling, is wrong. That your feelings don’t count. That there’s something wrong with you or you’re not acting like a “real boy” (or man). You may learn that you can’t trust people to offer support, safety, or empathy when you are vulnerable, and you damn sure better not cry. Instead, as I often heard as a teenager involved in sports, you better learn to “take it like a man.”

Now, of course boys also get comforted. I’m not trying to overdraw this point or cast blame on adults who got the same messages. But being told that males don’t cry, being corrected, even shamed for doing so, can go deep into the psyche. Never underestimate the impact and longevity of these kinds of early messages.

So that little boy may grow to be a man who does not cry. Maybe he learns to numb out, dismiss or detach or brace against his feelings. There’s a clinical term – Alexithymia – which refers to having difficulty feeling emotions. Some people just kind of tune out their emotional worlds to one extent or another. This includes emotions like sadness, of course, but also joy. The whole spectrum. Alexithymia can be more common when people are depressed or have underlying PTSD, but generally, this dimming of the emotions, at least to some extent or another, is something I’ve seen a lot in men.

When a man has learned to numb out his emotional life, this may become even more acute during a time of crisis such as when a loved one dies. Shock, the shattering of what bereavement counselors call the “assumptive world”, being overwhelmed, can lead to a kind of dissociation from one’s feeling, one’s body, even one’s sense of self. So, men who are not in touch with or comfortable with their emotions on a good day, may have developed go-to strategies and defenses for holding it together when they take a big life hit. Defenses like further shutting off emotions, avoiding situations that cause an impulse to cry, distracting oneself, rationalizing. And this can be automatic and unconscious.

Another aspect of this kind of shutting down or distancing is that many men don’t have much of a vocabulary for their interior experiences. And if you don’t have the vocabulary, it can be hard to name and access what you are feeling.

Some psychotherapists will tell you that humans only have four or, depending on who you talk with, five, basic emotions – bad, sad, mad, glad, and scared. I don’t believe this, but some believe all other emotions are just versions of these five. On the other hand, other psychotherapists give clients four- or five-page handouts filled with words for different emotions which are intended to help them begin to describe and track their interior world better.

So, if you see the emotional vocabulary on a continuum from five words to five pages filled with words, in my experience, men tend to be closer to five words than women. Much closer. (laughs) This can make it hard to differentiate, and really know what you’re feeling. I worked with a man not long ago who was being eaten alive by intense shame about the death of his son from childhood leukemia. He was berating himself for not being a better father and not protecting his son from cancer. You know, for not being perfect or able to do the impossible. Another of those traps.

When we expanded his vocabulary, he realized he was actually not feeling shame; he was feeling regret. When he was able to name this, he began crying for the first time. This naming, and the insight that went with it transformed things and opened the channel for tears which had been blocked. What am I really feeling? Is it bad (what the hell does this even mean?)? Regret (something bad happened)? Guilt (I did something wrong)? Shame (I’m a bad person)? In general, the bigger the vocabulary, the better when it comes to emotional awareness and comfort with things like crying.

Deborah Grassman has done lots of work with terminally ill combat veterans, a vast majority of them, male. She says, somewhat playfully but in a serious way that when a Vet who appears to be struggling states “I’m fine” when asked what he feels, she translates this as “Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, or Empty.” (laughs)

Sometimes men hide behind a veil of being “rational” or “realistic”. They may make a virtue of not crying, they may even see emotions as dangerous or irrational. Though intellectual and cognitive strategies can be helpful to an extent, they can also be a defense against emotions. Besides, thoughts create feelings; feeling create thoughts. You can’t have just one. But you can condition yourself to anesthetize your feelings over time.

One final thought. Sometimes the tears come later. Maybe much later. Who knows what triggers it? You’re feeling fine, you didn’t cry in the years since the death then – bam - seemingly out of the blue, you’re crying and thinking, what the hell? Maybe it’s a song on the radio that reminds you of a tender memory. Maybe you hear yourself use a phrase you never though you would use, and it reminds you of a deceased parent. Maybe it’s a child getting married, and it hits you, “Man, I sure wish mom was here.”

