What happens, when we suppress feelings?

This time I decided to just make a literal translation of a small, clear, and simple text about the suppression of emotions/feelings, so for your attention:

For some reason, when talking about suppressed emotions, only health and psychosomatics are remembered. Apparently, the popularization of psychology is gradually doing its job, and now we understand that many diseases have psychological roots. However, this is only one of several options for realizing forbidden feelings.

There are many ways to forbid yourself from experiencing a certain feeling or emotion, to pretend it does not exist. We all do this from time to time and on the one hand, this is a common thing. On the other hand, locked energy requires an outburst. If emotions do not find an “officially permitted” outlet, they will choose from the following options:

1. Uncontrolled outbursts.

The easiest way to explain this is with anger and irritation. If we are regularly irritated but try not to show it, anger accumulates, and at some point, any little thing can become the last straw that breaks the camel's back. The risk group includes, of course, peace-loving, polite, and considerate people. In other words, those who fear conflicts and strive to please others, who do not express stuff, but "stuff it up". This mechanism manifests itself very clearly, many films have been made about it, for example, the old but well-known "Enough" (2002) and "Anger Management" (2023).

But this same mechanism works not only with anger, it applies to other feelings too. For example, suppressed fears can manifest themselves in the form of phobias, nightmares, and panic attacks. And sentimental people, who can be moved to tears by some film or story, are usually those who have a lot of unlived sadness inside. I will give a couple of examples.

A woman came to me with panic attacks. After the second maternity leave her relationship with her husband cooled to the point of being neighborly. Attempts to fix something did not lead to anything. She lived in this state for some time, then another man appeared in her life, and she began to think about divorce. That's when these panic attacks appeared. Outwardly, everything was fine and calm, but inside she was tormented by two fears. Firstly, she was afraid to leave her husband for another, because building a new relationship is not so easy, and most importantly, there are no guarantees that everything will work out there. On the other hand, she was afraid to leave everything as is and live her whole life with the "neighbor". It turned out that she was caught between two fears and could not choose either option, this anxiety accumulated for a long time and manifested itself in the form of panic attacks. When, as a result of our work, she was able to cope with her fears and choose how she wanted to build her life, the panic attacks disappeared on their own.

The parents came with an 8-year-old boy. The boy is unsure of himself, anxious, at the slightest thing - immediately in tears. Several times he cried at school right in the class, which caused ridicule from classmates. He entered my office cautiously, sat down quietly on a chair, and tried to make himself invisible. He answered my questions in monosyllables, almost without looking at me. He looked as if he was very guilty before me, and as if I was scolding him with all my might. In the conversation, we found out that his parents forbid him to cry, and that he should be brave and strong because he is a future defender of the motherland (his dad is a soldier). As a result, the child finds himself in a situation where he is not accepted, shamed, or scolded and they try to change him. Of course, this does not help him cope with his tears in any way, on the contrary, despair is added to the fact that he cannot cope. The more he tries to restrain himself, the more he resembles an overflowing teacup, one drop - and everything will spill. It was difficult to convince his parents to allow him to cry, but when they went for this experiment and accepted their son even with his tears, the boy very quickly became braver. It may seem paradoxical, but after two weeks he learned to control his feelings and cope with tears much better.

Summary: if you periodically have any uncontrollable feeling for a minor reason, this means that in fact it occurs to you often and you accumulate it, and you notice only when it becomes uncontrollable.

2. Unconscious actions.

Usually, people don't pay much attention to typos, mistakes, slips of the tongue, and accidental actions, but they probably should. The discovery that these accidents are far from accidental was made a hundred years ago by Sigmund Freud. He described this in his work "Psychopathology of Everyday Life" (1901).

A few years ago I noticed that quite often "accidentally" I can cut myself when peeling potatoes or grating something, or I can walk and stumble over a corner. At such moments, I began to ask myself what I was just thinking about. And then I realized that every one of my minor traumas was connected to the fact that I felt guilty or ashamed and unconsciously punished myself for “bad” thoughts. As soon as I stopped blaming myself excessively, the traumas stopped.

