It doesn't work this way for everybody, nor is there a reason why it should.

[avevale_intelligencer]

So this is just my personal experience here. My thoughts are not your thoughts, my mileage is not your mileage, my oil pressure light is not...you get the idea. This post is descriptive, not prescriptive, and there are no universal truths contained herein that I know of.

It's often stated as if it *were* a universal truth that anger is a healthy thing, that we should all be totally honest about our feelings because that "gets them out" and we'll all feel better, that if we let everyone know exactly what we're feeling about everything the streams will run the purer and we shouldn't bottle things up because that will make us ill. As a confirmed bottler (and ill person; go figure), I can say with absolute confidence that every time I have followed this advice and expressed my negative feelings honestly;

a) I have felt worse;
b) everyone around me has felt worse;
c) situations that were simple have become complicated;
d) situations that were complicated have become actively unpleasant;
e) it's taken a great deal of time and effort on everyone's part just to clear up the mess I made and get us all back to some kind of modus vivendi.

Every time. No exceptions. Being relatively sane, the only conclusion I can come to is that honestly expressing my negative emotions is something I should never ever do. Whether this is because I don't do it right, or because my negative emotions are just so toxic that they're not like other people's, or possibly because I have a psychic septic tank while others are connected to the main drain, I don't know.

The problem, of course, is that emotion trumps reason for me as I believe it does for most people, and sometimes I can't help it. At that point I can only apologise for mucking up other people's lives with stuff that should have stayed decently inside where it could do no harm to anyone else, and ask them as far as possible to ignore it, and try my best not to do it again.

So that's what I will do.

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

My experiences aren't as clear cut as yours, but I definitely used to go too far with being honest about my feelings and it did cause woe and misery. I think there's a level of moderation to find, and it isn't either always keeping silent or always saying something.

One thing to bear in mind is that everyone has a fairly clear cut idea of how honest about their feelings each of their friends is. This means that if you're not generally that open about negative feelings, and the suddenly you say something that is, people will be much more shocked and upset than if you are a person who is habitually open about them. This is because they think: "wow, if even smallship1 is willing to say he's angry with me, it must be REALLY bad". Whereas if it was me they'd be more inclined to say: "oh, ok, it's the_alchemist saying one of those things she quite often says."

This means that after a few months of being (moderately, circumspectly) open about your negative feelings, people would get used to it and you would start finding the positive as well as the negative consequences.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

This. I found the same thing with swearing. I got known as "Chris doesn't swear", because I don't usually in public (and especially not at work). So when at work I came out with something mild like 'bloody' everyone was shocked and went like "Oh no, he must be really mad!" (and in fact I wasn't noticably more angry than usual). Whereas others who use the f-word every other paragraph aren't noticed.

That's one of the problems with "bottling it up". A related one is that when (not if) the bottle does burst, or at least the cork comes out, the pressure is likely to be a lot higher than if it's vented more regularly. I now tend to vent in the car, I'll come out with a string of FFFSCFFF or whatever, and sometimes scream, where no one else can hear me, just to let it out (and in fact I stay in control physically, no one from outside would notice any difference in my driving because that's on a different level).

Doing it by yourself also avoids feedback. Yelling at another person can escalate to where actual damage is done. My mother used to go out and pull beetroot and wring them (you have to twist the neck of the plant to stop it 'bleeding'), giving them the names of the people who had annoyed her. After half an hour or so she'd be calm again (and have some fresh beetroot for dinner, double win!). As a kid I used to go and chop firewood, same sort of effect.

And as someone else said, if all that happens is some raised voices (or the net equivalent, in ALL CAPS) and some hurt feelings, that's lucky. Some people end up in hospital...