I have (23M) never opened up myself to anyone. I don’t really feel good when I try to open up and then I stop myself. Forget about my friends, I don’t even share anything with my parents and my own relatives. My college friends don’t even know 1% about me. Obviously it’s my fault because I have never shared anything about my life with them but our friendship is almost 6 years old. I have gone through many bad times and faught alone instead of sharing with others. My best friend was angry with me because I don’t share much and always suppressing things from him. I feel anxious about sharing my life incidents or something about me. Because I believe people will not able to understand me and they will ignore me even if I share. May be they will judge me. So it’s safe to not share anything with others and keep all things to myself. I feel anxious around a people who knows me too much. This is why I try to stay silent. I try to keep friendships superficial so I don’t have to share things with my classmates. Yes, there were sometime I have mistakenly shared something with people, I felt intense guilt after sharing.

I also suppress my emotions in front of others. I can laugh, cry and get angry when I am alone and nobody is around. But I never express emotions when I am with my classmates or my own relatives. My classmates say that they have never seen me laughing or smiling or even getting angry for anything. I have a poker face with no emotions. I feel extremely anxious and shy if somebody watch me showing some emotions. I feel exposed for some reason. Recently, one of my classmate asked me that why I don’t say anything about myself. When somebody asks something about me, I always try to change the topic. I didn’t tell my classmates about my hobbies, likes or dislikes. My mom is saying that what I am doing is unhealthy. She always lectures me to open up, but I feel uncomfortable, it somehow destroys my comfort zone. Is it really unhealthy? How should I begin to change myself?

24 comments

  1. Obviously it’s unhealthy, you are suppressing your emotions, your needs. You may have fear of vulnerability.

  2. I was like this growing up and up until recent years. I was always the one who never talked much unless I was with a really close friend. What changed everything was medication. You might not feel anxious but for me it was absolutely a symptom of my anxiety. I find myself smiling and being open with others so much easier these days. And I feel so sad for the years I spent like that overwhelmed with guilt and overthinking over every simple interaction, so closed off from others.

  4. Most people don’t “open up”, contrary to what people believe. Socialisation is not predicated on spilling every single detail of your life to other people, in fact we tend to doubt people who tell us anything and everything so easily. However, in your case you seem to not share interests or hobbies with other people because you think you’ll be better off with people not knowing *anything* about you, which is not a good outlook. Your friends have expressed interest in getting to know you, it’s expected that you at least share some of your hobbies and interest with them, otherwise there is little point in them speaking to you. You truly need to ask yourself why you feel like this and seek help if needed because there is soul and character within you, and you need to feel it.

  5. I am the same way, and I’ll say that while you can stuff your emotions down you do still have to feel them and if you aren’t opening up to others you should still find a way for you to open up to yourself. I live in a hilly area so I’ll walk to the edge of town and sit under any old tree somewhere and just kinda feel myself for a little while out where nobody exists

  6. There’s something to be said for those who are emotionally mature enough to handle their shit instead of burdening those around them with their issues.

    That being said it sounds like you fear rejection. Get more comfortable in your skin. People tend to not wanna hang around someone who can’t enjoy themselves.

  8. OP, I understand that being open and vulnerable is terrifying. You’re exposing yourself to rejection and hurt that can’t be taken back once it’s out there. Honestly my advice to you is to take baby steps. At night or after work/school, think about some event in your life, it doesn’t have to be traumatic but something you never told anyone. Either type out what happened in your phone notes or in a journal, or if you feel comfortable then talk about it out loud in the shower where the water drowns it out.

    This can take months, there’s no hurry, but eventually if you keep this up you should be able to move onto talking about something more traumatic, then talking to yourself in the mirror. Then if you can manage it, a therapist.

    I know you want to tell your friend, you wouldn’t have asked here if you didn’t, but you need to focus on your own mental health first. So try and tell your friend that you want to tell them stuff, that you want them to know but you aren’t emotionally ready to yet and will be actively trying to work on that.

    If you tell them that and they scoff or act upset that you don’t “trust” them, they aren’t a nice or understanding person and don’t deserve your feelings or honesty. But if they understand that, they’ll wait for you and maybe one day you can talk to them, but forcing yourself to talk about your emotions after shutting them off for so long isn’t healthy either.

    If you want any advice when it comes to opening up emotionally, my DMs are open. I really hope for the best for you.

  9. I just watched a video last night that may resonate with you. Try looking up Brene Brown’s TED talk, The power of vulnerability. It’s not preachy. She’s someone who studied it for a living and found it hard to embrace herself.

    It may take time, but it’s worth going down this path of working on opening up, I promise.

  10. I can relate so much to this. Dad died at four, and I iced over. Nothing was ever going to hurt me again. My face felt uncomfortable unless it was completely still.

    It took years and years of intent and effort to be ready to hear what really made a difference for me. Despite my social anxiety, I invited this coworker to smoke bud at a park close to my brothers house. He was talking, I was intellectualizing back. All I remember was the one question- “what are you protecting, really?”

    I had needed to feel safe- from what? Where? Pain? What pain, where do you actually feel it. The wall you have to deconstruct is an assumption, and it’s only as strong as you make it

  11. I keep recommending this — learn about personality typologies, MBTI and ennegram. Maybe start with one of Richard Rohr’s lectures on youtube.

