Hysteria benefits no one.

[MAC]

The phone rang in the almost empty restaurant
The waiter answered it.
He said “Yes she’s here. One second.”
He hands the phone to the lady who’s managing he restaurant.
The lady says “hello”
A second or two later the lady lets out a screech that fades away to nothing. We all look and see only her holding her head, face twisted, mouth racked open and we can’t tell if she is laughing or crying. It takes her several seconds and she starts shrieking. She starts sobbing, she starts yelling, and she starts blathering into the phone. She falls, she gets back up, she falls, and she sits down. She shrieks and screams and cries and yells again and falls off the stool.
After several minutes the guy finally takes the phone away from her and leaves the room so he can find out what the person on the other end is trying to tell her.
She’s collapse on the counter in a heap streaming nonsense.
“My baby’s daddy.”
“My children’s father”
“My ex-husband”
”He’s not alive”
“He’s dead”
I can’t get her to calm down. I can’t get her to respond to the fact that she’s not alone in this restaurant at all. She is only concerned with her pain. She’s hysterical.

Every waitress in the place comes over to try to comfort her eventually they get her focused enough to stand up and leave the room.

I must admit that her reaction bothered me. I hate to see anyone in pain. I hate to see anyone lose it. I’ve lost it before. I’ve been scared, freaked out, even broken down. And I can’t say that every time there was a “good” reason. It happens. But I could see all the dysfunction I have come to hate in women from east Texas in her. Her kids called her hoping for this reaction. They knew that momma would get this upset, so they didn’t have to. Momma got this upset over the death of a man whom she didn’t love enough to remain faithfully married to. If she’d had ½ this much concern for him in life would she have divorced him? Her fucking kids are 20-30 years. Hardly “children”, hardly “babies”. She’s standing in her boyfriend’s restaurant for god’s sake. Does she have an sense of propriety? She’s a goddamn adult woman who seems incapable of standing up and walking out because a 50+ year old man she left so she could go fuck someone else and leave her children with a busted family had a heart attack. What exactly is she upset about? Her children’s pain? She didn’t help them. The only solace they got was from the waiter. FYI: Breaking down into a useless heap is NEVER a good way to help your kids through tough times. Has she never been to a graveyard? Has she not seen the dates on the tombstones? Has she never known a person who died? Her weakness disgusted me and my pity grew smaller and smaller until it almost disappeared entirely.

Hysteria benefits no one.
You don’t feel better, you don’t fix anything, and you upset those around you which is especially bad if there’s no threat to them.

What fucking good is being so upset that you can’t see or speak or walk?

I was angry with that lady not long after they took her away but now that I sit here I am wishing, once again, that such pain would end in me. Uncontrollable hurt and anguish.

If you are cold, stand closer to the fire.
If you get too hot, move away.

so be it.

[ms. bing]

while that kind of hysteria is not good, it's opposite end is not any good, either. showing absolutely no emotion over the death of a man you lived with and had children with, no matter how badly it ended, would have been sociopathic. but east texan women are drama queens. i'm with ya there.

[Asmodeus]

I have always felt that deep emotion- over a lost loved one or whatever- should be done in private. NOT out in public for everyone to stare at.

I have been called a sociopath, an iceman, an asshole, etc. because at funerals etc I tend not to show any emotion. If I choose to grieve I will do so... alone.

[Cruise Director]

I grew up mormon. A very solemn religion where reverence is taken to a whole new level. You sit quietly through the meetings and most of the hymns they sing are low in tone, volume and have a certain "low-ness" to them. Then one day, when I was about 9, my grandfather and step-grandmother took me to a Baptist church for worship. Imagine my amazement when I saw a stage with an electric guitar and a drumset in their main hall of worship. They stood up to pray. They stood up to sing. They called out "amens" and "hallelujahs" during the sermon. They actually clapped in church. I was almost horrified at the time. My upbringing was that worshiping your deity was a reverent chore and here these people had the gall to celebrate it.

I've since learned there was a lesson there. People approach everything from different angles. Some people are happy in a somber place while others feel a need to celebrate or draw attention to themselves. While some displays may make me uncomfortable, I realize that that is the greatness that is the human condition. Different strokes for different folks.