Teoh: Hi, my name's Teoh Tom: And I'm Tom
Teoh: And today we're talking about bottling up your emotions
Teoh: So a lot of young people sometimes struggle with how to process their emotions. You might
be embarrassed about how you're feeling, or you might be scared how other people react.
Did you experience that? Tom: I was a very loud kid growing up, so
I was quite a target for bullies. I wasn't very open about my emotions. All of this anger
that I would get over the course of like a week and then roughly once a week I'd smash
something. I'd have to go out to the garden with a toaster and just take it apart with
a baseball bat Teoh: We try and advise young people not to
bottle up their emotions because it can come out in ways that you least expect it. For
you it was smashing up a toaster Tom: It wasn't just toasters. One time it
was my friend's GameCube Teoh: And surely there's like repercussions
from that Tom: Yeah, I had to buy him a new GameCube
Teoh: There's a lot of things that are kind of said: 'big boys don't cry' and 'grow some
balls' and 'be a man' Tom: A lot of kind of the insults and even
the compliments that we use are very gendered. Being good at something or being strong are
these manly words, and all these words that mean being weak and everything are feminine
words. You've gotta be manly and being manly means doing the opposite of whatever women
do and if women talk about their feelings you don't talk about your feelings
Teoh: And it's funny because girls are sort of victims for the same sort of bullying but
it's in the opposite direction, so it's like oh you're being over emotional, or oh you're
being touchy, you're being a drama queen Tom: It just seems like everyone's getting
picked on for sharing their emotions. Maybe some people are just super insecure and they
don't want to talk about their feelings, so when anyone else does it they feel inclined
to bully them. These bullies, when you get them alone when they're not trying to prove
themselves around their friends, they're typically just normal people who also have feelings
and complex emotions, but they're reinforcing this idea just because
Teoh: So how did you go about overcoming the barrier?
Tom: Treating everyone kind of the same. Accepting that everyone is a human and that you don't
need to play characters around people definitely helped me to open up as a person and just
accept who I am, and it scared a few people off, but I could live without them to be honest
Teoh: It's okay to talk about how you're feeling, that's what most humans do. Most people feel
happy, sad, get worried, get stressed Tom: Sometimes you don't even know what you're
feeling until you've talked to someone and actually like tried to explain your thoughts
and then suddenly in the process of explaining them you realise oh actually, this is how
I feel. You might not even realise say that you're depressed, until you've spoken to someone
about how you're feeling and they go it sounds like you're more than sad
Teoh: Through talking to other people about it or just expressing it, you actually become
more self-aware of your own emotions and then in future, when you feel those emotions you
can understand them better Tom: I have issues with depression. My life
has become so much easier now that I have become kind of one with it, and understand
it, so that when I'm having what I call an episode, I've learnt to stop trying to fight
it and force my way through it, and just let it wash over me. But I wouldn't have got there
if I hadn't you know really made sense of it and talked about it and expressed it
Teoh: Sometimes just writing things down, like even if you can't bring yourself to talk
to other people, once you get a piece of paper or you're at your computer, that really helps
you organise the emotions in your head, and you don't have to show that to anyone
Tom: And sometimes you kind of have to express your emotions physically as well, and what
kind of really helped was exercise, believe it or not, especially boxing - just unleashing
on a punching bag was just very cathartic Teoh: There are ways to sort of give yourself
an emotional release, such as sports or boxing, or maybe like listening to music. Somewhere
down the line you still need to talk to someone and that can be a trusted adult, a friend
or you could always talk to ChildLine Tom: The thing about bottling up emotions
though, is sometimes you do get to this point where you're about to pop, you're about to
explode and you know, it's better that you do some kind of physical activity, or even
scream into a pillow, because I think when you get to that absolute point where you're
at your breaking point, I think that is when a lot of people will turn to self-harm. All
your feelings are relevant, they are important, even if you don't feel important. You are
worth talking to and talking about and your feelings are valid and you matter, as corny
as that sounds Teoh: And now we want to hear from you. Let
us know in the comments what can we do to change the idea that showing emotions is weak?
Thanks for coming in Tom Tom: Thanks for having me Teoh
Teoh: That's fine. And we'll see you next week, bye!
Tom: I won't be here Teoh: You're not going to wave?
Tom: No, I'm not going to wave