Why do these things cause emotional flooding?
August 17, 2024 12:11 AM Subscribe
I'm generally an even-tempered person who tolerates annoyances well, but some things will send me from calm to rage instantly. Examples include being poked repeatedly, and someone flicking rapidly between options repeatedly without me having had time to read the information. When these things happen it overwhelms me immediately. It seems out of proportion to feel such distress to such minor things. Does this happen to anyone else? Is there a fix?
Poking physically? Anyone doing that to me is risking a broken finger - as poking (and pointing) are precusors to violence.
"I can only answer one question at a time!"
Some small-minded people, and all of the ones in your Q are not worth your anger .. but they are feeding off your response. Find a way to not feed them .. or escallate in such a way that they back down and don't repeat. I have found NLP - and body language study more helpful than the techniques I employed as a youth.
Are these 'someones' the same? Whats gender are you, they?
Early 'intervention' always best ime. Some males need their switch resetting however its done.
posted by unearthed at 1:11 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]
"I can only answer one question at a time!"
Some small-minded people, and all of the ones in your Q are not worth your anger .. but they are feeding off your response. Find a way to not feed them .. or escallate in such a way that they back down and don't repeat. I have found NLP - and body language study more helpful than the techniques I employed as a youth.
Are these 'someones' the same? Whats gender are you, they?
Early 'intervention' always best ime. Some males need their switch resetting however its done.
posted by unearthed at 1:11 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]
Yeah that’s not a you problem, in my opinion.
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:56 AM on August 17 [3 favorites]
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:56 AM on August 17 [3 favorites]
Sorry if that sounded reductive or unhelpful- I just meant that it seems like your emotions are doing their correct jobs in alerting you to situations that are not acceptable.
posted by eastboundanddown at 2:01 AM on August 17 [11 favorites]
posted by eastboundanddown at 2:01 AM on August 17 [11 favorites]
It seems out of proportion to feel such distress to such minor things.
Nails on a chalkboard is also a minor thing in theory, but not so much in practice to most people.
posted by trig at 2:11 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]
Nails on a chalkboard is also a minor thing in theory, but not so much in practice to most people.
posted by trig at 2:11 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]
I have found that the relatively minor things that make me incandescent with rage, seemingly unprovoked, are usually things that I grew up experiencing when I had no power to escape them.
So it's not really unprovoked, I have almost two decades of provocation in my stockpile, actually.
Some things that help over time: learn to recognize the triggering activity/behavior, track it back to previous times when you've experienced that, and try and reflect on yourself in those moments. Were you a kid? Were you rendered powerless to self advocate by some other circumstance? If you were a neutral third party witnessing that, what would you have liked to say to the person who was bothering you then?
What can help in the moment: briefly removing yourself physically from the situation so you can have space. Learning to quickly and reflexively (practice helps) say "please stop that" or "please don't do that" at the moment you realize you're getting upset. Once you're calm you can even say something like "I've got baggage around [thing], for whatever reason it bothers me a LOT, can you please not do that anymore, for me."
Therapy can help you get some good coping strategies around this.
posted by phunniemee at 5:38 AM on August 17 [10 favorites]
So it's not really unprovoked, I have almost two decades of provocation in my stockpile, actually.
Some things that help over time: learn to recognize the triggering activity/behavior, track it back to previous times when you've experienced that, and try and reflect on yourself in those moments. Were you a kid? Were you rendered powerless to self advocate by some other circumstance? If you were a neutral third party witnessing that, what would you have liked to say to the person who was bothering you then?
What can help in the moment: briefly removing yourself physically from the situation so you can have space. Learning to quickly and reflexively (practice helps) say "please stop that" or "please don't do that" at the moment you realize you're getting upset. Once you're calm you can even say something like "I've got baggage around [thing], for whatever reason it bothers me a LOT, can you please not do that anymore, for me."
Therapy can help you get some good coping strategies around this.
posted by phunniemee at 5:38 AM on August 17 [10 favorites]
Why do these things cause emotional flooding?
posted by HearHere at 6:14 AM on August 17
Anger is associated with diverse feelings that are directed towards another (or others) based on their actions that are perceived as unfair and/or disruptive to one’s plans, goals and expectations.Is there a fix?