Death changes a relationship, it does not end it. Somehow, the relationship with a deceased loved one gets “renegotiated” to use a term some psychotherapists like. Over time this kind of ongoing renegotiation can bring up sadness, tears, as well as joy, gratitude, forgiveness. For example, maybe there was tension, or you felt judged by a parent and had one understanding of who they were when they died. Then, you get older, maybe you become a parent or maybe you just realize how imperfect we can all be. Maybe you see that they were doing their best or that they had motives that they believed were good ones. Well, all of a sudden there’s empathy, understanding. That could bring relief – they really were trying to help – or maybe it brings sadness and tears.

On the other hand, maybe you idealized a deceased person when they died and as the years go by you find pockets of anger or resentment or hurt which need to be metabolized. Grief can be very mysterious and there’s no checker flag letting us know when we are in the last lap. Sometimes it cycles in and out as we grow and learn.

My mother died when I was 20 (six months with pancreatic cancer). After she was buried, I compartmentalized things and tried to move on without really giving myself a chance to grieve. By the time I was 23, I was in therapy and taking medication to control a series of panic attacks that I was having, which my therapist helped me trace back to her death. Is this common? What other roads have you seen men go down in when dealing with grief, in your professional work?

Yes, this kind of thing is well known to those of us who work with people who are grieving. Sometimes things are locked away and then a kind of crisis hits. Maybe it builds slowly, cumulatively over time or maybe there’s a trigger of some kind – a job loss due to inability to concentrate, a health scare from all the stress or neglecting to take your blood pressure meds, a slide into depression or anxiety to the point where you need to reach out for help and, as with you, discover it is stemming from a painful loss.

Sometimes one loss, unearths pain from a previous loss that was not fully processed, and this can hit with unexpected intensity and surprise. Sometimes a loss can intensify ongoing struggles which had been hidden. Maybe you have a history of depression, and the deceased person has always been there to pump you up and now they’re gone; maybe you have PTSD (there’s lots of it out there that is not diagnosed) and you always relied on the person who died to help you cope and feel safe in the world. Now, after a year or so of biting down and muscling though, you hit the wall.

The kind of grief that comes from a situation like the one you were thrown into, Jared, can be very complex. Having your mother die when you are a 20-year-old, a time in life when young men are defining who they are as independent adults and finding ways to differentiate themselves, push back on, or distance in some ways, from their parents. Very complex. So much of what happens with us and our parents when we are young can later be contextualized and healed as we age and gain perspective. In a situation like this, this opportunity gets short-circuited in that your older self never gets to interact with your mother. Death occurs when you’re a young man with so much acquired wisdom still ahead of you. Wisdom you could not have brought into your relationship when you were twenty.

When I work with people who have had to deal with this kind of situation, I often introduce the idea of mindful self-compassion. It’s pretty trendy these days in counseling circles and there’s a reason for this: it’s powerful stuff. When looking back on our younger selves, having been thrust into unexpected, even unimaginable, crises, we must bring deep compassion and love for any perceived imperfections or judgements.

Back when I started working as a hospice social worker, a billion years ago, we tended to view things like compartmentalization, intellectualization/rationalizing, avoidance, withdrawal, or being overly busy as ways of not grieving. These days, most of us realize compartmentalizing can be a great and sensible strategy when your world gets shattered, especially if you have limited support and fixed responsibilities (for example if you have children). It can help you focus, do what you have to do in the moment, put intense feeling and thoughts aside until you absorb things more. Nothing wrong with this. Same with avoidance, it can help you get centered or keep things together when they feel like they are falling apart. For a short time.

The danger comes when you try to keep intense, confusing and/or painful things in compartments, or when you make avoidance an ongoing pattern. So, good strategy in the midst of a crisis, and, as you found out, not a good long-term strategy when it comes to grief and bereavement.

