By Iris Brambila
It's like a container that you keep trying to stuff with something or the other. Eventually it breaks and once it does, you can definitely stick it back together, but you end up with a container that may break again with little pressure, to the point that it cannot be stuck together again.
It's the same with human emotions. Bottling up works only for a while, then you blow out of proportions and sometimes it gets harder to fix things or handle emotions.
People who keep things inside say it’s normal, as they have been for so long and don’t know how else to approach their feelings. They try to normalize the pain so it won't interrupt their daily life. In a way, they don’t want to be bothered by them so they ignore them and pretend like it doesn’t hurt to not face it.
We think we are able to handle it alright, but then you start feeling numb and random emotions you thought you were over with start resurfacing out of nowhere and you'll eventually explode. You lose more and more control of your emotions the longer you keep things in and it’ll drive you even more crazy as you experience the explosion.
I have experience with the outburst of uncontrollable anger and sadness when I no longer could keep anymore in and have to release some of the thoughts and anger. These are the worst moments because it’s when I have to face the reality and see that it’s not just anger I’m expressing, but sadness as I’m sobbing and no longer yelling in anger.
It begins with the image of strength. We’re taught that crying and expressing pain is for the weak. The strong ones must be able to keep their head up high through the darkest days, right? They don’t think about the lasting impact of bottling up emotions. They don’t put the depression, anxiety, or numbness into consideration.
I first had to face this situation the morning after my eldest brother passed away. Of course, like any other child experiencing this, I was crying, still in shock dealing with the emptiness and sorrow that my family felt. My neighbors were over, trying to comfort us, and what I remember being told is to try not to cry anymore and be strong, not for myself, but for my mother.
This later greatly impacted the way I dealt with everything else. Always feeling as if being seen as strong was the goal. The pressure of not expressing ourselves influences our thinking and leads us to keeps to ourselves.
On the website the Journal of Psychosomatic, research studies have come to the conclusion that negative emotions like anxiety, depression, and anger can lead to heart diseases. Stress causes your heartbeat to speed up without any physical activity and that alone can led to an earlier death.
We’re often told to speak to someone with things that might be bothering us, but it’s not always all that easy as we struggle to find someone whom we’re comfortable with to express and talk about our issues to. Better yet, we’re raised to not cry or express ourselves, which causes us to keep things in. Parents will never express their worries around the kids so they aren’t exposed to the emotions and reactions of the options they can react other than ignoring it and acting as if its fine.
What happens when we’re exposed to those people who wanna hear and “help”? How does one react to that situation after keeping things bottled up for so long? People often take a while to open up and the listener loses their patience. Sometimes the one who’s opening up physically can’t let the words of their sentences out of their mouth and each thought is running in their head, repeating exactly what they want to say. Other times, it’s the emotions rushing up and down inside as they seek this chance to escape, but the person is just sitting there in silence waiting to at least be alone or for it to go away.
Mary, a former student at Yerba Buena High School, has experienced this and struggled to express her emotions.She said, “You close off anyone trying to help you as you later don’t know how to open up and release the emotions and do it in a way without being judged or seem as a crazy person.”
She also mentioned how it is when you finally explode. “Boiling points are unbearable. It has you trip over something little that finished your reaching point then you explode and can't control the emotions. Then, that's when you acknowledge every other thought and emotion that caused that explosion.”
Trauma plays a huge role when we’re hiding emotions because it affects our ability to regulate emotions. Trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. This affects one's emotions as it leaves a person with anger, sadness and numbness.
According to Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services, survivors of trauma often believe that others will not fully understand their experiences, and they may think that sharing their feelings, thoughts, and reactions related to the trauma will fall short of expectations. They also shared that traumas that generate shame will often lead survivors to feel more alienated from others—believing that they are “damaged goods.”
For those who keep everything bottled up whether they have some sort of trauma often struggle with the feeling of being different from others. This feeling influences them to isolate themselves from the rest and not share or express their emotions and thoughts. Yet, we’re told repeatedly to speak and release what’s inside because it’s not healthy.
We can’t force ourselves or others to express or speak their thoughts and emotions, but by untightening the lid, we allow ourselves to release some of the pressure before we break and explode.