How Repression Becomes Anxiety

The Internal Accumulation of Emotions

Unexpressed emotions, such as anger or sadness, do not disappear on their own.

Instead of fading away, they accumulate inside us, becoming a very heavy burden over time.

Keeping these emotions repressed and hidden requires an enormous amount of mental and physical energy on our part.

This accumulation of unresolved upsets begins to ferment inside us, affecting our ability to experience positive emotions.

The Control Mechanism. "Keeping the Lid On"

To contain this emotional outpouring, we develop a control mechanism that tries to "keep the lid on."

It's as if we've dumped all our hurts and anger into a big container and put a lid on it.

This constant effort to keep everything under control prevents us from showing our true selves and affects our relationships.

We live in fear that someone might open that container and see everything we've kept bottled up inside.

The Transformation. From Repression to Anxiety

The biggest cost of suppressing our emotions in this way is that this control mechanism transforms into anxiety.

All the energy we use to keep emotions under control manifests as a state of chronic anxiety in adulthood.

In addition to anxiety, this repression can also lead to other compulsive behaviors, such as addictions or neurotic tendencies.

The Fear of Losing Control

Chronic anxiety is, in essence, the constant and intense fear of losing control over all those repressed emotions.

It is the fear that the "lid of the container" will blow off and all the pent-up pain and anger will come out unchecked.

This fear of being out of control becomes a kind of insanity that makes us distrust the world and see it as an unsafe place.

The inner child within us is completely paralyzed by this overwhelming fear of one's own emotions.

The Solution. Reconnecting with the Inner Child

The only way to heal this anxiety is to stop repressing and start reconnecting with that part of us.

We must reach out to that scared inner child, who is the one who truly contains all that pain and all those unprocessed emotions.

The path to healing begins when we offer that part of us the forgiveness, compassion, and understanding it needs.

Summary

Unexpressed emotions, like anger, build up inside us. To contain them, we use a control mechanism, like putting a lid on a container.

All the energy used to repress is transformed into chronic anxiety. This is, in essence, the constant and intense fear of losing control of them.

The only way to heal this deep anxiety is to stop repressing emotions. We must reconnect with the inner child that contains that unprocessed pain.