Content Warning: The following piece is written by a psychology student and is not to be considered a professional opinion. All names taken in the piece are fictitious, and any resemblance to reality is pure coincidence.
Unexpressed emotions never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.
Sigmund Freud
Suppose you have conflicts within your family. You experience and observe dissonance and clashes to the extent of physical and intense psychological torture. Beneath all this torment, you still go on with life.
Let’s consider a case study:
Rumi, a 9th standard bright student, has conflicts within her family. She experiences and observes dissonance and clashes to the extent of physical violence and intense psychological torture. Despite these torments, she tries her best to carry on with life. But, at the end of the day, she is a human too and no human can constantly live in a state of anxiety. Soon her grades start to go down, she cannot understand the letters in her textbook, becomes distant from her family and friends, develops irritation and frustration, isolation, no hobbies, a vicious cycle of self-doubt, and much more.
BUT WHY THIS DRASTIC CHANGE WITHOUT ANY ON SPOT NOTICEABLE REASON?
There was a reason. A reason she suppressed and as a result, had to bear the consequences of. She was suppressing her negative emotions – consciously avoiding uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, by telling herself ‘This is temporary, it will pass. Let’s focus on the task at hand now.’ While doing so continuously she repressed her emotions – pushing emotions to the depths of unconsciousness as a coping mechanism to cope with anxiety, trauma, and other distressing experiences.
Though the terms ‘suppression’ and ‘repression’ are often used interchangeably, there is a difference between the two. Suppression is conscious avoidance while repression is unconscious avoidance.
Freud – The father of psychology argued that suppression generally produces more positive outcomes than repression as it allows us to deal with situations on hand and focus on one problem at a time. However, continuous suppression without addressing the pushed aside problems will lead to the accumulation and surge of negative thoughts as time goes by.
The book ‘The Silent Patient’ provides an insightful exploration of the consequences on must bear of doing the same.
But what are the consequences?
Confusion: Individuals may start struggling to understand their own thoughts and feelings and the causes behind them which would lead to internal conflicts.
Disorganization: The mental turmoil might result in disorganisation of thoughts and thus displacement of behaviour.
Memory Loss: Emotional suppression is found to be linked with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Some other features include isolation, inauthenticity, a vicious cycle of self-doubt, etc.
Physical responses include muscle pain, insomnia, digestive issues, etc.
YOU ARE NOT AN ALIEN – OVERCOMING THE CHALLENGES
Content Warning: Please consult a professional for diagnoses.
If you relate more to the term repression than suppression, remind yourself that you are not alone in this. Remember the problems occurred because emotions went unprocessed. We need to give them a chance to come to the surface, be processed, and be released, step by step. The primary step is to avoid further piling of uncomfortable thoughts accept them and pick up where you left off – addressing the buried emotions. You must cultivate self-awareness, and self-compassion and practice resilience. If you are facing trouble to go through, seek support from mental health professionals. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is one approach that has benefits for emotional repression.
In conclusion, sometimes we need to keep our emotions aside because that is the demand of the situation, but we must keep in mind to process them so that they do not become a hidden burden.
At the end I would like for you to take a moment and observe your past few days. What uncomfortable thoughts were kept aside by you? What did you choose to do – avoid them or forget them?