Those things in compartments, if you don’t crack them open, will find other ways to show up. Maybe your nervous system revs up, your body gets out of whack. Maybe you’re constantly tense, having trouble concentrating. Maybe your reactivity goes up, frustration tolerance goes down. Maybe your immune system gets out of whack, you start having headaches or insomnia. Maybe anxiety goes up and you have panic attacks which can be very frightening. Maybe it starts to affect your relationships or job performance, you start avoiding friends, calling in sick or stop taking care of yourself physically, getting depressed, numbing out or losing motivation. Maybe you start drinking too much or engaging in risky behaviors. Maybe your self-esteem or confidence takes a hit. It builds, and…you know the story.

As far as trajectories, we tend to view social support and confiding in others as key factors in healing from loss and as ways of cracking open the compartments, but not everyone is wired this way. This, I think, is especially true for men. Some may prefer to get out in their garden or go for a long run through the woods. I once saw an interview with the Harold Bloom, the late literary critic. It was one of those sprawling C-Span interviews and when they rubbed up against the loss of a loved one, he shut the interviewer down. It was private. Then he softened and said something like: When I’m struggling with grief and loss, nothing helps me better than “a long course of solitary reading.” I remember that phrase.

Now, some would instantly suspect he’s avoiding his grief or that he’s being defensive or somehow not doing his so-called “grief work”. And maybe there’s some truth to that. But some people can find a measure of healing with silence and a book that speaks to the heart. I’m not saying we can read our way through grief, but a good book that speaks to our core, periods of silence, sanctuary, unplugged from all the techno-devices, that might scare some people, but it can help others.

Men don’t always conform to the notion that to grieve you have to seek out social support, share, demonstrate and process emotions and explore things verbally. Though this kind of processing and support can all be very useful, it’s not everyone’s, especially men’s, primary style.

What is dysfunctional isolation, and what is a healthy regard for solitude and contemplation? Where’s that line? What is avoidance and refusal to process thoughts and feelings versus someone who is carrying on an internal conversation with themselves which helps them make sense of things, but which no one else can hear? We need to be careful not to push our biases about how people should grieve onto those who are hurting.

Shortly after George Orwell’s wife died unexpectedly during routine surgery, he left London for an isolated, rugged and nearly inaccessible island in Scotland. Was this escapism? Or was there something about being closer to nature and nature’s cycles, silence, solitude, introspection, and the creative expression that goes with writing, listening to one’s inner voice, that was drawing them there in his time of grief? I’m no literary scholar, so who knows? But I am a hospice guy, and I suspect there was a connection.

I think men are more apt to follow these kinds of strategies – sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but we need to assess each situation individually, without instantly judging or throwing around negative psychological labels.

To expand a bit. I’ll read you what I wrote a while back in an article about men and grief. This will give you a sense of other trajectories and/or tendencies:

“There is evidence that men are more likely than women to remain silent or grieve in isolation, engage in action-oriented forms of grief expression, or lose themselves in distractions such as work or throwing themselves into a new relationship. Research suggests that men appear to be more susceptible to developing a reliance on alcohol or engaging in risk-taking behaviors following a loss and are more likely than women to commit suicide following the death of a spouse. Some studies suggest that men are more likely to use the strategies of avoidance, intellectualization, and minimization when grieving and, although research is inconsistent on the point, they may have a greater tendency to somaticize emotional and psychological pain.

Grieving men may be at greater risk of death when compared with men of the same age who are not grieving. Some believe this may reflect the impact of internalized stress or the effects of poor self-care. Others suggest that men tend to have smaller social networks than women and more difficulty asking for and accepting support, making them less likely to receive, and more likely to reject, encouragement to prioritize one's health.”

What have I missed in this very short Q&A? I’m not foolish enough to think it’s as simple as men are just different from women, but is there something that I didn’t touch on that would help illustrate the differences between how men and women grieve and emote?

You’ve asked great questions, the kind of questions that help us open our hearts. And, as Rilke said, when it comes to universal topics like this, it’s okay to relish the questions without having to figure it all out.

I think we need to be careful about not overgeneralizing or putting men and women into rigid boxes. Some women will read this and think “Hey, I learned to stuff my emotions too. My brother may have gotten pressure to protect everyone physically, but I got pressure to protect them emotionally. Men might not want to “burden” others with their worries, but I got pressure to always keep a smile on my face even when I was hurting inside, try doing that for a lifetime.” We are more alike than different. It’s not like all men grief this way, women grieve that way. The question is what helps you heal?

