To describe with words, to make cheap

Once, when I was younger, I used to grind my teeth whenever I was faced with an emotion I didn’t know how to express properly, or was trying to suppress. This happened during extremes of emotion, usually when I found something very funny, or when I was really angry. As a result of this grinding, one of my canines had a bit of tooth chipped off. Imagine if you could grind all your teeth away! I stopped immediately.

Recently, I found myself grinding my teeth again. Perhaps it is an emotion I do not yet know how to express properly.