I want to state that I am not going through anything major right now. That isn’t what triggered this thinking. It just happened, and I want to share my thoughts.

From what I have seen, people are generally raised being told not to bury their feelings inside. I used to just let it all out, and would get in trouble for expressing my discontent. So I stopped doing it out of fear. That has changed quite a bit now, but that is what started me down this road. My strategy was to bury everything deep inside of me until I forgot about what it was. It worked for a while, until a major thing that was too big happened, and then it would all pour out at once, getting it done and over with.

Now, I still bury all my negative emotions, (and even some positive ones if they don’t fit the situation, like if I think of a funny joke [unrelated of course] during a dark subject). I don’t have any fears of getting in trouble. I just really don’t want to make anyone feel worse. I’m the kind of person that wants to take on everyone’s stress for them, and not share any of my own. The other change now is that I have honed my strategy. It works, and practically never flows out, at least that anyone sees.

I talk myself through the issues causing the negative emotions, while alone. That way, if I need to rant out-loud and aggressively gesture with my hands I can. After that I do what alcoholics do, but with happy things instead of alcohol. A lot of my thoughts in slower moments are that of, “Don’t think, just let your mind go with what’s happening.” Examples of things that I do are:

– Make sure that 80-90% of the sentences I say to my friends include a pun or other joke.

– Spend a lot of time chatting with friends

– Watch lots of anime/ videos (like more than normal)

– Play lots of games

– Read really good books

– Otherwise keeping my mind so busy that it can’t think

I basically just don’t let myself think, and if I do it is working towards a solution like one would with a counselor. I keep that up until the stress passes and I’ve accepted the issue at hand.

This goes against so many things I was taught, and I’m pretty sure that professionals would consider this unhealthy. I look at it in two ways:

1. When I had a therapist (which was when I was still in middle school), they couldn’t figure out how my mind works over the course of probably 7-8 years. They went to college to understand the human mind, and had years of experience. And they couldn’t figure out the way that my mind worked, with me trying to help them. So obviously my mind has always worked differently than the average person. Normal solutions to mental obstacles don’t necessarily apply.
2. I have made it this far into life. I haven’t bothered keeping count, but 10+ times in my life I had stress on that I just stopped caring/ functioning. Out of all those times, only one time did I ever talk through it with anyone but myself. That one time, it was stress from worrying over someone, not stress dealing with me. All the rest of the times I dealt with it myself, using the methods listed above.

And you know what? I can honestly say that I have had a happy life. I am a happy person, and the good easily outweighs the bad in my life. What is 1-2 days every few month of any major-ish negativity to all the rest being positive? Obviously my methods aren’t that unhealthy if I am mentally sound, and enjoying being alive.

My main purpose of this was just to express my thoughts on the subject. But I suppose it serves a secondary purpose. It gives this message, “Just because someone else says you should act/ think /deal with things a certain way doesn’t mean that it is the right way for you. They don’t see your mind. They aren’t you. If your method works and leaves you happy with life, then what reason is there to stop it?”

Photograph made available by Matthew Henry via Unsplash