lock box

I know that I seem emotionally vapid, but it is mainly because I have developed an instinctive habit to suppress my emotions. It probably begin when I was a kid and my brother's main aim of teasing me was to see me cry and I would do my absolute best to never give him that satisfaction, and all the advice my mother gave me was 'He just wants to see you cry, don't do it'. So basically I have developed the habit of never appearing emotional in front of anyone, as I feel weak when I do so.

Well, you might think, that's not that bad, you probably do the same thing a lot of the time. However, it is profoundly frustrating because, I cannot make myself show any emotion, I can't make myself sincerely thank other people for being nice, and swallow my words when people say high to me on the street and it just comes out as some sort of whisper. Sometimes things I want to say come out in a completely different tone than I intend them to, and it gets on my nerves all the time. I just generally seemed unamused all the time, well I can be difficult to amuse, but even when people do something extremely great, like surprise me on my birthday, I can never provide a satisfactory reaction, because my first instinct is to NEVER show any emotion, and by the time I realise what I am doing, the moment has passed and I don't know how to open my lock box of emotions. I've forgotten how to retrieve to key after so many years of this, and honestly I confuse myself more than I probably confuse you.