Growing up, any emotion but anger was a sign of weakness. My mom was emotionally open and honest, but my dad was suppressed and closed off. I would only express my emotions when I was alone and I would close myself off to anyone else. Turns out, emotional suppression is actually unhealthy. While my body could tolerate it as a kid and young adult, as I got older I started experiencing the physical symptoms of stress and emotional repression like migraines and severe muscle pain in my neck and upper back. I finally began working through this in weekly therapy sessions with a psychologist, but if I had addressed this when I was younger, maybe I could have avoided all that pain in my adult years. I wish I could have used a platform like MyCuraJOY to talk to someone about my emotions and learn how to express them.
Emotional repression
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Stand Up Against Smothering Anxiety
I’ve had some anxiety growing up—the stress of exams and ever-growing workload—but never to a point where it prevented me from sleeping or other physical ailments. Actually, that’s me in denial. I have TMJ and acid reflux periodically, but stress and anxiety have become so prevalent in our society that we accept them as the…
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