Attachment to nonhuman living beings (e.g., plants, homes, personal effects), cultural symbols, abstract ideas, and beliefs (the so-called “extended attachment”) may contribute to the remarkable human inclination to cooperateselections from neuroscience of social feelings: mechanisms of adaptive social functioning [nih]
posted by HearHere at 6:14 AM on August 17
This is how my misophonia presents, which is a nervous system response. There's no "annoyed" stage, I am not annoyed, I don't even particularly care on an intellectual level if something about your face acts as an amphitheatre for your mouth, I go straight from "eating sounds" to panic and fight/flight/freeze and rage.
We're mammals, we're designed to do this to keep us safe from predators and other dangers, it's just that we sometimes develop mammal responses to non-dangers, though I would argue that both of your examples actually kind of to represent forms of threats: one of them to your personal space boundaries and general desire not to be touched without consent, the other is well-known to con artists/manipulators/salespeople as a technique to deliberately overwhelm. It is possible you are especially sensitive to the latter as well - a lot of neurodivergent people are because we need often extra time to get past auditory processing delays to actually hear and parse each option, and you can have auditory processing issues that are physical as well.
In theory, you can train these reactions out of your nervous system using exposure techniques and CBT phobia-type exercises. Obviously people do this all the time for their jobs (customer service, first responders, cleaning, spies, etc), but you are also allowed boundaries around these things.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:45 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]
We're mammals, we're designed to do this to keep us safe from predators and other dangers, it's just that we sometimes develop mammal responses to non-dangers, though I would argue that both of your examples actually kind of to represent forms of threats: one of them to your personal space boundaries and general desire not to be touched without consent, the other is well-known to con artists/manipulators/salespeople as a technique to deliberately overwhelm. It is possible you are especially sensitive to the latter as well - a lot of neurodivergent people are because we need often extra time to get past auditory processing delays to actually hear and parse each option, and you can have auditory processing issues that are physical as well.
In theory, you can train these reactions out of your nervous system using exposure techniques and CBT phobia-type exercises. Obviously people do this all the time for their jobs (customer service, first responders, cleaning, spies, etc), but you are also allowed boundaries around these things.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:45 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]
Just in case you need to hear this: Getting out of proportion angry to very specific things can't be treated with exposure therapy.
Exposure therapy works when a person has an irrational fear. It works when they're exposed to the thing they fear just past their window of tolerance but not so far that they go into overwhelm, which is why an experienced therapist is needed - to know how to achieve that precise level of exposure.
The things you're describing might seem irrational to some, but they're not fears, they're painful, and forced exposure will make your response to them worse.
With this kind of thing it works best to be aware of your triggers and do what you can to reduce overall stress and sensory overwhelm. For example, are you more likely to respond like this in a noisy environment, or when you're tired or hungry?
Allowing yourself to step out of the triggering situation so that you don't feel trapped in it, and regulate yourself with a few deep, calming breaths can help.
posted by Zumbador at 7:08 AM on August 17 [3 favorites]
Exposure therapy works when a person has an irrational fear. It works when they're exposed to the thing they fear just past their window of tolerance but not so far that they go into overwhelm, which is why an experienced therapist is needed - to know how to achieve that precise level of exposure.
The things you're describing might seem irrational to some, but they're not fears, they're painful, and forced exposure will make your response to them worse.
With this kind of thing it works best to be aware of your triggers and do what you can to reduce overall stress and sensory overwhelm. For example, are you more likely to respond like this in a noisy environment, or when you're tired or hungry?
Allowing yourself to step out of the triggering situation so that you don't feel trapped in it, and regulate yourself with a few deep, calming breaths can help.
posted by Zumbador at 7:08 AM on August 17 [3 favorites]
flicking rapidly between options repeatedly without me having had time to read the information
Absolutely this is me. My mind can’t wrap my head around option one while the person is already at option 3. My husband is a fast reader and does this with Netflix. It took me way too long to learn to calmly say “oh you’re going to have to go slower than that I’m still reading” or just to check out mentally until they’re done.
