Why Can’t I Cry Tears Anymore?

Is it possible to have cried so much over months and years that your tears simply run out?

The first couple of months after his death, I cried myself to sleep every night. The sheets were soaked in tears. Of course, during the day too, there would be episodes of crying. I don’t like crying in public, so I often fought back the tears, told myself they’d have to wait until I got home. Of course, sometimes I simply couldn’t stop the tsunami of tears from being unleashed. And sometimes I was just so tired of fighting it that I allowed myself to let it all out, and I cried in the arms of a coworker and friend, looking like crap afterwards. (Lucky are those who are pretty criers. I’m not one of them.) I quickly learned to forgo mascara or to only wear the waterproof kind. I also found out that sudden bursts of bawling while driving are a real issue. They were usually triggered by having to drive by the hospital or doctor’s office or seeing an ambulance or a funeral procession or something like that. There were times when I had to pull over because I couldn’t get it under control, couldn’t safely continue driving.

I think it started maybe two or three years out when the tears sometimes just didn’t come out anymore. I remember being shocked the first time it happened. I started to cry and all of a sudden realized that there were no tears flowing down my cheeks. Everything else was the same. It was as if the seemingly endless stream feeding the waterfall had suddenly dried up into a desert. This had never happened to me before. I felt so bad and tried to make the tears come out. But they just wouldn’t. I was crying dry.

It kept on happening on occasion. Can you cry so much that you run out of tears? I wonder…