The Student Room Group

how'd I toughen up emotionally?

I used to be pretty robust emotionally, like I've seen a lot of pretty distressing stuff but I never really paid much heed, I could see it and move on just fine. But recently (since about March time actually) I've found that the smallest thing will make me cry. I can be watching BBC news and cry, a film, or someone posted a list of death row convicts' last meals in GD and I was in tears, I hate being such a wimp, the tiniest thing can set me off. The worst thing is my brother, he died almost 4 years ago now and yet I still can't think about him without crying, just the slightest mention and I can't stop

I used to use weed a lot but ended up in counselling and my head was a mess, could that be responsible for this? and if so, how long do people reckon it'll take to go away? I stopped using weed almost 2 months ago. What can I do?


mods please don't un-anon this.
Reply 1
dont supress your feelings. keeping everything bottled up will ruin you.
if you feel your heads still a mess why dont you restart the counselling
Restarting counselling is definitely a good idea. Talking things through, especially with a preofessional (even with the best intentions sometimes friends make things worse with their reactions/what they say) can only ease the burden on yourself and halp you to understand why you feel this way. Did anything happen that could have set it off? I'm not asking you to post it here, but sometimes, even the smallest thing which you know shouldn't bother you in theory can really knock your self esteem and leave you very emotional. If this is the case, time and talking will, I promise, help you. :smile:
Reply 3
There are like no actual methods to toughen up that i know of, you just have to exercise some backbone (soz if that sounds harsh, not trying to offend u here). I dnt know exactly what u been thru, but i went thru some pretty rough ****, and i changed in the end. The way i did it was just good old fashioned defiance. I looked at things very practically and said bugger that, that is not letting me down. if i started to feel emotional, i just thought about afghan refugees, wrongly imprisoned lifers, or our fighting men and women overseas and thought why am i being such a pussy, when they go thru so much more stuff? look at the stuff u have and concentrate on it, dont fall foul of negativity. might have made me a mean spirited bastard for a little while, but it grew me a thick skin and i matured.
soz if it sounded harsh, and i hoped it helped
Reply 4
Tbh , i think that the weed most likely has something to do with it. some people seem to be fine with it some people have side effects with it that others dont. It sounds simple enough but incredibly boring but i suggest every morning or whenever you get time, you go out for a walk or simply a run, time to go out, clear your mind , get some fresh air. Eat healthily, and most importantly, dont sit around all day as this will just leave your mind to wander.
It seems like you may have some underlying issues which are triggering your crying, and i would suggest [after seeing 2 counsellors myself] that you see another/restart counselling. Its someone thats independent and cannot judge you as maybe a friend or family member would. Counsellors/psychologists have a thousand different methods of getting you to relax and find out your issues and i once tried a form of hypnosis which completely relaxed me and took away the underlying stresses for a couple of hours to give my mind a rest.

Hope everything goes well :] :smile:
Reply 5
I think people toughen up as they get older, many of the people who seem all confident and like they can handle life might not have come across come thing which they find hard, everyone finds different things hard to cope with depending on there personality.
Reply 6
Thanks for the answers. I'm seeing a university counsellor so I can't see her again until late september/october, do you think I should maybe see my GP instead but I'll just feel so silly saying "murder on BBC news upsets me a lot, yet it hardly used to, what do I do". :s-smilie: