Autism and crying?

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I only ever cry during autistic meltdowns. otherwise the most that's ever happened is a tear or two and that's only in very deep sadness. I wish i did cry because you always feel better after crying.

It's difficult for me to cry. I feel like I lost that reflex.

I think I used to cry fairly normally as a child, but I also think that not getting good results from many instances had reinforced the idea that crying won't help and might even lead to bad results. I think I also recognized that it puts me into a physically vulnerable state where I even had trouble speaking properly, so I think I ended up with too much reinforcement to the idea of crying = bad.

In my mid-20's I did start to accept the more vulnerable side of myself and did start to open myself up to crying around others. But either than that, through most of my life after childhood I only ever cried because of something devastating, always in private, and it was always a traumatic experience that left me with some mental scars, including occurring sidelong as well as being a contributor to my PTSD, and occurring during the first time where I actually felt something in my mind break.

Based on that, I can see that it might be that autism has a propensity to cause complications leading to a strong aversion to crying around others.

Darned if you do, darned if you don't. I cried during a support group and b/c of my intensity, I was kicked out. I expressed anger during another group, but again, b/c of my intensity (and gender: angry women are esp. shunned), I was kicked out. Another time I yelled in frustration and was arrested. So turning emotions inward and being depressed was "safer" than outwardly expressing (less regulated) emotions. Now that I am decades older I regulate a bit better, but it's still "scary" to folks and hard for me.