veinglory said:
I think the mechanism used to explain this would depend on the current internal state of the character. Is the symptom (no crying) because they do not feel some or all emotions, because they avoid experiences that cause emotions, because they internally suppress some emotions, because have aquired an unusual degree of control over the external expression of the emotions they feel.... Any or all of these could be caused by early abuse but would be experienced very differently and explained using difference mechanisms (anti-social personality, depression, anxiety, PTSD etc)
One you have an idea of how the character actually feels when or if they experience something mthat would cause most people to cry--then you could track down clinical descriptions of that condition -- or perhaps use intuition which may be just as good. I see rather a lot of use of psyshology (or psycho-analysis) as a blunt instrument in fiction were an intuitive approach might be more plausible.
I think of her not so much as having no emotions but as having surpressed them so deeply that she doesn't fully allow herself to experience things such as sadness, which then manifest themselves in physical ways, such as cold sweats and trembling. And she has such a fear of interpersonal relationships that she sabotages them before they can even begin, leading to her miserable social life and terrible relationship with her co-workers. However I don't want her to be a total iceberg because I want there to be at least some awkward chemistry between her and the male protagonist, what I have in mind is at its core a semi-tragic comedy/drama/mystery love story. As the male protagonist slowly begins to earn her respect and trust she lets him in little by little, eventually allowing herself to show things in front of him like a mild sense of humor and even romantic interest.
I guess in a nutshell if I were to try to spell things out clinically (It may change with research) I would say she's introverted, suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, social phobia, lots of repressed anger and a few other phobias that go with my plot. She's conflicted in that she tries to convince herself that she doesn't need companionship and yet internally she's so desperately lonely for human contact its making her become suicidal. In fact there is such a serious disconnect between her conscious thought and her inner feelings that they are constantly at war with each other and it is finally pushing her to the brink when the story begins.
Of course a good question is, how messed up does she have to be to not be able to cry? I want her on the surface to seem functional if very unlikable, and capable of having a relationship with my other protagonist on at least some romantic level, so would all that make her being traumatized enough to lose that ability unlikely?