I think it can be more helpful to think in terms of styles of grief. In terms of how men might grieve, in his book, Swallowed by a Snake, Tom Golden, talks about a “masculine style of grief”. A style that men often, but not always, gravitate toward, and which many women use as well. Here’s a quote from his book:

"The masculine side of healing is not as accepted a mode of healing as the more traditional verbal and emotional expressions. It tends to be quieter and less visible, less connected with the past and more with the future, [and] less connected with passivity and more aligned with action. As a consequence, I have noticed repeatedly that people who use a predominance of this masculine side of healing are suspected even by mental health professionals of 'not really healing.'"

This lines up with what Doka and Martin call an instrumental style of grief which they identify as one of two primary styles of grieving, the other being an intuitive style. The idea is that we all express our grief along a continuum, combining elements of different styles. An intuitive style values the expression of affect, verbal processing of emotions, seeking support. An instrumental style is more often expressed physically and cognitively, more apt to value, maybe overvalue, perceived self-reliance. Many have noted that men tend to be drawn to the instrumental style, but we all tend to combine them in ways that may change over time and with the context.

Stroebe and Schut talk about bereavement involving a “dual process” where people balance or oscillate between “loss-oriented” and “restoration-oriented” challenges and tasks.

Loss-oriented challenges are associated with processing and making some kind of meaning after the death of a loved one, as well as absorbing the personal impact on oneself and relationships. This might include sharing stories, expressing emotions, coping with yearnings or regrets, engaging emotional and psychological support.

Restoration-oriented challenges refers to focusing on the more practical impacts of a death and learning to cope with being without a loved one. This may mean learning or better mastering activities of daily living like cooking, cleaning, managing finances, keeping up with medical appointments, childcare and so on. Basically, learning to get into a new rhyme of life and handling new responsibilities or orienting in a practical way to a new reality.

I think men often try to skate through the loss-oriented stuff. They may think they are being realistic – “what good does is do to talk about how much I miss my wife? I just need to pull my boots up and learn how cook dinner without burning the house down.” But you have to balance both of these challenges.

It’s a big topic, Jared, and I’m basically just giving you my take on things, not speaking for men everywhere. We could talk about ways men and women can better communicate and support each other when they share a grief experience, not getting hooked into conflicts or hurt by differing styles. We could talk about the men’s grief support groups I’ve helped facilitate and what happens when men come together in their grief. We could talk about our current cultural moment and whether or not we are raising boys differently or finding a new definition of masculinity. Hell, we could be here till someone comes by and turns out the light on us, but I’ve gone on long enough.

Why don’t I close by going back to your story. Go back to your 20-year-old self, in shock, overwhelmed, numbed out and shutting down after your mom died. Then you’re 23, realizing what you’re doing isn’t working, having those terrifying panic attacks, having the courage to reach out and ask for help, the guts to look at your pain rather than trying to outrun it. Now, you are older and have created a dynamic space to reflect on these issues. You’re not claiming expertise, not pretending you know the way. You’re being an authentic guy putting out a homing beacon for folks that want to talk about important things around death and grief.

There is a trajectory there that shows deepening, growth, healing, but there are still challenges and open questions. That’s the power of opening those compartments. Even though what they contain may scare us, they can, over time, be the sources of growth, transformation, understanding and connection. Like Joseph Campbell said, sometimes it’s the cave we fear to enter that holds the treasure that we seek. In this case, the treasure wrought from grieving a loss, is being a deeper, more thoughtful human being.

It’s a profound and profoundly human path, man.

Scott Janssen is a social worker and author.

Griever’s Digest

Not all editions of Dirt Nap are me writing and opining. We have something here called the Griever’s Digest, where our readers share their grief journeys. If you’re grieving someone or something, consider opening up to our community. Drop me a line at jaredpaventi at gmail dot com.

Final thoughts on finality…

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

— Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night

Boys Don't Cry: Part II

Part two of our interview with Scott Janssen on men, grief and emotions

Griever’s Digest

Final thoughts on finality…

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