How different are women and men with emotional overload?

[Connonym]

When I feel stressed, frustrated and tired I feel teary. I know this is sexist and there are no generalizations but I never see guys cry when they get this way. How do mens deal with this kind of thing? I'm getting a cold, I'm tired and have PMS (which you may also consider sexist but I definitely have emotionality when I'm premenstrual).

[Swede]

1. One thing I do is internalize everything,I never let anyone share my bad day.

Not sure it that's good or bad.

[SeattleGirl]

2. I get teary too.

I don't know if that's sexist; I just know that when I get overwhelmed, I'm more likely to cry than anything else.

[Hosnon]

3. Alcohol. As trite as it is,

the song about a woman going to church to get over a break up and a man going to a bar is pretty accurate, in my experience.

Tears don't seem to fix much for me. I let loose in some other way. In any event, it's a pressure release.

[marzipanni]

4. If I'm getting a cold and I'm tired I take a warm shower, get under the covers,

and sleep. Let your body have nothing to do but rally its defenses against the virus.
I hope you feel better tomorrow!

[porphyrian]

5. I think there are a whole lot of factors that play into it.

It isn't sexist to acknowledge differences in societal norms/expectations with regards to gender and emotional expression, nor to acknowledge that men and women have different biochemical systems and cycles which can affect our emotional experience (emotions are biochemical, after all).

Personally, as a guy, I've learned to vent my overload through anger usually, and I vent it almost immediately so as not to simply explode. It can be ugly or difficult to watch, but it works better for me than trying to suppress it. Sadness and despair, however, I don't do very well at all.

[petronius]

6. I drink, snarl at my wife, and construct elaborate fantasies of revenge.

Getting teary seems a lot more healthy, actually...

[Oeditpus Rex]

7. We go to malls and shoot people

[mike_c]

8. I internalize and tighten it down, but get teary sometimes too....

It's hard to explain. I *feel* turbulently emotional, but often work hard to conceal it. The problem for me-- and I suspect for many males-- is that when I express that emotion I tend to stop seeking solutions to problems, and simply experience the pathos or whatever, and that just doesn't seem very useful.

Most of my female friends think that's crazy-- that the emotional response IS the point.

[Hosnon]

10. Bingo.

I will let the emotions flow given the right circumstance. But, even then, I feel that I must "buck up" and deal with the cause of the problem.

[Cabcere]

9. I sometimes get teary too,

but it's been my experience that as a woman, there is no such thing as "emotional overload" - because any time I exhibit any behavior that's "out of the norm," the men I come into contact with tend to write it off as PMS. x( It doesn't matter if I have a legitimate reason to be upset or angry; if I get teary-eyed or lose my temper about anything at all, it's always PMS to them because apparently women aren't capable of feeling any real emotions that aren't associated with hormonal cycles. :mad: I mean, yeah, I do get kind of emotional when I'm PMSing sometimes, but if my friend dies or if my little brother gets threatened by jackasses at school, I'm going to react emotionally no matter what time of the month it is, and I really wish people wouldn't fucking automatically assume that I'm feeling/acting that way just because of my fucking female hormones. :grr:

:rant:

[crispini]

11. true

the minute you get upset you no longer have anything to say worth hearing to a lot of men...p

[Omphaloskepsis]

12. How I deal with stress...

Make a list of problems..

List all the solutions to those problems that I can think of. Then I try to do the least painful of the solutions to each problem.

I barely ever get stressed. Sometimes you have to accept things are out of your control and accept things are going to suck and spend the time figuring out how to minimize the damage and fix the problem. Freaking out hasn't really ever solved a problem.

[Quantess]

13. Hi Connonym.

I think I was in a disagreement with you a couple of weeks ago.

It isn't sexist, possibly it's just a women's issue? Why would it be a bad thing to be emotional? Men are emotional too, but they don't have the same "excuse" to blame it on. If they're jerks, they expect everyone to forget.

I definitely have a tendency toward depression. It gets at the worst about 3 or 4 days before my period. I don't know a cure for emotional-PMS, but I do know that the physical symptoms (cramps) can be cured with calcium pills / supplements. Women's bodies need more calcium, starting about 2 weeks after their period.

The best cramp prevention I know, is to take about 5 or 6 calcium pills per day, during PMS, before your period even starts. During your period, take about 3 calcium pills per day. Calcium is the only remedy that has worked for my cramps.

[raccoon]

14. Men are more likely to express it as anger, women through crying. nt