(no subject)
I seem to be a lot more open about my emotions (in particular, my bad emotions) than most other people I know. I'm wondering if this is, in fact, healthy. I haven't taken any data but I could believe there's a negative correlation between how much you write about your angst and how well-adjusted you are, although of course that doesn't say anything about causation. But I could believe that a healthy dose of stoicism, um, "builds character"? Discipline and bottom-up feedback and all that; "act the way you want to feel".
This is not to say that there aren't bad reasons to bottle stuff up, or that it can't be beneficial to talk about things. In particular, I am a big fan of explicitly addressing interpersonal tensions rather than trying to deal with them internally. (Knowing the reasoning behind someone else's behaviors goes a long way towards finding them less annoying.) Also, holding stuff in for the sake of not causing someone else pain can be totally counterproductive if you have decent reason to suppose they're feeling that pain anyway.
But there is a point at which feeling out loud becomes a spectacle of flagellation, and tragedy becomes showmanship.
This is not to say that there aren't bad reasons to bottle stuff up, or that it can't be beneficial to talk about things. In particular, I am a big fan of explicitly addressing interpersonal tensions rather than trying to deal with them internally. (Knowing the reasoning behind someone else's behaviors goes a long way towards finding them less annoying.) Also, holding stuff in for the sake of not causing someone else pain can be totally counterproductive if you have decent reason to suppose they're feeling that pain anyway.
But there is a point at which feeling out loud becomes a spectacle of flagellation, and tragedy becomes showmanship.