Thanks so much for saying that Ami; you are such a gem:) I was thinking about this a lot last night... I was wondering what repressed emotions manifest themselves as the symptoms you described, and the symptoms I experienced? I wonder if its highly individual, or if there can be commonalities?
In my case, I don't think it was anger or rage, as repressed rage tends to express itself differently with me, such as bad skin problems, drinking, or eating too much. It must have been something else, but you know Ami, I am having trouble, even now, identifying what it was? I sense it was connected to a mix of painful feelings I couldn't change and didn't want to face, like loneliness, my poor sense of worth, feeling dependent, not liking who I am, and maybe intense dread of being alone too ? Whatever those feelings were., I buried them because even now I can't truly identify them as well as I probably should. But they still affected me, i feel, through my anxiety disorder.
At the time, what was going on for me was I was in pretty hopeless long term relationship with a `party-boy (read: irresponsible drug addict), and it was also the year when I started to speak about my relationship on forums and receive feedback from others for the first time. I didn't like what i was hearing one bit, but I nonetheless embraced the wisdom of the advice i was receiving.
So when my anxiety disorder started, I guess I was feeling a little `cornered' by my knowledge; like, I knew with certainty that my relationship was going to either end , ruin my life, or drag me down very low, and I think I probably buried my enormous fears surrounding that. I buried them through excercise mostly (which was both numbing, and a form of warding off my fears of being undesirable and alone). And for a while I started to drink more regularly, and took antidepressants too...the ultimate emotional suppressant.
The relationship did end, shortly after I started to assert some basic boundaries surrounding our finances and him dealing drugs to people from our home late at night (LOL. I didn't even know what a boundary was before i was 28). He agreed with these boundaries, and then left me for another woman who was also addicted to drugs.
I then I discovered NPD, which was a new form of hell.
But its been 4 years now since I've been away from toxic boyfriends, and the truth is Ami, I still suppress emotions more readily than is probably good for me. Sometimes I think its not altogether negative. I mean we all have to suppress emotions somewhat to get by in society and survive. We can't always operate as emotional creatures. But I think we have to let stuff out too, examine it, work out if its controlling our thinking, or harming us physically. But most of us need a safe place to this. Emotions are the key to our vulnerability and some people will use them to harm us. Thats what I learned about narcissists, and one of the reasons I love my fiance so much. He gives me that safe place, and I am starting to feel again. Its because I am safe now, when before I wasn't safe, and i wasn't valued.
Anyway Its so nice to have someone to discuss this with, my friend. Thankyou for being there for me too. It helps to talk about these things.
I hope that you have a great day:)
X love bella
