The Cost of Suppressing Myself | EP7

In this episode, I share a season of my life when I stopped trusting my own feelings.

After a painful conflict in both business and relationship, I found myself suppressing anger, doubting my instincts, and questioning my own reality. On the outside, everything seemed to continue as normal — the business was running, life was moving forward. But inside, something had quietly collapsed.

I began to realize that suppressing anger doesn’t make it disappear. It turns inward — becoming self-criticism, exhaustion, and eventually even physical illness.

In this episode, I reflect on the hidden cost of silencing ourselves, and how losing our voice can slowly lead us to lose ourselves.

Sometimes the hardest part of healing is not facing others — but learning to trust our own feelings again.

Email: elenaswy@gmail.com

IG: @elenaswenyu

Transcript

How I Met Jesus — Episode 7

The Cost of Suppressing Myself

Hi, this is Elena.

Welcome to How I Met Jesus.

Do you know what’s harder than losing a relationship?

Losing trust in yourself.

After everything that happened last year…

the breakup attempt, the fear, even threats,

the real damage wasn’t the compromise.

It was this: I stopped trusting my own feelings.

And when that happens, you don’t just doubt a person.

You start doubting your own inner voice.

After that season, I became different.

On the outside, the business continued.

The team worked. Revenue grew.

But inside…

Every time I felt uncomfortable in the relationship, I would ask myself:

“Am I overreacting?” or “Am I too sensitive?”

I started double-checking my own emotions.

I hesitated before making even small decisions.

I overanalyzed what I was feeling.

I looked outward for validation before trusting my own inner voice.

It was subtle. But it was exhausting.

There was something else I didn’t allow myself to admit.

I was angry. No dramatic anger. No yelling.

But a deep, restrained anger. 

And underneath that anger… was hurt.

When we started the company, we agreed it would be fifty-fifty.

Equal ownership. Equal partnership. And I gave so much.

My time. My creativity. My reputation.

My sleepless nights. My entire nervous system.

So when he said, “If we break up, we dissolve the company,”

something inside me wanted to say:

How can you say that so easily?

How can something we built together become disposable in one sentence?

Why does it feel like all the value I brought suddenly means nothing?

In that moment, it felt like my contribution was invisible.

Like I was replaceable. And everything I poured into that business had no weight.

But I didn’t say those words. I swallowed them.

Because expressing anger felt dangerous.

I grew up suppressing myself.

Suppressing discomfort.  Suppressing needs.  Suppressing anger.

I thought anger was wrong.

Unfeminine. Disrespectful. Unspiritual.

However, suppression came with a cost.

The cost wasn’t immediate. It was quiet but heavy.

For a long time after that, I lived with a constant sense of powerlessness.

I couldn’t feel excitement about anything.

It felt like something inside had shut down.

No matter how much I slept, I woke up exhausted.

I didn’t want to get out of bed.

I didn’t want to decide.

I didn’t want to engage.

Life felt distant, flat, and muted.

At one point, I even flew back to China.

I stayed with my parents for one month.

And I did nothing. Just ate, slept, and played Candy Crush.

I avoided thinking and feeling. I told myself I just needed rest.

But it wasn’t just physical fatigue.

It was emotional collapse.

Now I realized, 

when you suppress anger long enough, your system doesn’t stay neutral.

The energy doesn’t disappear. It turns inward.

And that’s when self-attack begins.

So at that moment, I started criticizing myself constantly. 

I always told myself,

“You’re such a failure!”

“You’re unstable.”

“You almost ruined everything.”

“You’re ungrateful.”

“You’re too weak.”

The anger I didn’t express outwardly turned into self-judgment, Self-rejection.

And the deeper the self-attack went, the more powerless I felt.

At the same time, my body begins fighting itself. I became very sick, running a high fever for several days, unable to get out of bed.

Looking back, that season wasn’t laziness or weakness.

It was what happens when you silence yourself for too long.

And in that season… I forgot to turn to God.

Not because I stopped believing.

But because I was used to being strong on my own.

I was used to solving problems alone.

I was conditioned to rely on myself.

Based on my past experience, control felt safer.

So I kept trying to hold everything together by myself.

And that… is exhausting.

Before I close today… I want to pray for the woman I was in that season. Because I’m aware that even today, I still blame myself for how I handled that time.

Father Lord,

I bring to You the version of me who felt small, invisible, who felt afraid to take up space. The version of me who swallowed her anger because she thought it was wrong. The version of me who tried so hard to be strong.

God, help me see her with compassion. She wasn’t weak. She was trying to survive. She didn’t know how to do better. She only knew how to protect herself the way she had learned as a child.

Forgive me for still judging her.

Forgive me for calling her dramatic, unstable, or too much.

Teach me to honor the fact that she endured what she could with the tools she had.

And Lord… 

Forgive me for forgetting to turn to You in that season.

Not because I didn’t believe in You —

but because I was so used to carrying everything alone.

I was conditioned to rely on control instead of surrender.

I was conditioned to carry everything silently instead of asking for help.

Thank You for not leaving me even when I didn’t reach for You.

Thank You for staying.

Today, I release judgment over my past self.

I choose compassion.

I choose understanding.

And I choose to bring my anger, my fear, and my exhaustion to You.

In Jesus’ Name,

Amen.