Psychologists seem to think you can keep composure and the swirling emotions you feel will be able to surface later, where you can deal with them in a silent, socially acceptable manner. That may be true for some people but not for me. I guess I don’t deal with emotions “like an adult” whatever that means.

The last time I was going to see my grandma I was tearing up and was ready to cry profusely but I kept it in because that side of the family men didn’t cry. The emotion was matched with what was in front of me. After my grandma died I didn’t even cry because she was gone. There was one Pixar movie that teared me up pertaining to her.

The same thing happened when my beloved cat died in mid-2024. I was crying when the vet said he had to be put down after we took him in for loss of balance. After that I felt sadness but didn’t cry.

Fast forward to Memorial Day 2025 the night my mom almost died. By this time, I was on a pretty high dose of Olanzapine, an antipsychotic, as well as some Zoloft, so I was more disconnected from my emotions. I didn’t cry.

My emotions work like diarrhea. I stem or lose composure as they happen, and they are either expressed or suppressed at that moment. There is no option to save, dealing with them for later. Because I am a man, family and society don’t take kindly to this. When there was a tornado warning, and I would lose composure as we were going into the basement, my dad would reprimand me not to cry. So more recent tornado warnings I don’t show any emotion. During that time of turmoil, that emotion is either expressed messily or suppressed; there is no “saving it for later”. I get it that this isn’t the way psychologists’ golden boys’ minds work but it’s the way mine works.