I could spitball so many reasons - sensory overload, decision fatigue, control, people pleasing, not feeling considered, but really all I needed to do was advocate for myself in the moment or realize that particular decision is not my problem.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:40 AM on August 17 [1 favorite]
Absolutely this is me. My mind can’t wrap my head around option one while the person is already at option 3. My husband is a fast reader and does this with Netflix. It took me way too long to learn to calmly say “oh you’re going to have to go slower than that I’m still reading” or just to check out mentally until they’re done.
I could spitball so many reasons - sensory overload, decision fatigue, control, people pleasing, not feeling considered, but really all I needed to do was advocate for myself in the moment or realize that particular decision is not my problem.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:40 AM on August 17 [1 favorite]
The difference between annoyed and instantly furious is usually biological, which is to say that your brain has somehow burned in an immediate adrenal response. It's a toss up whether you will ever be able to change that, but you can learn how to deal with your body getting keyed up when it happens.
The mechanism is something like PTSD but instead of a single huge traumatic event it's a long series of small ones built up over time.
Traditionally one looks to childhood for these things, and one can imagine a kid who was chided and perhaps punished for not listening when in fact it was the randomly fast talking adult who was at fault.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:32 AM on August 17
The mechanism is something like PTSD but instead of a single huge traumatic event it's a long series of small ones built up over time.
Traditionally one looks to childhood for these things, and one can imagine a kid who was chided and perhaps punished for not listening when in fact it was the randomly fast talking adult who was at fault.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:32 AM on August 17
Nails on a chalkboard
A what?
Seriously, I'm not in a position where I'm poked very often (unless the verb has come to mean something else these days) but if you want me to absorb the options, give me time to read them, as you flick rapidly between.
The information overload I run into often, which triggers my flight response is encountering two (or more!) amplified audio streams at once. I can tune out the rapidly flicking, but not that kind of cacophony.
posted by Rash at 9:47 AM on August 17
A what?
Seriously, I'm not in a position where I'm poked very often (unless the verb has come to mean something else these days) but if you want me to absorb the options, give me time to read them, as you flick rapidly between.
The information overload I run into often, which triggers my flight response is encountering two (or more!) amplified audio streams at once. I can tune out the rapidly flicking, but not that kind of cacophony.
posted by Rash at 9:47 AM on August 17
Oh hey, it's me with unexpected face touching or when there are too many competing streams of sound/information.
Don't judge it, don't worry about why. It doesn't matter. Brains and bodies do inexplicable things sometimes. Just know and accept about yourself that your system has reactions to certain stimuli that are faster than your cognitive processing and beyond your conscious control. Consider it part of your user's manual. Then you can:
- practice recognizing for yourself that it's happening and implement calming strategies immediately during and after (e.g. closing your eyes, breathing, finding a place to be on your own for a few minutes- limiting input as much as possible seems to be helpful for my own recovery of equilibrium in these moments)
- explain to your people what you experience and make relevant requests of them in a calm moment when the behavior in question is not happening
- implement a word or hand signal that communicates 'I AM IN SYSTEM OVERLOAD RIGHT NOW' without having to use the cognitive or emotional resources to put words around it (which, ideally, cues your people to stop whatever it is and give you a minute)
Onward and upward.
posted by wormtales at 11:13 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]
Don't judge it, don't worry about why. It doesn't matter. Brains and bodies do inexplicable things sometimes. Just know and accept about yourself that your system has reactions to certain stimuli that are faster than your cognitive processing and beyond your conscious control. Consider it part of your user's manual. Then you can:
- practice recognizing for yourself that it's happening and implement calming strategies immediately during and after (e.g. closing your eyes, breathing, finding a place to be on your own for a few minutes- limiting input as much as possible seems to be helpful for my own recovery of equilibrium in these moments)
- explain to your people what you experience and make relevant requests of them in a calm moment when the behavior in question is not happening
- implement a word or hand signal that communicates 'I AM IN SYSTEM OVERLOAD RIGHT NOW' without having to use the cognitive or emotional resources to put words around it (which, ideally, cues your people to stop whatever it is and give you a minute)
Onward and upward.
posted by wormtales at 11:13 AM on August 17 [2 favorites]
I started taking magnesium supplements per this post on /r/anger and I no longer overreact to minor annoyances.
