Is this normal?

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Whenever I feel negative emotions I suppress them. Often I will feel tight in my chest when these negative emotions show up and my chest will be fine when I'm in a good mood (it's not always tight when I'm in a bad mood but I'm always in a bad mood when it's tight). Is that normal or is something wrong with me?

Perhaps it's not a good idea to suppress them. Just acknowledge them, look at them rationally and see if they have real merit or if they are indicative of another problem. My son has been procrastinating a lot on a school project due Monday and I have been really bugged about it to the point of anxiety. So I have to ask myself why the possibility of him getting a bad grade would make me so stressed out. But I don't suppress it.

That happend to me a lot, as well. I let the feelings out, in the privacy of my own home, but when I'm at my parents' I supress them and that's when I feel the tightness. I don't know why I don't just tell them how I feel. The feelings are about things that have happened over the past couple of years, and I was able to tell my mum about them, that entire week that I was at my parents', to the point of confessing what my favourite song and who my favourite Kink is. If I could do that, I must surley be able to talk to my parents about anything. I just haven't figured it out, yet. Oh well, one day I will figure it out.

The problem is I have nowhere to let them out. I can't at school because I have to keep my shell to avoid vunerability. I can't at home because I live with my grandparents and Nana especially is the cause for a lot of these problems and they would get worse if I chose to voice my opinion. Believe me I tried to talk to her about it, she either shuts up or blames someone else. I can at drama but that's only 1 hour and most of that time is doing drama. Youth group a little bit with certain people. I've even taken to cutting myself sometimes and burning myself on the candles at the church while I'm at youth group. It helps a bit although probably isn't healthy. Correction it definately isn't but neithers completely storing those emotions. So not including self injury I have 5 minutes a week to display my pain. I could tell my friends online but I don't wanna seem too whiney. Also I had a happy place (choir) which lasted 1 hour a week but that's finished for the year so that doesn't help. Sorry that I sound so whiney but I had to post this all somewhere. I know if I completely store these negative emotions I'll end up slitting my throat or something.

I can't help but notice the quote you have selected for the bottom of your posts is a very astute answer. Maybe not with your Nana, but in many areas you could follow Dr. Seuss's advice. Have you tried writing in a journal or blog. Maybe you could even join a writing class or club and work on memoir?

normal is what eveeryone but you is

I enjoy writing and once tried writing a day to day diary but decided that diaries were for girls aged 5-12. I guess if I call it a journal it'll make me feel better about writing it all down. I'll try it out tonight.

My mom has that experience sometimes.

haha. that's hilarious. have fun with your venture. my friend keeps telling me to write, knowing it would clear my head. which it does. crap, maybe i should get on that! she said, just write anything, it doesn't matter. it clears the brain.

just a few things i'll note:

1. mind and body are all one unit. emotions are always accompanied by bodily reactions whether noticed or not. neurotransmitters are released/inhibited according to moods. moods are ever-changing, for everyone.

2. if by suppress you mean, you try to lie to yourself about how you're feeling, it's not smart. it erodes your ability to know what's important to you and what isn't.

3. if by suppress you mean you don't actively display your mood to everyone around you, fine. why should you? unless there's a tangible reason to do so (such as to effect a needed change in a given situation or interaction, or to get others thinking about what's going on.)

also, research shows that just as body follows mind, mind also follows body. for example, smiling when unhappy actually decreases the unhappiness (sometimes), apparently because the brain gets the "smiling" signals from the muscles, reads this as "happy," and releases the corresponding brain chemicals (i'm oversimplifying somewhat).

other research pretty much demolishes the appealing myth that acting out aggression--say, beating up a pillow--"releases" anger. quite the reverse, it tends to increase and prolong it. again, brain reading body, etc.

the key is not to lie. to yourself, to others. but that in no way means one has to fling one's moods about for no reason. everyone has moods, all kinds of moods, every minute of every day of their life.

just be aware of what you feel, try to note patterns. sometimes emotions are telling you important things about what you're doing or what you maybe should be doing. but if you don't see it, you'll be unable to use the info in a constructive way.

Interesting, I thought mind follow body but body never affected mind (except for senses like hearing but I didn't know it's a general thing). By suppress I mean I don't share with anybody unless they're close. Also you're right I don't think I can tell what my emotions are saying because they change. One day I'll be in a euphoria, the next I'll be depressed and nothing will change. I'm now going to go to a proffessional child psychiatrist because I cut, my hearings become oversensitive and I'm physically fine and my Nana superstresses me out. I think I may have some sort of chemical imbalance because when I'm in a euphoria, I'm carefree. When I'm in the middle I'm normal. When I'm depressed I feel like there's a hole in my soul and the only way to fill it is pain (sometimes I cut sometimes I put my fingers near fire until it's a reflex to move away). Not lieing to people, that's a tricky one. I'm not good at telling people the truth about myself. I have grown an emotional shell because of all the pain I've gone through and it's pretty much inpenetrable. I only care about my friends and even most of them don't see the inner me. I just have a cover which seems to vary from person to person. I lie to people a lot, it saves pain, makes things easier. There are a few people I lower it around but as I said most of the time I keep the shell to protect myself. I've also started writing, I started on Sunday night so it was a basic overview of that day, 3 pages, Monday got 6 because I wrote throughout the day. Yesterday got 2 as a basic overview and so far today I've done 8 and a quarter (it's currently 12:21pm so I'll be adding more). I don't reread it because I may end up reading some depressed pages which will make me feel worse. The school counsellor told me that one (as I said I'm going to start going to a place especially for counselling now, well I'll start in a couple of weeks). Funny thing is I'm going to be taking a pill for my acne because nothing else is working and one of the side effects is depression How ironic. Well that's my long post done. Sorry there's no room for breaks but I've never mastered the paragraph. Bye

it's good, the writing, whether you read later or burn it the next day. just the process itself does many things (even on this there have been studies; i've always liked reading research about all sorts of stuff).

i've never been a cutter but from what i hear, it's usually to replace an overwhelming pain or emotion with something more manageable. i've done that with actual chronic physical pain--caused pain in a different part of my body to get a break from the first one. worked too, but very fleeting (and now that's fixed anyway).

yeah, most people don't know that the mind-body thing is two way.

also, to be more clear: what i mean about "don't lie" is just not being fake for no good reason. it's not smart, helpful (to yourself) or necessary to share your deep stuff with everyone (tho it's good if you have at least one person to share some with; i've had that sometimes but not right now; writing helps that too). actually, it's hard to explain what i mean, but you sound like you're pretty much doing it. (and i wasn't assuming you weren't, just giving a caution against a problem i see come up for a lot of people).

sorry you're situation is stressful. and if the acne meds make you too depressed, consider waiting it out....because your reason for acne treatment--and i am assuming here, so could be wrong--is that having it makes you unhappy. if the meds--if their overall result--increases your happiness, good.

if they don't increase it, remember then there's no reason to take them. (i think they work for some but not everyone, unfortunately).

some other stuff that can work directly on your brain and moods: yoga (just 20 minutes, a short routine from a cool book called "yoga self-taught" i did this for years and it was really, really helpful for moods; then i got injured and couldn't do it). anything you enjoy, actually, and especially if there's a physical and/or expressive (creative) aspect to it.

also, the brain needs enough of the right nutrients in order to make the chemicals it uses to "create" a feeling of being happy. meds drain vitamins and enzymes, so you might want to experiment with different foods. if you can. if not, don't stress about it!!

you sound like someone i'd like a lot, if i ever met you.