maybe because I don't want to bring my pain to other people
This is a really good point actually. I am quite drunk and I still see what you mean

, but yeah, it might be that because I take emotions so "seriously" that I don't want to be the person that gives negative vibes to anyone. Yes, it makes sense... Good point... (of course it is not "negative vibes" when someone is comforting you, since they get something from it, they feel like they do something good, but still it is so much up to the attitude of the person that you can't really tell if they do it just because that is what they are expected to do. Anyhow, there still is the chance of giving the negative vibes...)
You know where I live is strongly Northern European in its makeup and something I noticed years ago when I first started to learn about feelings is that the culture that I come from frequently uses the expression I've read here several times - "breaking down."
Listen to how negative that sounds! When a person cries at a funeral people say, "He broke down." Good grief. Nobody wants to break down fer gawd's sake.
The prejudice toward what are perceived as negative feelings is right there in our language.
Well, yeah, I know. It is very rare around here to see a man cry... And we even have adopted the term "break-down" from english and it is used quite a lot. Not as much as "burn-out", though... Anyways, it is partly cultural, I am sure... but on the other hand, the people I hang around are not really FINNISH in the way most people think finnish people are. Well, they are finnish as far as the genes go, but their attitude isn't, so I expect my cultural heritage to be as little as theirs (because I can't stand the stereotype finnish person, and he is very much against everything I believe in)
So, to me it seems more plausible to think that the reason I can't really "break down" (even if I want to) comes mostly from my childhood experience... I realized at a really young age that the way I show my emotions reflects at how "happy" my parents are, so I stopped it. I didn't want them to be angry at each other, and I somehow linked my emotional outbursts to that... I think it became a habit and I didn't see it that way, so even now I am not comfortable showing my emotions to certain people.