You work hard, you skip lunch, and you’re addicted to 10pm Slack messages. In the last twenty-four hours, you’ve snapped at your two-year-old and told one of your co-workers to shut up. You might be an entrepreneur, overzealous employee, or member of the coveted C-suite. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. The point is that you’re overloaded.

It’s okay, though. You’re not alone. Forty-four percent of adults in the workforce report that work-related stress affects their health negatively—and you can bet there’s a fair number of them having meltdowns at the office because of it. And who knows…maybe you’ve already had one yourself at some point. If you compare that to the average number of tantrums your toddler has, you’re not doing too badly in the grand scheme of things (hopefully you haven’t thrown a complete tantrum kicking and screaming on the lunchroom floor yet).

When you have a freakout that damages your work performance, you’ve had a work tantrum. The cause of the tantrum isn’t the coworker or other event that triggered, it even if it seems that way in the heat of the moment. Nope, the cause of the tantrum is the ineffective strategy of suppressing your negative emotions over time.

What does a work tantrum look like?

When something at work triggers a tantrum, you might burst into tears, stomp out of a meeting, and slam the door behind you. A tantrum could come in the worst form of foot-in-mouth word vomit or impulsively screaming, “I quit!” (Who hasn’t fantasized about doing that at least once?) You might swear at your co-workers or throw them under the bus to save your own hide.

In the moment, it feels good to scream and rage—to finally get that crap off your chest, make your point, and put your co-workers in their place. But now you’re in the middle of the conference room, chest heaving like the Hulk, and they’re all gaping at you. …And you are slowly returning to your senses and are horrified by what you have just done?

You’ve spent so much time and energy building a good reputation at work, and you just blew it to smithereens in under 90 seconds. Now, your co-workers are looking at you like you have three heads (there go your daily lunch plans). Your employees may never trust you again. You could get written up or fired—and you need this job!

The good news is, this doesn’t have to be you. To avoid an epic tantrum, you’ll need to figure out whether you’re suppressing your emotions regularly. It’s not easy, but it’s better than blowing up mid-meeting and saying things you can’t take back.

Signs you’re suppressing your emotions at work

1. You Always Feel Like You’re a Micrometer Away from your Whole World Exploding

Let’s be real: you’ve got deadlines, and there’s no time to deal with your feelings. On top of that, your client is breathing down your neck for your deliverable, and you have no time to help your kid with his class project, and you haven’t eaten dinner at home in weeks. All this stress builds to the point that the tiniest things (like someone moving your stapler) can set you off. And, you might be packing on pounds or getting sick more often.

2. You’re a champion conflict avoider

You share a cubicle with a co-worker who makes uncomfortable, off-color jokes every day… but you really don’t want to say anything to him, so you keep dropping subtle hints, hoping he’ll stop. Or maybe you feel your manager has been manipulating you, but you’re not motivated enough to confront her (and how are you supposed to win that chess game and who has the energy to play it?). So you just grit your teeth and put up with them, but you’re stewing on the inside—and each incident just pushes you closer to your breaking point.

3. You distract yourself when bad feelings come up

When something or someone at work pisses you off, you don’t process it; instead, you hop on YouTube and watch a funny video or scroll through Pinterest for memes to take your mind of what just happened. Who hasn’t done that? The problem is, you don’t ever deal with the issue…you just keep pushing it to the side for later. And you do that repeatedly, every time something upsets you.

4. You feel a growing sense of dread, impending doom, and/or failure

Ever get the “Sunday night blues,” knowing you have to go back to work on Monday morning? Are you losing your preciously rare personal time to overwhelming dreading of returning to the office? If so, you would be better served to engage with rather than stuff the underlying stress and aversion you are experiencing proactively.

5. You really don’t care about your job anymore – not how you used to

Maybe you’re frustrated or angry all the time…or you might just be bored out of your mind because your job isn’t challenging or interesting enough. Either way, it’s wearing on you. You see your job as a paycheck—a means to an end—and you’re miserable. You’re detached from clients and customers, and your co-workers as well. Your attitude is affecting your team and your ability to do your job, not to mention your home life.

6. You’ve already had a “work tantrum”

If you’ve already had a major throw-down at your job, there’s no doubt you’ve been suppressing your emotions. You might still be doing damage control from the last outburst. So if you want to prevent the next freakout, it’s time to get real with yourself—because the next time this happens, you won’t have the option of claiming your tantrum was out-of-character and won’t happen again.

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