Why Anxiety Rises When Feelings Are Held Back

I often picture our emotional life as a river. Something natural, steady, alive. A movement that was always meant to flow without permission or performance. Most of us start out that way. A feeling arrives, it moves through, it leaves. Simple. Honest. Uncomplicated.

But somewhere along the way, many people learn that certain feelings are not welcome. Maybe anger was met with silence. Maybe sadness was brushed aside. Maybe joy felt too loud in a household that preferred quiet. Maybe the people you loved could only cope with part of you.

So you built a small dam in the river. Then another. And another. Not because you wanted to, but because it felt safer. Kinder. Easier. More acceptable.

The problem is that once you start building these dams, you have to keep tending to them. You have to hold back what wants to move. You have to monitor cracks. You have to brace yourself for pressure. You have to pretend the river is calm even when you can feel the force of it right behind you.

And the pressure does build. It always does.

Sometimes it starts with a seep. A small leak through the dam that you notice as a strange discomfort, a sense of unease that does not match the moment. Sometimes the pressure pushes harder and you feel it as anxiety, not random or irrational, but the body sensing that the river is trying to move again. Anxiety often shows up right at the point where what has been held back begins to make itself known.

Other times the pressure shows up as irritability over something small. Tiredness that makes no sense. Tears you cannot explain. The dams become harder to maintain, and without meaning to, you end up living in a state of constant emotional management instead of emotional living.

The thing is, the river was never the problem. The river is you. The river is supposed to flow.

When something in your life increases the pressure, the water rises. A change. A loss. A relationship shift. A stress that pushes harder than usual. The river reacts instantly. It tries to move, and the dam strains in response. This is often the moment people realise how much energy they have been spending holding things back. How much of themselves has been stuck behind structures they no longer remember choosing.

Letting the river flow again is not about removing every dam at once. It is not about dramatic emotional floods. It is about recognising that your feelings are not dangerous. They are information. They belong to you. They ask to be heard rather than contained.

Learning to listen to that river can be surprisingly steadying. It can reduce the pressure, soften the internal noise, and create a sense of space that has been missing for a long time. The more curious you become, the more the river reveals. Patterns. History. Old rules that no longer fit the adult you have become.

You do not need to navigate that alone. It can be helpful to sit with someone who understands what it means to live with these internal structures and the weight that comes with them. Someone who can think with you as the river begins to move again at its own pace.

Not forced. Not rushed. Just allowed.

The river is natural. It was always meant to flow.

Hannah Downing | Psychodynamic Psychotherapist

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