Having felt the gut-punch of this film for over a year now, and having found no-one in RL to talk it over with (reactions ranged from complete disinterest, hating the film, liking it but not understanding my 'extreme' reaction to it), I had a surprising and lovely experience literally 2 days ago.
I was sat in the pub with some drama group buddies after rehearsal and was discussing films with a guy (who is gay) and he said, with no preamble, "Have you seen Brokeback Mountain?". Thereafter we had an enthusiastic discussion about which scenes made us cry and why, what our first reactions had been when watching it in the cinema etc, and I told him all about Bettermost as well. I'm going through a sometimes painful opening up process with people at the moment about many things I've kept locked away all my life, and that conversation really meant something because of that.
Things I've been spilling my guts about on this board are almost coming out in RL too and it feels like I'm teetering on the edge of some kind of emotional waterfall that I'm scared of but also wholeheartedly embracing as well - just in the nick of time before it putrifies inside me. This film has been part of that process. Like Scott, I cry because I see myself in that film, and now I tend to watch it when I need to unplug a dam I've bottled up and can't let forth any other way. BBM and 'The Bridges of Madison County' are both like emotional therapy for me. At first I needed to physically watch BBM, but now it's such an integral part of me that just thinking about it can sometimes have the same effect.