I often cry in session--we joke that I'm on the "platinum tissue plan" with unlimited tissues. Sometimes it's more just tearing up a bit. Other times it's more regular crying, bordering on sobbing, where I might go through a dozen tissues and have trouble talking at times. It doesn't necessarily represent where my mind is, though. There are times when I've been feeling pretty awful, like today, but not shed many tears for whatever reason. (I told T that I thought maybe I used most of my tears up the night before. Or the Allegra was drying them up.) Other times, I'm pretty emotional, even though I thought going into session that I was mostly doing OK. The most telling thing for me is if I suddenly start crying over something T says or that I say. Particularly if it's not something I would have expected to make me cry. That can be a good clue to something that's affecting me.

I agree with what EM said, where if I can talk about something that usually makes me cry but then it doesn't, that can show progress. I used to cry every time I talked about ex-MC with T. Then there was a session where I realized I talked about him a bunch bit didn't really cry. T agreed that suggested I'm making progress.

Also, I tend to do a lot of crying in the shower, when alone in the car, or when alone at home on the couch. I don't have as much trouble letting the tears out if I'm alone. I cry in front of H at times, too, if I'm feeling really bad. I tend to have difficulty crying for the first time in front of someone, but once I've sort of broken that seal, it's easier to do again. It's weird, when I was talking to the backup T during the week that T was away a couple months ago, I started crying right at the beginning. Maybe I felt more at ease with her because we were on the phone, or maybe I was just in such a bad state that I would have cried with anyone giving the chance of relief. But then when I saw a T for consultation a month before that, I didn't cry once, despite talking about some intense topics.

I do find sometimes that it can help to get the tears out--I think there's some chemical (maybe a hormone?) that is released in sad tears. So if it's a really weepy session, I can leave feeling both exhausted and like a weight has been lifted because I got those emotions out. With not crying much today, it felt a bit different. There's also something about T just sitting there with me when I cry, generally not commenting on it (he will occasionally ask me what's going on if it seems to come out of nowhere). It seems to help normalize it and make me feel accepted. Because I would sometimes get punished for crying as a kid--or like if I was in trouble already, then kept crying, the crying prolonged it. And I think I got this message that if I cried in front of someone, it was this awful thing. So it's somewhat healing to be able to just sit there and do that with T. (And one of the most affecting moments with ex-MC was when he'd asked me a question, and I was crying so hard I couldn't answer, and I was just like, "I'm sorry," and he said "It's OK" in such a caring voice that it just really affected me. I think that's about when the transference kicked in.)