    Learn to type yourself, type the people in your life, type strangers. You will feel more secure if you can tell who is who, what they like, and what they want out of life. You will start recognizing what you have to give, and how they can help you.

    A part of your anxiety will always be with you, but most of it is simply not needed or productive, and you can learn to let go of it. Life does not have to be this painful and complicated.

  12. That’s a way to live life, but you have to understand and be okay with the fact no one will ever be able to connect with you and know the real you if you keep living like this.

    Are you okay with that? Are you okay with no one being able to connect with you?

  13. You need to find the confidence to talk about your life without being emotional or sentimental so it doesn’t feel awkward and then it wouldn’t be the same thing all the time.

    Once you’re able to explain with the right words without boring people, it’ll be enjoyable sharing your stories c(:

  15. I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with not opening up to others in and of itself. It will definitely have an effect on your relationships (as you have already noticed, your classmates think it’s a bit weird) but if you think (being completely honest with yourself, which is hard) that you can be happy without close relationships then maybe that’s just the right thing for you, and there’s no reason to force yourself to do something just because your mum said so.

    Your mum probably knows you better than anyone, though, so it would be a mistake to ignore her completely. Maybe try to engage with her honestly. Instead of getting defensive, try and figure out more about what she thinks and why. Does she think you’re lonely? Has she noticed anything in your mood or behaviour which she thinks is caused by this inability to open up? Be honest with yourself about what she says; it is possible that she’s noticed some things about you which you haven’t noticed yourself!

    The most important thing in my opinion (which I don’t think is negotiable if you want a happy life) is to have some way to work through your feelings. For many (including me), talking to people is a great way to do this, and this method has the bonus that you will get other perspectives. However, journalling and meditation are other ways which I’ve heard work well (and had some success with myself, although I’m crap at keeping up with either).

    TL;DR: If you’re really just uncomfortable opening up to people, it might be fine. If you’re actually uncomfortable confronting your own emotions, it will probably come back to bite you. Talk to your mum.

  16. I’m the same way. It was even more of a problem when I was younger. For me, I think that having an outlet to express myself helped tremendously. Mine was making music. This didn’t make me 100% more expressive but it did help a bit. I still struggle with self-expression and have began reading more about human nature and psychology to understand why I am the way I am and address the problem at the root. Maybe that’s something you can look into doing as well. I’m currently reading The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene and it has been very insightful so far.

  17. I kinda understand. I almost never opened up to anyone till my around 30?

    It might be unhealthy in a way since … our burdens are great and one person can only handle so much, that’s why people typically share their burdens. Of course you need to have the right person in the right time and with appropriate amount of sharing (to the degree both sides are ok with)

    Maybe you can ask yourself why would it be bad if they knew you … even if you’re e.g. a bit odd, there are many people who are too and are confident about it. Unless you are secretly some murderous supervillain maybe it wouldn’t be as bad

    Similarly with positive things

    —> Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow

    ​

    As for emotions: do you have the same opinion about others? Imagine you’re someone else looking at yourself. If it’s fine for others to laugh and smile and cry … why not allow yourself to do it too? You should be just as free as everyone else

    ​

    My example story:

    When I joined the company I never told anyone I’m anime fan and always dodged the question of what I like or what I’m doing outside work. Two years later I walked across a PC of a new hire and to my complete shock he had an anime wallpaper on the screen. He introduced himself in the company as “the anime guy”, openly and proudly. By a sheer luck he was assigned to our team, I became friends with him and also became open about me liking anime and being weird

  18. Be easier on yourself and learn to live with mistakes. Eventually you’ll live enough life/embarrass yourself enough that you no longer care about being judged. (And also, we are terrible judges of ourselves—meet more people to understand yourself better—you may just be around VERY open people).

    Opening up comes naturally when you’re ready for it, I wouldn’t necessarily say to make yourself MORE vulnerable when you need to make this “area” less sensitive (self-acceptance, confidence). Anyways. Find mindsets that make you happy, don’t worry so much about *comparing* yourself to others—worry about *learning from* others instead 🙂

    Also, there’s almost no hurt or emotion that doesn’t go away eventually. For a lot of things, especially feelings of rejection, you just kind of carry on and it gets easier

  20. I’m kind of like this too, whenever I notice that I’m talking about something personal with someone I stop myself, I take too long talking and people get bored or uninterested quickly, it has happened with some friends before, but I also don’t feel like it is necessary for me to open up when I’m not asked to so I don’t do it.
    As long as it’s not hurting you or bothering you I guess it’s alright?

  23. As humans we’re wired to experience life through social context, seek help with other humans, and basically survive as a group. Thinking you can do it all yourself is basically working against nature.
    You may not like it but the more you keep things to yourself the more they will pile up, and once the storage is full, what happens is often a big crisis leading to bad mental health problems or erratic behaviour in order to let it all out. It’s inevitable.
    I will always advise people to seek help first with a professional to vent about the hard things you’ve gone through and to try to resolve this problem with vulnerability. Maybe after a certain time you will feel more open to talk to some people you really trust about what you can go through/been through in life. Support is important for your mental well-being, and honestly it feels great when it’s from the right people.
    And by doing this subreddit you’ve already made a step towards it.
    I wish you well

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like