Sometimes we need to get things off our chests. People who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks, and especially agoraphobia and social phobia often don’t like to show their emotions and feel afraid of confrontation. This can result in an unpleasant build up of negative emotion which can leave you feeling frustrated and angry.
Some people believe that anxiety is nothing more than a build up of unexpressed anger, guilt or shame. That may be something of an over statement but in truth unexpressed emotion does nothing good for us and may well actually increase feelings of anxiety, not least because unexpressed emotion makes us feel even less in control of our lives, if for instance we feel anger towards someone but can’t quite bring ourselves to tell them, or don’t want to do something but can’t bring ourselves to say “no” for fear of causing uproar.
For many people, an essential part of recovery from anxiety in all it’s forms, and sometimes also from depression, is coming out of their shell and daring to show their emotions more and more. The trick is finding a balance between keeping it bottled up and blowing their top at the least little thing.
The easiest thing to do is act early. Make a short calm statement at the very beginning of a situation to say “I am not happy with this”. This is much easier, and much more socially acceptable, than getting into a mood or a sulk and then going crazy later, or worse keeping it locked up, and leaving the situation feeling out of control and unlooked after.
Unlooked after because sometimes when we bottle up emotion we think that people don’t care about us because they never take our feelings into account. In truth it is impossible for people to take our feelings into account unless they know what we are feeling!
So by letting on a little of what we are feeling we can take more control, feel better, get more of what we want, and quite probably lessen anxiety. Seems like something worth doing!
