Why Am I Crying All the Time? | Therapy for Emotional Overwhelm in Berkhamsted
It's not an uncommon experience to be crying frequently, sometimes daily, and not quite know why. You may find yourself tearing up in seemingly insignificant moments or in the middle of a conversation when someone asks "How are you?"
It might happen more in the evening when the busyness drops away and you are free to let your guard down or in the privacy of your own company. The tears may not always be sadness either. Sometimes it's an unnamed heaviness or a mix of feelings that are hard to distinguish. Frequent crying can reflect many different underlying feelings that we're often unaware of.
This is one of the more curious aspects of being human: we can feel something intensely in our body and yet have very little conscious access to what it's connected to. But crying, especially when it shows up this way, can be an invitation rather than just a problem to solve. You could think of crying as communication, that something in you is needing to be heard and attended to.
Understanding Emotional Regulation and Why It Breaks Down
Emotional regulation is our capacity to experience feelings without being overwhelmed by them, to feel anger without losing control, sadness without drowning, or anxiety without panic. We develop this capacity primarily through early relationships where caregivers who help us make sense of our emotions and return to balance.
When this developmental process goes well, we learn that emotions are temporary, manageable, and meaningful. When it doesn't, perhaps because caregivers were overwhelmed themselves, dismissive of emotions, or simply unavailable, we may struggle with emotional dysregulation throughout our lives.
The Connection Between Crying and Dysregulation
Frequent unexplained crying often signals that our emotional system is overwhelmed and seeking regulation. It's as if the body is trying to discharge emotional pressure that has built up beyond our conscious awareness. This isn't a weakness but rather the nervous system's attempt to restore balance.
What Causes Unexplained Crying?
The Split Between Experience and Awareness
We all carry unconscious material, unprocessed emotions and unmetabolized experiences from relational wounds that weren't safe to feel at the time. Much of what drives our emotional life lives in what's called implicit memory, memories held in the body and nervous system but not always available to conscious recall. Explicit memory is our conscious memory of events that have happened to us, impicit memory are the ways in which we were impacted by the events that is not so readily available to consciousness.
When you're crying and don't know why, something long unacknowledged may finally be making itself felt. It's not strange or crazy, it's an opening, a leak in the carefully held container of repression, and potentially the beginning of integration, if you’re responsive to the call.
Common Triggers for Emotional Overwhelm
In my therapy practice in Berkhamsted, I often see people who are crying more frequently without understanding why. For a lot of people, it’s the starting point of therapy. Sometimes there are life conditions that can form the backdrop of this kind of experience:
- Major life transitions (job changes, relationships ending or changing, moving, children leaving home)
- Periods of stress when usual coping mechanisms stop working
- Times when someone feels finally feel safe enough to let down their guard
- Moments of unexpected kindness that touch something long-buried
- The unfolding of life events or the unfolding of ourselves in a way that we didn’t see coming
How Therapy Helps Reconnect Emotion and Awareness
One of the most powerful things therapy offers is space, space for experience to unfold, to be felt, named, and understood. When someone reflects back what they notice, not just in your words but in your tone, posture, and emotional presence it creates conditions for awareness to catch up to emotion.
Creating Safety for Emotional Expression
In therapy, unexplained emotion can become a source of mutual and supported curiosity rather than something shameful that needs to be hidden away. In the right relationship between a therapist and a client, tearful overwhelm can be helped to reveal its layers: grief that never had language, anger that was never safe to express, or loneliness and disappointment that was lurking in the unconscious can start to be decoded. In this process it starts to be worked with and this often marks the beginning of things moving in a new direction.
The therapeutic relationship is a place where split-off parts can come into contact with compassion and reflection. When a therapist stays present with your tears not rushing to fix or analyze, but simply helping you to find what you’re experiencing it creates possibility for those tears to become meaningful rather than just symptomatic.
My Integrative Approach to Emotional Regulation
In my practice, I often combine counselling with acupuncture when appropriate, recognizing that emotional regulation happens on multiple levels. Sometimes the nervous system needs physical support as well as emotional and psychological exploration. Acupuncture can help calm chronic activation, making space for the gentler work of understanding what emotions are trying to communicate. I can work with you using these approaches either alone or in combination depending on what it is that you need.
Making Space for Regulation and Sense-Making
Unexplained crying doesn’t have to be a sign that something is wrong with you, it can be seen as a sign that something in you is trying to move, trying to be known. In the safety of therapeutic relationship, you can begin to slow things down, sit with emotion without immediately needing to explain it, and begins to decipher what ‘s going on inside you, which ultimately paves the way for something new. Sense-making doesn't happen all at once. It emerges gradually as the nervous system settles and connections form between feeling, memory, and meaning
When to Seek Support for feeling overwhelmed
Consider reaching out for professional support if you're experiencing:
- Frequent crying without clear cause
- Feeling emotionally overwhelmed by everyday situations
- Difficulty returning to emotional balance after upsets
- Sense that your emotions are "running the show"
- Crying that interferes with work or relationships
- Feeling disconnected from your own emotional experience
Moving Forward with Compassion
If you've found yourself crying more than usual without knowing why, that may be the beginning of something important. Your emotional system might be trying to communicate something that deserves attention rather than suppression.
Therapy can offer space to explore this gently, at your own pace, and without judgment. It’s normal to not be able to do this by yourself – nobody can see into their own blindspots and sometimes you are so close to your own life you can’t see the way in which you’ve been affected by the experiences you’ve had. This is is the usefulness of a supportive other that knows how to listen and facilitate your experience in a skilful way that leads to change.
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Frequently Asked Questions:
Q. Is crying every day normal?
A. Occasional crying is healthy, but daily crying without clear cause may indicate emotional overwhelm that could benefit from professional support. It's often your nervous system's way of seeking regulation and of communicating to you that you have suppressed feelings that need to be worked with.
Q.What causes emotional dysregulation?
A. Emotional dysregulation arises naturally amidst the challenges and stressors of life. But often our capacity for it (or lack of) stems from early experiences where we didn't receive consistent help managing overwhelming emotions. Trauma, chronic stress, and major life changes can also trigger dysregulation.
Q.How can therapy help with unexplained crying?
A. Therapy provides a safe space to explore what emotions might be trying to communicate. Through the therapeutic relationship, you can develop better emotional regulation and understanding of your inner experience while feeling connected to someone you trust that helps you in the process.
Q.When should I seek therapy for emotional overwhelm?
A. Consider therapy if crying interferes with daily life, you feel constantly overwhelmed by emotions, or you sense there are important feelings you haven't been able to process or understand. If your quality of life is being severly impacted it's wise to get support and help in feeling better
Q.Can emotional regulation be learned in adulthood?
A.Yes, the capacity for emotional regulation can be developed at any age through supportive relationships and therapeutic work. The brain remains capable of forming new regulatory patterns throughout life, and awareness itself is a powerful self regulatory capacity that can be grown and developed.
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If you're ready to explore what your emotions might be trying to tell you and you’d like to discuss therapy or set up an initial appointment, you can reach me at:
Phone: 07717 515 013
Email: sean@seanheneghan.com
Located at: Berkhamsted Chiropractic Clinic, 69 High Street, Berkhamsted, HP4 2DE
Available Monday to Friday with both daytime and evening appointments.
Sean Heneghan is a BACP registered counsellor serving Berkhamsted for over 20 years. He offers an integrative approach combining depth-oriented therapy with acupuncture to support emotional regulation and self-understanding.