Some people are very good at appearing fine.
They are often the people others describe as capable, independent or resilient. They keep working, maintain relationships, take care of others and generally manage to do what needs to be done. When things become difficult, they tend to deal with it privately.
Sometimes, this ability to keep going comes with an unspoken set of expectations. You should be able to handle things yourself. You shouldn't need too much from others. You should get things right, avoid disappointing people and remain composed even when things are difficult. These expectations can become so familiar that you barely notice how much pressure you're placing on yourself.
There is nothing wrong with being independent or self-reliant. Being able to persevere and remain composed when things are difficult can be a genuine strength. But there can be another side to always being the person who copes.
You might replay a conversation long after it has ended, trying to work out whether you said something wrong. Perhaps you notice the slightest change in someone's tone and find yourself wondering if they're upset with you. You want reassurance but feel embarrassed about asking for it. When someone hurts you, your attention quickly turns to whether you're being too sensitive.
This is what I mean when I talk about distress turning inward. The feelings are still there, but rather than being expressed or shared, they become something to manage privately. Anger turns into self-criticism. Hurt becomes shame. The need for reassurance is followed by embarrassment that you needed reassurance in the first place.
Over time, the same ways of coping that have helped you feel safe, capable or connected to others can also leave you feeling quite alone.
When feelings have nowhere to go
Suppose someone you care about does something that hurts you. Before you've had much time to register the hurt itself, you find yourself thinking: Why am I so sensitive? Maybe I've misunderstood. They probably didn't mean it that way.
Perhaps you're very good at seeing things from other people's perspectives. You can understand why someone behaved the way they did, take into account what they might be going through and give them the benefit of the doubt.
This is a wonderful quality to have. It becomes more complicated when that same generosity doesn't extend to you.
When this happens often enough, emotions can start to be judged before they've really been understood. Feeling angry becomes something you need to justify. Feeling sad means you're not coping. Wanting reassurance feels needy. Making a mistake says something about who you are rather than simply being something you did.
Self-criticism is more than being aware of our shortcomings. It can involve a much broader negative evaluation of ourselves, often tied up with shame, guilt, inferiority and a sense of failure (Werner et al., 2019). Sometimes we're comparing ourselves with other people, but often we're trying to live up to an internal picture of the person we think we ought to be.
This can also be where perfectionism starts to creep in.
Having high standards isn't inherently unhealthy. You can care deeply about your work, set ambitious goals and take pride in doing things well. But when achievement becomes closely tied to how you feel about yourself, the stakes become much higher.
A mistake is no longer just a mistake. Someone being disappointed in you can feel like you've failed them. Rest comes with a nagging sense that you should be doing something more productive. You might spend hours preparing for something because the possibility of getting it wrong feels unbearable. You reach a goal and feel good for a little while, only to find yourself looking towards the next thing you need to accomplish.
Perfectionism, in this sense, isn't necessarily about wanting everything to be perfect. Sometimes it's about what getting something wrong seems to mean about you.
Why do we learn to keep things in?
There isn't one explanation for why someone might internalise their distress.
For some people, it has something to do with what they learned about emotions growing up. Difficult feelings may not have been particularly welcome, or relying on other people may have felt unpredictable. Perhaps being capable and easy-going was valued, while anger or vulnerability created tension. Some people simply become accustomed to being the one who looks after everybody else.
These aren't always lessons that anyone explicitly teaches us. We learn a great deal about relationships through experience: which parts of ourselves seem to bring people closer, which seem to push them away, and what we need to do to maintain a sense of connection or safety.
If showing anger repeatedly leads to conflict, keeping it to yourself can make sense. If asking for reassurance leaves you feeling ashamed, you may eventually stop asking. If achievement brings recognition and belonging, doing well can start to carry more emotional weight than you realise.
In Schema Therapy, we sometimes think about these patterns as ways of coping that developed in response to earlier emotional experiences and unmet needs. From an attachment perspective, we might also become curious about what someone has learned about depending on other people, expressing vulnerability and feeling safe within close relationships.
Neither framework is about blaming the past for everything that happens in the present. Rather, they can help us understand why a particular way of coping may have made sense at one point in our lives.
The problem is that ways of coping can outlive the circumstances that made them necessary. What once helped you adapt can become something you continue to do automatically, even when the people and relationships around you have changed.
The loneliness of keeping it together
One of the less obvious costs of internalising distress is how it can affect our relationships.
If you're used to dealing with things privately, the people around you may not always know when you need support. You might become good at reading the room, noticing changes in other people's moods and adjusting accordingly. Perhaps you avoid raising things that could create tension or find yourself agreeing when you'd rather say no.
We often call this "people-pleasing", but I've always felt the term can make a complicated pattern sound rather superficial. Sometimes keeping other people happy isn't really about wanting to be liked. It can be about what disagreement, disappointment or disconnection have come to mean.
