[Trace14]

10 Things People Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’re Repressing The Hell Out Of Your Feelings
By Heidi Priebe

10 Things People Don?t Realize You?re Doing Because You?re Repressing The Hell Out Of Your Feelings | Thought Catalog

"Ah, emotional repression. The tactic we’re all taught growing up, but loathe to admit we’re engaging in.

In a world that teaches us to be strong and unwavering at all costs, it can be embarrassing to admit that we’re actually ~feeling~ something. So we do the next-best thing – and push that feeling down into the depths of our psyche!

But of course, all repressed feelings resurface eventually. Here are 10 counter-intuitive ways in which we deal with our unexpressed emotions.

1. Taking care of everyone else.

Let’s be serious – it’s a lot easier to deal with someone else’s emotions than it is to deal with your own. So you spend a lot of time sorting out your loved ones’ emotional crises. It makes you feel like you’ve got this whole ‘feelings’ thing down pat – when in reality you’re just avoiding confronting your own.

2. Disappearing from their lives for long periods of time.

Every once in a while, someone rudely evokes emotions in you that you don’t feel capable of handling. So you just, y’know, bail, for a couple of months until you can be reasonably certain that the emotion in question has been buried deeply enough to not resurface for a while.

3. Constantly. Staying. Busy.

If you’re constantly sprinting from one commitment to another, your emotions can’t possibly catch up! Becoming a low-key workaholic is an excellent alternative to actually feeling your feelings. And a profitable one at that!

4. Continuously claiming that you’re fine.

You like… are fine? You think. You feel fine. If the way ‘fine’ feels is kind of bleak and dead inside, with an undercurrent of inexplicable anxiety.

5. Developing irrational anxieties.

When you don’t acknowledge your feelings, they still come out – they just come out in irrational ways. You know that person who thinks they have a brand-new type of cancer every second week? Probably not the most emotionally in-touch of your friends.

6. Putting a positive spin on everything.

Your worst fear is seeing a friend tilt their head to the side sympathetically and ask you how you’re dealing with a recent negative event. So you beat them to the punch, by immediately telling them all the awesome realizations you’ve had as a result of said negative experience. If you can put a positive spin on a negative situation, you never have to confront how you’re really feeling!

7. Wanting to plan everything ahead of time.

You like to be in control of absolutely everything that happens to you, because you’re only comfortable in situations where you can predict how you’re going to feel. Doing something genuinely spontaneous and leaving the door open for surprise feelings to jump through? NO THANK YOU.

8. Dating people who are wrong for you.

If you never date someone who’s right for you, you never have to risk becoming emotionally intimate with them. And if you can avoid emotional intimacy with others, you can avoid it within yourself. Double win!

9. Turning EVERYTHING into a joke.

You’re not falling apart at the seams! You can prove it, by turning your pain into everyone else’s amusement.

10. Presenting a tough-as-nails exterior.

There is no such thing as an unemotional person. Even psychopaths experience emotion (just not in the form of interpersonal empathy). Which means that tough-as-hell exteriors are often key indicators that the person behind them is RIFE with repressed emotions.

Not you, though. Of course not you.

You’re fine. You’re totally fine. "

[Trace14]

I think 9 out of 10 apply to me.

[reb569]

Six for me I think.

[Raindropvampire]

9 out of 10 here.

[katydid777]

7 out of the 10 apply to me! But I also try to take one day, one hour, or even one minute at a time, to try to get it together.

6 or 7 of these apply to me.

I don't see how it's a problem though considering the fact that having some of these "issues" is a flat out advantage in modern day society.

Yes I could spend years trying to "fix" them but honestly, what good would that do? About the only way I will lose out for not changing is my personal relationships with people which I don't really need anyways.

Love doesn't pay the bills; money does. I would gladly sacrifice romance for money and power and I would gladly continue to immerse myself in my daily activities in order to not feel anything that way I can insure that I never go without and I am never dependent on another human being ever again.

I would die before being seen as weak and powerless ever again.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by reb569

Six for me I think.

Kind of an eye opener for me on what needs to be worked on. How about you?

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Raindropvampire

9 out of 10 here.

Me too, looks like there are some things I can work on. Did any of this surprise you?

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by katydid777

7 out of the 10 apply to me! But I also try to take one day, one hour, or even one minute at a time, to try to get it together.

Good way to approach it. Rushing it doesn't work. From what I've been told you have work through the feelings and emotions. These are things that have been there for years and there is no quick fix. So you are absolutely approaching this in a good way.

[itsnotmyfirstrodeo]

I'm new here, but probably all but #8 are accurate for me.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by DarknessIsMyFriend

6 or 7 of these apply to me.

I don't see how it's a problem though considering the fact that having some of these "issues" is a flat out advantage in modern day society.

Yes I could spend years trying to "fix" them but honestly, what good would that do? About the only way I will lose out for not changing is my personal relationships with people which I don't really need anyways.

