My (50sF) stepdaughter (SD, 26F) is visiting. She never wants to talk about anything under surface level, but we've been dealing with it. Last night, we were watching a movie she requested, even though husband and I weren't into it (my son \[16M\] was). The opening showed some nice sweeping shots of marshes and animals. A few minutes into the movie, before there's even any dialogue, and SD has tears running down her face!
SD is, to put it bluntly, a crybaby. She has cried since the day I met her when she was 7. If we yelled or disciplined her, she would burst into tears and be so hysterical that she couldn't speak. I assumed this was a manipulation tactic but it never went away.
Back to the movie, I pause and tell SD to tell me why she's crying. The movie hasn't even started. To my surprise, she can speak clearly. She even laughs and says that she doesn't know why, but crying is her response to any strong emotion. She explains that she had read the book and was blown away at the beautiful shots and "cinematography" and it "elicited her tear response". I tell her this is ridiculous, that she can't tear up just because she thinks something is really pretty.
She blew up on me. She told me that she was stretching the truth and does actually know why her body does this. She claims that it's because of her childhood and how terrified she was and now she apparently literally cries at everything. She cries when she's happy, sad, angry, excited, etc, and claims that she can't control it. She cried all through telling me this and tells me that whenever she sees a movie, she's in tears through all of it and she thinks it's my fault for how I "treated her".
I shut off the movie and told her to go to sleep if that's how she feels. She packed her things and left on the first flight back home. My husband is on my side but my son is angry and telling me I f\*ed up. I just don't think that crying because something impressed her is a response that's going to work in the real world. AITA?