If being agreeable helps a relationship feel secure, there is a reason you keep doing it.
The cost is that other people can end up knowing only certain parts of you. They know the person who is helpful, funny, successful or composed, while the parts that are angry, uncertain, disappointed or in need of support remain largely private.
You can have people around you who genuinely care and still feel that nobody quite knows you.
Research into emotional suppression offers an interesting perspective on this. Habitually suppressing emotions has been associated with poorer social functioning and fewer opportunities to develop close relationships. Interestingly, people who suppress their emotions aren't necessarily less liked by others (Srivastava et al., 2009).
You can be liked. You can have friends. You can be deeply loved, and still have the sense that important parts of you remain unseen.
When perfectionism and self-control become a burden
If you're used to being the capable one, not coping can feel surprisingly uncomfortable.
Maybe you're usually the person other people turn to. You're good at solving problems and anticipating what needs to happen. You don't tend to ask for help unless you've already tried everything yourself.
You might carefully consider what you say before speaking, rewrite a message several times because you're worried about how it will be received, or feel uncomfortable when someone offers to help with something you believe you should be able to manage independently.
Again, these aren't inherently problematic qualities. Self-control, persistence, conscientiousness and independence are all genuine strengths. What interests me is what happens when those qualities become inflexible - when being capable starts to feel less like something you can be and more like something you have to be.
One framework for understanding this is the concept of overcontrol.
Overcontrol describes a coping style that can involve high levels of self-control alongside emotional inhibition, rigidity, cautiousness and difficulties with openness and social connectedness (Lynch et al., 2015).
Someone with an overcontrolled style might carefully monitor what they say, find spontaneity uncomfortable, or struggle to express an emotion until they have fully analysed whether they're justified in feeling it. They may hold themselves to strict internal standards and find it difficult to let other people see them when they are uncertain or struggling.
The issue isn't that self-control is bad. The issue is when control becomes the only available option.
Radically Open Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (RO-DBT) is an approach developed to address difficulties associated with maladaptive overcontrol. It places particular emphasis on openness, flexibility and social connectedness, including how we communicate our internal experiences to others.
Overcontrol certainly won't explain everyone who tends to keep things inside. But it does offer another way of thinking about a familiar problem. Sometimes a person doesn't need to become better at managing themselves. They may already be exceptionally good at that.
The work may be in discovering when it's safe not to.
What would it mean to do things differently?
If you've spent years being self-reliant, working hard, anticipating other people's needs or keeping difficult feelings to yourself, doing things differently doesn't mean getting rid of the parts of you that helped you cope.
They probably exist for a reason.
Your inner critic may have helped you avoid mistakes when mistakes felt costly. Perfectionism may have contributed to achievements that genuinely matter to you. Self-sufficiency may have developed during periods when other people weren't particularly reliable. Keeping things to yourself may have protected relationships at times when expressing yourself didn't feel safe.
Understanding why a pattern developed doesn't mean we need to keep following it forever. It gives us an opportunity to decide whether it still fits.
Therapy might involve noticing an emotion before immediately judging yourself for having it, becoming more aware of the moments when your inner critic takes over, or exploring why particular relationships bring up such powerful feelings.
Sometimes the changes are relatively small. Telling someone you're having a difficult day instead of automatically saying you're fine. Asking for reassurance when you need it. Allowing another person to help without first proving that you've exhausted every other option.
My work is grounded in Schema Therapy and informed by psychodynamic and attachment-based principles. I draw on different evidence-based approaches depending on the person I'm working with, but much of my interest lies in understanding the patterns we develop around ourselves and other people: where they came from, what they've helped us manage, and whether they still serve us in the same way today.
Understanding a pattern doesn't automatically change it. But it can create some room between the pattern and our response to it.
And sometimes, that's where something different can begin.
If this resonates with you
If you recognise yourself in some of these patterns, therapy can offer a space to explore them with curiosity rather than criticism. Together, we can begin to understand what has shaped these ways of coping, how they may be affecting you now, and what it might look like to respond differently.
I'm Aylin, an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker and psychotherapist at Inner Worlds Counselling & Psychotherapy. I offer in-person appointments in Essendon, Melbourne, and online telehealth appointments across Australia.
If you're considering therapy, you're welcome to book a free 15-minute consultation to see whether working together feels like the right fit.
References
Lynch, T. R., Hempel, R. J., & Dunkley, C. (2015). Radically Open-Dialectical Behavior Therapy for disorders of over-control: Signaling matters. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 69(2), 141–162.
Srivastava, S., Tamir, M., McGonigal, K. M., John, O. P., & Gross, J. J. (2009). The social costs of emotional suppression: A prospective study of the transition to college. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(4), 883–897.
Werner, A. M., Tibubos, A. N., Rohrmann, S., & Reiss, N. (2019). The clinical trait self-criticism and its relation to psychopathology: A systematic review—Update. Journal of Affective Disorders, 246, 530–547.