Emotions, when someone expresses or conceals, vary according to circumstances and people. It is hard to understand when someone is bottling up their emotions or is actually elated. When you care about a person genuinely then every worry or excitement becomes your own. It is not easy to see or live with someone who is near to your heart and seems despondent.
Emotions tend to explain, at great length, when a person represses feelings and needs your attention to a silent call for help.
Look for the following 9 signs in your loved one to know if he is bottling up emotions.
1) Insolent attitude
Your friend has always been courteous and respectful but his insolent attitude is a single point of discussion this time around. This temporary phase may want to show you the other side of emotions but you are not getting it clearly. People set goals, make efforts, long for appreciation but when none of them seem achievable then they start to behave out of their usual manner.
2) Solitary mode
Do you feel your friend has shut you down recently and not even answering your calls without any reason? Knock on his door pronto as he needs to confide in you but hiding emotions as he seems that his feelings are alien to everyone else.
3) The great silence
People get silent when they want to let someone know that they are not happy with them or they are keeping things together by maintaining silence. It is BY THE WAY a cry for help someone who is bottling up their emotions.
4) They find distractions
When a person is going through an extreme agitation of mind you will see them getting distracted into people, events, game, and so on faster and more destructively. For them, anything that can lower their frenzy or provide them a temporary solution to a lingering problem, they will grab that quickly.
5) Avoiding truth
They will shred away every piece of their life that include people, objects, places, events and fill their emotions with negativity only. They are avoiding truth and not want to face their demons.
6) Illegitimate practices
They will indulge in drinking and/or substance abuse as their coping mechanism which is very common. From alcohol to heroin to “legal highs”, you name them and they will get them exposed to these substances. They believe that they are taking out a temporary measure but it ultimately turns out into dependency, possible disease or even death.
7) Diminishing memory is when someone is bottling up their emotions
They create a void within when they concentrate more and more on how to deal with the suppression and the effect comes on their memory. It becomes hard for them to recognize social cues within a particular setting. Results come in the shape of lack of communication and less interest in keeping a romantic relationship with their partner.
8) Increase in weight
Emotions run like adrenaline in your system. Weight gain starts to happen when someone is low in spirits. Initially, short-term loss of appetite appears due to corticotropin, the stress hormone. Afterwards, this stress hormone disappears and cortisol lingers on which brings an insatiable appetite. Suppression when continues for long time turns into stress and ultimately a person gains drastic weight.
9) Falling gut health
As the gut being known as “the second brain”, suppression affects it and initiates an upset stomach, bloating, diarrhea, and nausea. Your gastrointestinal tract has a prominent function like your brain does therefore bottling up emotions continuously will deteriorate its health.
These signs will make you understand that someone is going through hard times and hard on own personality. The need of time is to help that person and make him realize that letting go is the serenity of life.