[MBTI General] Emotional Repression

[Jstrazz]

Thoughts?

 

[prplchknz]

I have lots of them. but if you expand on what about emotional repression you are looking for i would answer more concisely.

 

[á´…eparted]

I have A LOT of this.

 

[Jstrazz]

I have lots of them. but if you expand on what about emotional repression you are looking for i would answer more concisely.

I'm not looking for anything in particular. I'm hoping this post evolves and expands on its own.

 

[prplchknz]

How do you know it will though?

 

[Jstrazz]

How do you know it will though?

I don't know that it will. Odds are those with the most to say will be the least repressed emotionally and those with the least to say will be the most emotionally repressed, so, at the end of the day, there is little hope

 

[prplchknz]

I don't know that it will. Odds are those with the most to say will be the least repressed emotionally and those with the least to say will be the most emotionally repressed, so, at the end of the day, there is little hope

what if the people who think they're repressing emotions actually aren't and don't have emotions but they think they do because if they admitted, they didn't have emotions to themselves. it would mean they were less human. and there for no longer have rights and the universal declaration of human rights no longer apply to them? so my question is, is it our emotions that make us human? or is it our thoughts? or physiology, what makes a human a human?

 

[Jstrazz]

Perhaps the definition of human needs to be changed to accommodate those without emotion. Human, in the way you are using it I think, means empathetic, sympathetic, and able to feel. It need not necessarily be the definition of humanity. Our emotions make us human, our thoughts make us living beings. But then again, they are closely linked/related.

 

[Jstrazz]

I have A LOT of this.

Is it fear?

 

[Mole]

Repression means that particular thoughts and feelings are hidden from ourselves. And usually they are hidden because experiencing them as small children threatened our survival.

Unfortunately we often carry these repressed thoughts and feelings into adulthood without examining them.

But if we do examine them as adults, we find we can now survive as adults even as we experience thoughts and feelings necessarily repressed as small children.

One of the psychological means of repression is psychological defence mechanisms.

And this is why mbti is so popular. Mbti is a psychological defence mechanism that gives us a feeling of control and safety at the expense of spontaneous thought and feeling.

 

[Flâneuse]

I often have a problem with repressing feelings and having delayed emotional reactions to events. I also sometimes have trouble showing my feelings to others even when I'm aware of them.

I've noticed it's hard for me to get angry at people when I'm actually around them, even when I consciously realize something is unfair or my boundaries have been crossed. Then when I'm alone it will sink in and my anger will flare up, and a lot of it is self-directed for letting myself become this smiling marshmallow/human bean-bag chair.

 

[á´…eparted]

Is it fear?

Well some of it. I just repress emotions I don't have the time to deal with, don't want to deal with, emotions that generally just get in the way of things. I had Aspergers as a child so dealing with emotions has always been a bit of a challenge for me because I don't really know what to do with them.

 

[Kullervo]

I have to hide a lot of my emotions every day, all the time from people, and it is a constant strain for me. Sometimes, I can mask things by putting on a persona of confidence and ease. However, this will only work when I am in a relatively relaxed state of mind.

I also find it irritating as I enjoy being emotionally open with people; being able to share my feelings and thoughts without fear is the strongest way for me to bond with somebody. I have to hide my depression from my mum and dad for different reasons. My mum will just worry and think i'm going to commit suicide, because she doesn't understand what it is like to be depressed and won't spend the time to listen. She is also a big worrier and reads into things a lot. Whereas my dad...well apparently having feelings is an excuse for not working and being generally lazy. And of course, real men never cry, space out and get black. I get that from both of them.

So I am a deeply repressed guy. I don't really have anybody to talk to and there are big chunks of my personality - some of which are fundamental to the composition of my identity - that I can't share with others. It is a constant internal battle deciding how much to compromise with what other people expect of me, and how I want to be myself. It gets worse because in many ways, I also don't know "how I want to be". What reasons do I have to exist at all? Why am I here? Do I know?

(Sorry if this sounds a bit broody. I'm mainly upset because I'm not doing well with my work again. It's hard to feel motivated to do something insanely boring.)

 

[HongDou]

I'm generally a happy person, but when something is giving me trouble I generally tend to open up to people about it and the emotions I'm feeling are very easy to read.

The two main emotions I never really open up to people about are stress and fear of the future. Stress because I know I'm the source of that problem, and fear of the future because I can never really find assurance from people that things in life won't pass me by since you can't really predict the future.

I think the emotions people can read in me easiest are love and anger.

I do get sad but I only cry on special occasions. Otherwise it's hard to tell when I feel sad.

 

[Coriolis]

what makes a human a human?

Our DNA.

 

[prplchknz]

Our DNA.

perhaps, but there's also mutations, how many mutations are too many that one is no longer human, but rather a completely new species?

 

[Mole]

Repression and Suppression

I have to hide a lot of my emotions every day, all the time from people, and it is a constant strain for me.

If you repressed your emotions, you would not feel them.

On the other hand, emotions you suppress, you can feel.

Repressed emotions are completely hidden from us and we don't consciously experience them. And we repress some of our emotions as small children in order to survive.

However suppressed emotions are consciously suppressed and so we can consciously feel them, although we choose to hide them, not from ourselves but from others.

 

[Kullervo]

If you repressed your emotions, you would not feel them.

On the other hand, emotions you suppress, you can feel.

Repressed emotions are completely hidden from us and we don't consciously experience them. And we repress some of our emotions as small children in order to survive.

However suppressed emotions are consciously suppressed and so we can consciously feel them, although we choose to hide them, not from ourselves but from others.

Grammar nazi detected.

 

[Mole]

Grammar nazi detected.

On the contrary, we perceive by making distinctions. And the more distinctions, the more we see.

And the distinction between repression and suppression throws light on the way we treat our emotions from small children to adults.

And I might say that each set of words is a distinction. So the more words we know, the more distinctions we can make, and the more we can see.

And how lucky we are as English has far more words than any other language, so we can make more distinctions than any other language, and so we can see more.

 

[Jstrazz]

Repression means that particular thoughts and feelings are hidden from ourselves. And usually they are hidden because experiencing them as small children threatened our survival.

Unfortunately we often carry these repressed thoughts and feelings into adulthood without examining them.

But if we do examine them as adults, we find we can now survive as adults even as we experience thoughts and feelings necessarily repressed as small children.

One of the psychological means of repression is psychological defence mechanisms.

And this is why mbti is so popular. Mbti is a psychological defence mechanism that gives us a feeling of control and safety at the expense of spontaneous thought and feeling.

I think we need to make the distinction between psychological repression (according to Freud) and emotional repression. From what I've come to understand, psychological repression, in the way you are using it, is the subconscious repressing of memories and emotions from traumatic or otherwise trying times, usually in ones youth, as a means of defense. Emotional repression (though one could argue we mean the more active suppression) is the daily, and eventually long-term, pushing down, dismissing, and/or compartmentalizing of emotions, whether pleasant or unpleasant (though, obviously they tend to be unpleasant).

I think the majority of the people responding are referring to the latter.