Love doesn't pay the bills; money does. I would gladly sacrifice romance for money and power and I would gladly continue to immerse myself in my daily activities in order to not feel anything that way I can insure that I never go without and I am never dependent on another human being ever again.

I would die before being seen as weak and powerless ever again.

Maybe these aren't a problem for you and that's great. I know many here would love to be in that situation. My opinion for me is that fixing them or finding away to have a balance with them would be the ultimate goal. To find the happiness and love again that I once had.
There's nothing wrong with trying to provide for yourself and be strong, as long as you are happy. But to me you sound conflicted with this. You want to be strong, self sufficient, but something is missing that would make you whole again. If it's not worth the work and trouble to you though, things will never change. On the other hand if you are a very happy person now , why change?

Originally Posted by Trace14

Maybe these aren't a problem for you and that's great. I know many here would love to be in that situation. My opinion for me is that fixing them or finding away to have a balance with them would be the ultimate goal. To find the happiness and love again that I once had.
There's nothing wrong with trying to provide for yourself and be strong, as long as you are happy. But to me you sound conflicted with this. You want to be strong, self sufficient, but something is missing that would make you whole again. If it's not worth the work and trouble to you though, things will never change. On the other hand if you are a very happy person now , why change?

You're right. I'm not happy at all and it's unlikely that I ever will be.

I choose isolation and I bury myself in work and my hobbies so that I don't have to feel anything.

I could put the work into changing but I simply don't care enough to want to change at this point because I don't desire to put the work into changing and would rather put the work into doing something big with my life that people would actually care about instead.

[Sassandclass]

Thanks for this post. I do a couple of these. I need to pinpoint why exactly and start healing.

[reb569]

Originally Posted by Trace14

Kind of an eye opener for me on what needs to be worked on. How about you?

I would say # 1 and #4 are the ones I have to work on more than any of the others.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by itsnotmyfirstrodeo

I'm new here, but probably all but #8 are accurate for me.

Hello and welcome to PC
Yes, that's the one I didn't think fit with me either. Did you see anything that surprised you?

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by reb569

I would say # 1 and #4 are the ones I have to work on more than any of the others.

I agree I think some I am more connected to than others. I just need to separate them out and see what I need to address first, so not to get too overwhelmed with trying to fix them all at once.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Sassandclass

Thanks for this post. I do a couple of these. I need to pinpoint why exactly and start healing.

Sounds like a good plan!

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by DarknessIsMyFriend

You're right. I'm not happy at all and it's unlikely that I ever will be.

I choose isolation and I bury myself in work and my hobbies so that I don't have to feel anything.

I could put the work into changing but I simply don't care enough to want to change at this point because I don't desire to put the work into changing and would rather put the work into doing something big with my life that people would actually care about instead.

So it's more important to have people care a job, material possessions than to care about you personally? What do you consider something "big in your Life" to be?
I'm glad you admitted that you are not happy. I'm not glad that you are unhappy, but that you realize the current plan is not working for what you are really wanting out of life. Do you have a goal or idea as to what a happy life would look like for you?

[itsnotmyfirstrodeo]

Originally Posted by Trace14

Hello and welcome to PC
Yes, that's the one I didn't think fit with me either. Did you see anything that surprised you?

I guess I was surprised that "disappearing from their lives for a long period of time" was on there. I do that and hadn't really thought of it as a PTSD thing. I tend to struggle with the intimacy of close friendships now. I didn't used to - in my life before.

[katydid777]

Originally Posted by Trace14

Good way to approach it. Rushing it doesn't work. From what I've been told you have work through the feelings and emotions. These are things that have been there for years and there is no quick fix. So you are absolutely approaching this in a good way.

I have learned to take it slow, it is all so triggering, and if I take it slow I can handle a little triggering, but if I try to spill my beans all at once, like when I first started on this site, I am triggered for months. So for me, I want to fix my issues bc I want to be happy with life, so it must be slow for me.

[Monarch Butterfly]

9 out of 10 are accurate for me

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by Monarch Butterfly

9 out of 10 are accurate for me

Were you surprised that any of these things were related to repressing your feelings?

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by katydid777

I have learned to take it slow, it is all so triggering, and if I take it slow I can handle a little triggering, but if I try to spill my beans all at once, like when I first started on this site, I am triggered for months. So for me, I want to fix my issues bc I want to be happy with life, so it must be slow for me.

That's good that you have found what works for you. Good job. I was guilty of wanting everything to happen fast. Patience is not a virtue of mine. But I finally realized that things will happen as they happen, could be fast, could be slow. But what's important is that we keep reaching out to find what works.
Again, GREAT job!

[katydid777]

Originally Posted by Trace14

Good way to approach it. Rushing it doesn't work. From what I've been told you have work through the feelings and emotions. These are things that have been there for years and there is no quick fix. So you are absolutely approaching this in a good way.

I haven't worked through the feelings, and emotions yet, but I am trying, one at a time.

[Trace14]

Originally Posted by katydid777

I haven't worked through the feelings, and emotions yet, but I am trying, one at a time.

Good job, baby steps