Do you suppress your emotions?

I always seem to suppress my facial expression and emotions, especially during stressful events, but also in everyday situations. Concealing my facial expressions and emotions is extremely demanding and taxing. I can't listen to people during conversations, or forget what they say very quickly etc..

I don't work at the moment, but I remember very well that concealing my facial expressions and emotions prevented me from doing my job properly. I just couldn't concentrate and it disrupted my memory. But the most important lesson I have learned is that hiding negative emotions never decreases the emotions that you are experiencing. Quite the contrary.....

Anyway, are you a suppresser too?

I do this a lot around my family and friends. I will usually put on a facade of normalcy and happiness when I'm going through a particularly rough time. It really does take a toll on you. I know it's not good to keep your emotions bottled up inside. Suffering in silence is never a good thing.

Um, what emotions?

Argamemnon said:

I always seem to suppress my facial expression and emotions, especially during stressful events, but also in everyday situations. Concealing my facial expressions and emotions is extremely demanding and taxing. I can't listen to people during conversations, or forget what they say very quickly etc..

I don't work at the moment, but I remember very well that concealing my facial expressions and emotions prevented me from doing my job properly. I just couldn't concentrate and it disrupted my memory. But the most important lesson I have learned is that hiding negative emotions never decreases the emotions that you are experiencing. Quite the contrary.....

Anyway, are you a suppresser too?

Click to expand...

My face is almost always expressionless and sometimes suppressing my emotions turns out to be a good thing. The opposite effect happened for me, I was able to concentrate more. Then I give a prep talk in my head and say, others aren't paying any mind to me and that they can care less if I have a smile or a straight face. Heck, people these days are only worrying about themselves, so they won't care as long as you don't do something to them outright. If no one is going out of their way to appease you, why try to appease them? I say not really caring is better than feeling. But sometimes you have to talk about your day to someone.

Yea, I'm guilty. If I'm feeling down, then I'm doing my best to not show it. Most people don't understand, and I'm sure they look at my blank expression and think I must be serious all the time. It takes a lonely toll on me, but I don't have anyone that I feel comfortable sharing my negative feelings with. So I just try to put it aside and move on.

I can never suppress my emotions... As hard as I try, I can't... When I am sad, I cry... When I am happy I cry... Wait a tick... I sure do allot of crying don't I? Haha!

I used to suppress my emotions and could at least put on some kind of act where I appeared normal.. over time though, I've become obsessive over letting my emotions out so that I wouldn't have to carry them and "suffer in silence" so to speak.. now it's as if I don't know how to keep my emotions in anymore and I'm having to learn to suppress them again. I've always been one extreme or the other, I guess I need to find some kind of middle-ground with things.

I have difficulty keeping track of what people say to me, the only way I can do it is that I´m not looking them in the eyes because only this way I can concentrate. I try to appear relaxed, calm and nice though and try to look in the eyes so that people don´t think I´m rude, I think I´ve trained myself a bit over the years in dealing with people so that my difficulty is not recognizable until some point.. it is like balancing on a tightrope or walking on thin ice, only a matter of time when I loose it and the truth will show. I may appear reasonably OK until it´s a little bit too much of interaction to deal with. Then I am totally zoned out and appear confused in situations which normal people have routinely under control. I must appear like retarded weirdo and they think it has to do something with my intelligence, but I don´t think I am less intelligent than them (well some of them), in many ways I think I am ahead of their development. It´s somehow psychophysicaly demanding too as I noticed lately. I almost collapsed once in a bank and had a seisure in another office, both it was when I was standing and the ladies explaining in lenghth the matters, I was filling in questionaries etc. It was pehaps demanding having to concentrate for a lenghth of time and exhausting to think and keep track of what is being said to me.. It´s no excuse though .