Do you internalise your feelings?

“Sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning”

― Jane Austen (1775-1817) in Sense and Sensibility

I have been having difficulties keeping to myself

Feelings and emotions better left upon the shelf

Animals and Children tell the truth, they never lie

So which one is more human

There’s a thought now you decide

Savage Garden in “Animal Song”

(image source: urbanmysticblog.wordpress.com)

(image source: www.pinterest.com)

Back in 1997-98, when I was interning as an articled clerk, there was a colleague (no names) who used to come all the way from Tiruvallur (a suburb on the outskirts of madras) to T Nagar, Madras for work. Now, this person had a very peculiar habit – he used to pick the phone from office and yell at his parents / brother once every two/three days. ‘Yell’ may perhaps not be a right word, but the conversations used to convey that he wasn’t very comfortable with them and blame them for something that either happened during the day or in the past. I used to get very conscious during these phone calls because the office was itself just one room; but more particularly, because the tone of the call was never ignorable. It always used to bother me. We weren’t well acquainted at first and hence I did not ask him about this strange behaviour of his. In due passage of time, we got quite acquainted. One day, I asked him as to why weird conversations were happening. Being a very outspoken personality, he candidly told me that there are certain events that happen in his life which he could not control and to express his frustration, he does this ‘calling and shouting’. He said that he was not able to tackle the problems and express his frustration at the people causing the problems and it was easier for him to do this to people whom he was comfortable with. This also gave him a sense that he was in control and kept them at a distance since he did not want to get close to anybody. He was perhaps 26-27 years old then and this answer of his threw me off. He left the office after a year. I could not fathom the importance of that conversation and his reply then, but started to comprehend the same in later years.

Just see what Jane Austen has to say in the earlier quote. I believe she had a lot of suffering to undergo - her health, life, a marriage proposal that she rejected, customs prevalent at that time and the fact that her novels took a long time to get published and when published, she was not credited in them as it was not considered 'correct' or 'ladylike' for a lady to make money through writing then in England. Now, this suffering was apparently internalized and kept to herself, which showed in her writings.

Are you an expressive personality? Or do you keep your feelings to yourself? If you keep your feelings to yourself, then you are internalising them. Internalizing feelings has a starting point.

An event, a change of course or something which triggers it.

Once you go along with it, it assumes dangerous proportions. Why does one internalize feelings? There could be multiple reasons. The first is the fear that you would be misunderstood. The other is the feeling that you could end up not being yourself while expressing your feelings. People who internalize feelings may overreact on occasions since they feel that they are misunderstood.

They bottle it up during the event that bothers them and blow up later, particularly at persons who are close to them. The reason is that they are comfortable doing it to persons whom they are close to. They want to be understood, but could be cold. They need to get this off their shoulders. They hide behind certain ‘disguises’ created by them since they cannot communicate their feelings. They want to be in control and if they are not able to exercise it, they feel lost and cannot tolerate it.

It could even be that they do not know how to express their feelings or maybe do not find comfortable expressing them because they are constantly concerned as to how the others would react to their feelings. Of course blowing up at many people is not the solution. When a person internalizes his feelings, he makes the people close to him also to carry that burden. Sometimes it is necessary to let people know how you feel, no matter how hard it may be.

One needs to express things else they stay with you. Internalising is not always as good thing. It can be stressful as you do not have an outlet to vent it out and it sticks to your head. It is good to act civil and not to blow up, but these bottled up emotions end up frustrating you no end. This could also be because we are taught at a young age to not show anger at situations or people and control ourselves. Instead of snapping or withdrawing, it is better to take time off and speak about it.

The only way around this is to speak to a person whom they trust and tell them the real issue. Perhaps one way is to write things down – the things that piss one off – and then tell them or vent them to a person one by one. This will make the you feel better. However this needs to be expressed to a person whom you trust. This is because the person should be in a mood to listen and should not make you feel vulnerable.

I read from the internet that a medicine called Carbamazepine exists for those internalizing their feelings! It is supposed to be a mood stabilizer! There are support groups and therapists abound in the West for this issue as this is just a branch of depression. However, I am never in favour of medicines as I believe they give only temporary relief. And they have numerous side effects.

Just never worry – I always feel that bad times are like good times; they come to an end too!

(Also posted on https://www.quora.com/Do-you-internalize-your-feelings/answer/Pradeep-Ramakrishnan-5)