Once my classmate forgot my name, it was strange, because by that moment we had already been studying together for several years. Now I understand that he was mad at me for something.

Everyone who has children knows that tasks that children do not like (emotion – disgust), they tend to forget:
- What did I tell you to do?
- What?
- Go to sleep already!
Or:
- Misha, did you do your homework?
- Yes.
- Did you learn a poem too?
- Oh, no, I forgot...

My colleagues and I joke that if a woman accidentally spilled tea on her husband, there are two options: if the tea was hot, then she was angry with him, and if it was warm, then she just wanted attention.

Summary: typos, slips of the tongue, mishearings, accidental injuries, and forgetfulness - these are not random things. They perform some function and they can be deciphered after learning something important about yourself and your emotions.

3. Psychosomatics.

The third way in which undigested emotions can manifest is psychosomatics, that is, physical illnesses that begin in a psychological state. As if a person would conclude an unconscious contract within himself:
- I'd rather experience these emotions with my body as a symptom, but I won't face them directly, because it's too unpleasant.

Many books have been written on psychosomatics, so I will give only one example:
A child of my acquaintances had otitis (ear inflammation) several times a year. When I got to know them more closely, I understood why it happened. It was difficult for the child to withstand the constant pressures that his parents put on him. At some point, the boy just sat down and closed his ears, which meant: «I can't hear it anymore! I want to stop hearing this!»

Summary: sometimes well-known physical diseases begin with the suppression of emotions.

4. Insanity.

Sometimes mental illnesses are the result of a person not being able to cope with his emotions, or protecting himself from unbearable emotions. For example, one of the psychological theories of the development of schizophrenia introduces the concept of «double connection». A double link is such an instruction that contradicts itself, like «stay there, come here». If you communicate with a person using such instructions, his thinking is sometimes impaired. Especially if it's a child.

As a child, my client had a homework obligation to vacuum the carpet. When he did this, his mom always found something faulty about it, and he felt guilty. Of course, he hated vacuuming and tried to get away from it in various ways. But then they called him a parasite and he was again to blame. It turned out to be such a crooked logic: I'm guilty if I do it, because I'm bound to do it poorly, and I'm guilty if I don't do it because I'm a parasite. In such a situation, it is impossible to get rid of the feeling of guilt, unless you stop using logic. The logic is dangerous: if one thing flows from another, I'll be guilty again, and it hurts. I'd better go insane, so at least I won't feel guilty.

Often a similar story happens with the expression of anger in children. When a child behaves aggressively, they scold him. Then he forbids himself from showing anger and tries not to show his displeasure to avoid reproaches. As a result, such children cannot stand up for themselves at school or in the yard. They scold them again for this. Confusion arises in the child's head: I defend myself - they scold, I don't defend myself - they scold again, whatever I do/don't do - I will be guilty. Children begin to look for a way to protect themselves from guilt. One of the options is to do nothing at all without instructions from the side. Any independent action is considered dangerous and comes at a cost. Depending on the degree of disturbance, the symptoms may range from infantilism and the desire to constantly look for a leading partner to the inability to leave the room.

Summary: some mental diseases have their origin in the upbringing and emotional state of the person.

These options do not contradict each other and do not exclude each other. Nothing prevents an unconscious person from alternating ways or mixing them. For example, if a person doesn't want to go somewhere so much that he accidentally gets injured, this is both: a psychosomatic and unconscious action.

These mechanisms work unconsciously. Moreover, if we recognize them, they stop working. Realizing your emotions is the key to improving your condition and the good news is that this can be learned.

Author: Aleksandr Musikhin
Translation: Laurynas Sadzevicius

Additional video about how a habit of suppression cannot allow people to create a life they like - a life they want instead of living on autopilot.

And here - just a simple :)) tune about children... yes, again about children, CHILDREN :)