âWhen children learn that certain feelings are unacceptable, those feelings donât disappear. They go underground and emerge in more destructive ways.â â Philippa Perry
Perry presents a detailed case study in this chapter to illustrate the long-term consequences of disallowing feelings. While names and details are changed for privacy, the pattern is one sheâs witnessed repeatedly in her therapeutic practice.
The story follows âJames,â now an adult struggling with depression and relationship difficulties. Through therapy, he traces his challenges to a childhood in which certain emotionsâparticularly anger, sadness, and fearâwere systematically discouraged.
This chapter shows how well-meaning parents who try to eliminate ânegativeâ emotions inadvertently create exactly the problems they hoped to prevent.
Jamesâs parents loved him deeply. They wanted him to be happy, successful, and emotionally well-adjusted. But they carried unconscious beliefs about emotions:
When James cried as a child: âBig boys donât cry. Youâre fine!â
When James got angry: âWe donât get angry in this family. Go to your room until you can be pleasant.â
When James expressed fear: âThereâs nothing to be afraid of. Donât be such a baby.â
When James complained or felt sad: âYou have nothing to be sad about! Look at everything you have. Some children have real problems.â
His parents werenât cruel. They genuinely believed they were teaching resilience and positivity. They wanted to protect him from suffering.
But what James learned:
Suppressed feelings donât disappear. They go underground and express themselves in other ways.
For James, the disallowed emotions emerged as:
Physical symptoms: Frequent stomachaches and headaches as a child (emotions held in the body)
Behavioral problems: Passive-aggressive behavior, withdrawn silence, occasional explosive outbursts (anger finding indirect expression)
People-pleasing: Inability to say no, constant focus on othersâ happiness, suppression of his own needs
Depression in adulthood: All those unfelt feelings accumulated into chronic numbness and despair
Relationship difficulties: Inability to express needs, fear of conflict, choosing partners who dismissed his feelings (repeating the familiar pattern)
Emotional disconnection: Difficulty identifying what he felt because heâd spent decades suppressing it
Childhood (Ages 5-12): James learned to paste on a smile, suppress tears, and redirect anger into compliance. He became a âgood kidââquiet, obedient, pleasant. His parents praised this.
Adolescence: The suppression became harder. Normal teenage angst had nowhere to go. He withdrew, became depressed, but couldnât articulate why. His parents suggested he âsnap out of it.â
Young Adulthood: He struggled with relationships. Partners felt he was emotionally unavailable. He didnât know how to express needs, set boundaries, or navigate conflict. He felt numb.
Therapy in His 30s: He sought help for depression. In therapy, he began the painful work of reconnecting with decades of suppressed emotionsâgrief, rage, fear, sadness. The feelings heâd spent his life pushing down.
Jamesâs parents arenât villains. They acted from their own unexamined beliefs and unhealed wounds. Perry explores why well-meaning parents systematically invalidate emotions.
Common reasons parents disallow feelings:
Their own feelings were disallowed: If you were taught that crying was weak, youâll reflexively teach your child the same.
Emotions feel dangerous: If big feelings led to violence, chaos, or abandonment in your childhood, you fear your childâs emotions will cause similar harm.
Cultural or gender messages: âBoys donât cry.â âGirls shouldnât be angry.â âChildren should be seen, not heard.â These messages get internalized and passed down.
Fear of spoiling: Some parents believe that acknowledging negative emotions indulges them, creating weak, complaining children.
Discomfort with emotions: Your childâs big feelings trigger your own unprocessed emotions. Itâs easier to shut them down than to sit with the discomfort.
Desire for a happy child: You want your child to be happy. Sadness, anger, or fear feel like failures. You try to force positivity.
What messages did you receive about emotions in childhood?
When children learn certain feelings are unacceptable, the consequences ripple across their lives.
Immediate consequences (childhood):
Emotional confusion: âI feel sad, but Dad says I shouldnât, so maybe I donât? Or maybe Iâm broken?â
Shame: âThereâs something wrong with me for feeling this way.â
Behavioral problems: Suppressed emotions leak out as defiance, aggression, withdrawal, or physical symptoms.
Disconnection from self: âI donât know what I feel. I canât trust my inner experience.â
Long-term consequences (adulthood):
Mental health struggles: Depression, anxiety, alexithymia (inability to identify emotions)
Relationship difficulties: Inability to communicate needs, fear of conflict, choosing invalidating partners
Physical health issues: Chronic stress from suppressed emotions affects the body
Low self-worth: âIâm only acceptable when Iâm happy/calm/pleasant. My authentic self is unlovable.â
Difficulty parenting: Without access to your own feelings, itâs hard to help your children with theirs
James, now a parent himself, initially found himself repeating the pattern with his own children. When his daughter cried, his automatic response was, âYouâre fine! No need to cry!â
Through therapy and conscious effort, he learned to interrupt the cycle:
Breaking generational patterns requires awareness, effort, and often professional support. But itâs possible.
Looking back, James could articulate what would have helped:
Permission to feel everything: âItâs okay to be angry/sad/scared. All feelings are allowed here.â
Validation: âI can see youâre really upset. That makes sense.â
Help processing, not suppressing: âYouâre so mad right now. What could you do with that big feeling? Want to stomp around? Hit a pillow?â
Modeling healthy emotional expression: Seeing his parents acknowledge and work through their own difficult emotions
Unconditional acceptance: âI love you when youâre happy, and I love you when youâre sad. You donât have to perform positivity for me.â
Emotional education: Learning that feelings come and go, that theyâre information, not facts, and that you can feel something without acting on it
With these foundations, James could have developed:
A critical distinction: allowing all feelings doesnât mean allowing all behaviors.
Feelings are always okay. Behaviors have limits.
Example: âYouâre so angry at your sister. Thatâs okay. Hitting is not okay. What else could you do with your angry feeling?â
Feelings: Anger, jealousy, hatredâall valid Behaviors: Hitting, name-calling, destroying thingsânot acceptable
When you validate the feeling while limiting the behavior, children learn:
When you punish the feeling along with the behavior (âDonât be angry!â âStop that crying!â), children learn their inner world is wrong.
Instead of suppressing feelings, teach healthy expression:
For anger:
For sadness:
For fear:
For jealousy or other âdifficultâ feelings:
In therapy, James did the painful work of reconnecting with suppressed emotions:
He grieved: For the childhood he didnât have, for the feelings he wasnât allowed He felt the anger: At his parents, at the unfairness, at years of suppression He learned to identify emotions: Developing the vocabulary and awareness he lacked He practiced expressing needs: Learning to communicate in relationships He extended compassion to his parents: Understanding they did their best with their own limitations He chose differently with his children: Breaking the cycle by allowing all feelings
Recovery wasnât linear. It took years. But gradually, James developed the emotional fluency and self-trust that had been stolen by well-meaning suppression.
Perryâs message through this case study is clear: children need permission to feel everything.
Not permission to act on every feeling, but permission to have the full range of human emotions without shame, without dismissal, without being told their inner experience is wrong.
When you give this permission, you give your child:
When you withhold permissionâeven with love and good intentionsâyou create the very problems you hoped to prevent.