Trapped emotions and crying

I've been emotionally constipated for the last few days. I've been
having trouble with feelings of emotional pain for a lost and unrequited
love. It brought up other things about my life and my ever so slightly
dysfunctional self. The pain is part of a process but in most other
cases the process hasn't been this hard.

Every night this week I've been trying to drink it out. There are
probably other healthier methods to work through the emotion but drink
works well for me. I made a significant break through last night. I
started to cry. Whatever laxative for the psyche I took its helped a lot
to get the emotion out.

There's still pain and hardship but I feel more centred for having
gotten the emotions out. The wallowing in self pity and expression of
angst against my situation helped because I repress those expressions a
lot.

It's just good to cry sometimes. It isn't very manly and I should be
ashamed which is why I do it alone.

The idea that men and women shouldn't cry is dumb in my opinion. It's as
natural an expression as laughter. The problem I have is the sympathy it
attracts which is why I do it alone, perhaps. There may be other reasons.

I'm contemplating the repression of crying in public or in private as an
example of modern society's maladaption to what human beings really are.
Crying is an essential part of the emotional process or it is for me and
crying works for me.

I'm surprised by the lack of research into crying and mental health. A
cursory search on Google Scholar shows much of the little research
directly done on crying is on children. The authors of one of the few
papers I can find
(http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-does-crying-do-for-you.html)
mentions the lack of research and their study was on females only. The
article says
"
Consistent with past research, people who reported being more neurotic,
extravert and/or empathic tended to cry more often and more easily. The
research was correlational, so it's not clear if having these
personality types leads to more crying, or if crying more contributes to
these personality types. Perhaps surprisingly, mental health, in terms
of reported depression, anxiety and so forth, was not associated with
how often or easily people said they cried.

When it came to the effects of crying, the pattern was the other way
round. Aspects of personality were not associated with how the
participants said crying made them feel, but mental health was. While
the majority of the participants (88.8 per cent) said that crying
brought them relief, a minority, especially those with depression,
anxiety, anhedonia (a loss of the ability to experience pleasure),
and/or alexithymia (a difficulty expressing or processing emotions),
said that crying left them feeling worse or just the same.
"

The authors of the study comment
"
Currently there is only anecdotal evidence that learning how to cry and
how to derive positive effects from it could help people who are having
difficulty expressing sadness or crying,
"

And I'd agree. My personal experience is that being able to get certain
emotions out by crying is really effective. My method is to go to my
local park with a few cans of beer and some weed. I have a secluded spot
by my favourite tree and I can be as mad as I want there. It's worked in
this situation and I know I will still feel the pain and the longing but
now the soul constipation is gone I should be able to process it better.