It gets exhausting when your entire life, you keep suppressing your emotions. You hide them from everyone who gets close to you and act like you’re fine all the time.
But deep down, every part of your soul is falling apart. You’re crying internally and screaming for help while your face is perfectly calm and acts all happy.
Bottling up your emotions is one of the hardest things you can willingly put yourself through. You’re well aware that you need someone’s help but at the same time, you don’t want to share your problems with anyone.
You need advice, a sympathetic ear, but you think that seeking either will make you come off as weak. Somehow you still believe that your greatest strength is the ability to deal with issues on your own.
If you’re bottling up your emotions but don’t want to admit it to yourself, then there are some clear signs that can help you realize the obvious.
1. You keep everything to yourself
We all deal with things differently but it’s a fact that all of us need to have someone to share our problems with. It’s the person we trust the most and in whom we confide whenever something bad happens to us.
You, on the other hand, keep everything to yourself. You act all cheerful even when you’re dealing with numerous issues at any one time.
That’s why you’re always anxious and stressed since you’re keeping all of your problems on the inside. You’re bottling up your emotions and making your own life harder for yourself.
If only you would open up to someone and let them be there for you, everything would be ten times easier.
2. You have two personalities
When you get home and face your issues on your own, your real personality is evident. You’re desperately trying to deal with things alone but at the same time, you’re experiencing mental breakdowns whenever you’re between your four walls.
Then you get ready to face the world and you put your mask on. The moment you’re out of the door, you act like a happy and satisfied person.
You never let the world see that you’re having a rough time and that’s why you created your second personality, the one you use whenever you’re surrounded by people.
3. You find ways to distract yourself from your problems
Sometimes, we all need to do something that’ll help us stop thinking about our problems. This acts as a temporary escape and allows us to figure things out and plan our next step.
But while most people only act this way occasionally, distracting yourself from problems is a tactic you use on a daily basis. You don’t know how to deal with the issues at hand so you find ways to ignore them.
Even though looking for advice from someone else would be your best move, you still don’t know how to admit to anyone that you need help. So, you keep quiet and escape reality by pretending that everything is okay.
4. To you, showing emotions equals weakness
We all need a good cry from time to time. We need a way to process our emotions and get rid of them the right way.
But you’ve never been this type of person. You don’t think that showing you’re hurting is the best way to deal with your issues so you always choose to stay quiet.
You wouldn’t be able to stand it if someone saw you crying, as it would only mean that you’re weak and vulnerable and you don’t want anyone to see you as such.
Does it get any more obvious than this? You’re bottling up your emotions and keeping them all in instead of dealing with them.
If you keep doing this, your life will start to feel like a performance. On the outside, it’ll all seem good, while on the inside, you’ll be seriously suffering.
5. You explode at small, unimportant issues
Since you keep everything to yourself, it’s only natural that there comes a time when you can’t take it anymore. You’ve been quiet for way too long and at some point, you need to let it out.
Usually, this leads you to overreact to small issues, so the things that others don’t pay much attention to are the ones that you get the most vocal about.
Since you’ve been bottling up your emotions for such a long time, you usually compensate by reacting to things that are trivial and shouldn’t make you angry. However, they’re the filters that allow you to free yourself of all the tension you’ve been feeling lately.
We all crack from time to time but it usually happens when we’re dealing with a ton of pressure. In your case, you pretend that this pressure doesn’t exist and then you crack at the smallest problem.
6. Being around people who express their emotions freely makes you uncomfortable
You’re so used to bottling up your emotions that you can’t stand it when you’re in the company of a person who speaks about theirs openly. The moment they start talking about their problems, you feel the need to run away.
But trust me, it’s not that people are too vocal about their own emotions, it’s that you’re used to being way too quiet about yours. You’ve never known how to talk about your feelings and now that you’re talking to someone who deals with their emotions the way it should be done, you feel uncomfortable.
It upsets you that other people know how to process their own feelings. It could be that you’re envious of them but it could also be that this behavior simply doesn’t come naturally to you.
No matter what, it’s obvious that you’re bottling up your emotions and you don’t want to admit that to yourself.
You can make a decision to change and improve your life or you can keep torturing yourself and quietly dealing with the things you desperately need help with. The decision is always yours.
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