Cry. I don’t mean bawl. If you are composed, speaking and emoting normally, some tears on your face aren’t so bad. It’s genuine. And if you’re not fighting it, you can have that composure. It’s the fighting that causes the embarrassing failures of composure.

I know what you said, but you’re not the only person here. People who are ashamed of crying deserve to have more than your stigmatizing position represented.

Now the singular fucking clue. I have been crying non-stop for the past week and a half, two weeks.

Distance yourself emotionally but be firm in your conviction. By this I mean you need to take a clinical look at the situation as if it were happening to someone else, but keep your focus on what matters as if you were standing up for a friend.

Also rehearse it until you don’t feel anything saying it.

Those would be my two strategies.

Okay the first step in being able to get control and stop crying is to stop being embarrassed about crying. Because that added level of feeling makes the crying worse. So what if the power of your truth brings tears to your eyes? If they mock you it’s because they’re trying to distract from the fact they’re in the wrong. Ignore and continue.

What you don’t want is to whine or sob. So forget your eyes, concentrate on your voice. Deliberately pitch it a little low, it prevents squeaking. And use enough volume to be heard but don’t shout, you want to sound in control.

The other thing you don’t want to do is to snivel or have to deal with snot. So don’t keep your eyes wide trying to keep the tears from dripping, because that will just send the water down those tubes into your nose, and you’ll have a real mess plus you’ll be hard to understand. Deliberately blink and let them fall, or better yet dab with a tissue that you remembered to bring! (You don’t want to be like I once was, stuck with nothing absorbent in my purse but my toddler’s spare pair of clean underpants!)

All the while, concentrate on calmly stating the thing that’s so important to say. Chin up, keep eye contact, don’t let a few drops of water distract you. And you’ll find it gets easier with practice, so practice. Practice logical sentences that make your points, and practice returning to your point despite distractions or arguments from them.

If you wear makeup, try that out too, you don’t want anything that runs!

Being well prepared in case you do start to cry is the best way to minimize it, even if it doesn’t 100% prevent it.

Write a letter? Or maybe, write out everything you want to say to the person, and practice it out loud a few times so it gets less upsetting.

I don’t have advice – because In the past I have also had issues with voice shaking and tears when in emotional situations. No clue if I’ve grown out of it or have just been better at avoiding them.

I need to tell someone off

You might want to reflect on if you really need to. “Fuck off” and walking away is also sufficient. Delivering via a written message is also an option.

If this is a work situation then my suggestions change dramatically.

I need to tell someone off

But do you really? What would be different if you did vs didn’t do that? If someone does something to harm you in some way, think about never trusting them again and/or limiting or ending all communication with them. Believe it or not, some people enjoy getting an emotional rise out of others, and you run the risk of giving them that. What drives people like that crazy is getting nothing from you

so you want to exert an emotional response to so.eone but suppress the emotional response? hmmm…cry before hand. drain those tears

In your head, be a third party. You’re just passing along the information. Not apologetic, not angry, just facts.

Rehearse it a bunch so the words no longer have the same weight

Suck it up, buttercup.

If you do end up crying you can always say something like “regardless of my tears what I’m saying stands”, worst case scenario.

Sometimes it helps me to inflict slight pain somewhere, like pinching myself or contracting my foot inside my shoe really tightly. Like, it divides my attention between that sensation and what I’m dealing with emotionally. But I mostly just let myself cry, so take those ideas with a grain of salt. Here’s hoping it goes ok for you!

Be very very dehydrated.

I mean, my go-to way is to remember that if I don’t control my emotional responses, everyone will judge me and like me even less than they already do. Then I practiced for 30 years.

Honestly, I would question the necessity of the telling-off. Like, whatever it is, you can just let it go and move on with your life. Cut them out of your social circles. Put your telling-off into a text or email. Or cut it down to a short sentence you can toss at them offhandedly. If you’re planning some long elaborate speech… I would strongly suggest you reconsider.