Magnesium supplements are cheap and without adverse side effects at normal doses, so there's no downside of trying it to see if it helps you too.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:00 PM on August 17 [1 favorite]
Magnesium supplements are cheap and without adverse side effects at normal doses, so there's no downside of trying it to see if it helps you too.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:00 PM on August 17 [1 favorite]
Poking someone is no different from hitting them. It IS violence.
posted by brujita at 6:03 PM on August 17 [1 favorite]
posted by brujita at 6:03 PM on August 17 [1 favorite]
When I encounter this in myself I end up thinking about the amygdala and automatic responses to stimuli. If you have a rage response modeled for you as a child, then that becomes a kind of auto-responder for certain kinds of input. The input isn't necessarily the same type of event as the original model, it's that your brain has a kind of systematic cascade when it goes under certain kinds of load. Unexpected, startling, difficult, physically annoying or painful inputs, violation of boundaries, overwhelm of ability to understand....you start adding these to your mix and there is a handy shorthand of stopping this which is the rage response.
Anger is associated with diverse feelings that are directed towards another (or others) based on their actions that are perceived as unfair and/or disruptive to one’s plans, goals and expectations.
I don't think you can remove that response since it's a hard-wired biological system, but you can modify your behavior around it, like doing calming steps when you feel it being triggered, and re-framing the contexts in a different internal narrative. For me there's two problems with the rage response, one is being triggered too much when the context doesn't really justify the response, which is the amygdala being too ready to fire, see childhood modeling. The second is the context or person that triggers your anger>>rage doesn't change, perhaps it's a situation that's omnipresent and perhaps the person responsible for that condition is unwilling to change or causing it through unconscious habit. That's very problematic especially if it's a loved one or family member.
posted by diode at 5:13 AM on August 18
Anger is associated with diverse feelings that are directed towards another (or others) based on their actions that are perceived as unfair and/or disruptive to one’s plans, goals and expectations.
I don't think you can remove that response since it's a hard-wired biological system, but you can modify your behavior around it, like doing calming steps when you feel it being triggered, and re-framing the contexts in a different internal narrative. For me there's two problems with the rage response, one is being triggered too much when the context doesn't really justify the response, which is the amygdala being too ready to fire, see childhood modeling. The second is the context or person that triggers your anger>>rage doesn't change, perhaps it's a situation that's omnipresent and perhaps the person responsible for that condition is unwilling to change or causing it through unconscious habit. That's very problematic especially if it's a loved one or family member.
posted by diode at 5:13 AM on August 18
Someone touching you without your consent is assault, yes it is normal to find this upsetting.
That person is trying to physically control you, unfortunately your options to fix it are different depending on a variety of factors. It's likely that the person poking you repeatedly has decided you aren't someone who will physically harm them, but you should be very careful because sometimes people will violate your physical boundaries to test you and see if they can violate your physical boundaries in more severe ways later.
If this is at work, document the behavior every time, document telling them to stop, document everything, later on you can consider if you want to talk to a lawyer or to HR.
posted by yohko at 1:12 PM on August 20
That person is trying to physically control you, unfortunately your options to fix it are different depending on a variety of factors. It's likely that the person poking you repeatedly has decided you aren't someone who will physically harm them, but you should be very careful because sometimes people will violate your physical boundaries to test you and see if they can violate your physical boundaries in more severe ways later.
If this is at work, document the behavior every time, document telling them to stop, document everything, later on you can consider if you want to talk to a lawyer or to HR.
posted by yohko at 1:12 PM on August 20
I have ADHD and identify as autistic and get this.
posted by Dorothea_in_Rome at 3:51 AM on August 23
posted by Dorothea_in_Rome at 3:51 AM on August 23
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I don’t think there’s a “fix” for this, per se. Because “fix” implies “broken” and you aren’t. What you experience is a legitimate response to stimulus which you struggle to handle.
What you can do, however, is learn how to react to yourself in those moments of overwhelm, and use that as an opportunity to se some boundaries.
“I don’t like being poked; please don’t do it again. I’m going to step away for a minute to calm down,” and “I need you to give me more time to consider the options you’re giving me,” are both valid responses.
And if there’s someone in your life who habitually does these things then the best way to deal with that is setting a boundary with them and then enforcing that boundary.
posted by six sided sock at 12:35 AM on August 17 [8 favorites]