I just received an interesting question: Julie, why do some people with bipolar disorder cry and cry when they are deoressed while others don’t cry at all? I am not sure why people cry. Melissa.
I am not an expert on this, so I asked my coauthor Dr. John Preston for his explanation.
Hi Julie,
Crying likely serves several purposes. The first is crying as a distress signal. Babies do this, and the result is that loving parents are alerted to their discomfort and feed them or rock them. Likewise, crying is a social signal that may elicit support for others. Additionally, crying has been found to result in significant emotional relief. There are basically two types of crying: one is an aborted crying spell; here the person tried not to cry…they hold back tears and this is often accompanied by a flood of inner negative thoughts (e.g. “What’s wrong with me…I’m crying like a baby”…and other negative attitudes towards the self that generate shame). The other version is where the person given themselves permission to cry. Rather than being self-condemning, they accept that crying is a natural and understandable human reaction to loss, disappointment, or significant stress. This type of crying spell often leads to emotional relief. Neurobiologist William Frey has shown that emotional tears contain the stress hormone ACTH. The lowering of ACTH levels has a direct impact on the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol levels are often significantly elevated in depression and have been found to increase depressive symptoms. If you decrease ACTH levels, cortisol levels also decrease. Thus crying is a way to reduce the levels of this hormone and lessen depressive feelings.
John
PS: This is an excerpt from our book Get it Done When You’re Depressed.
