blowing things way out of proportion, but not on purpose?

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Age1600
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20 Jul 2008, 10:20 pm

Everybody says I overact or blow things way out of proportion. I honestly dont realize it, I just cant control my emotions, so i get really angry over nothing, or really upset of the stupidest things, and take it to the extreme, i mean my daily schedule and routine are predictable do the exact same thing everyday, but my moods, my language, my ticcing, my sensory problems, my stimming, my level of functioning are allll very unpredictable, so i can go from rocking in my own world and literally seconds later meltdown to the point i attack somebody over moving my phone one place to the next. To everybody else it was blowing things way out of proportion, but to me, that moment, my scratches on my legs were getting stuck to my pants bothering me, my hair was in my mouth, their were weird noises everywhere, and the flipping of the tv channels was bothering me, so moving my phone just set me off like a timebomb. Anyways Does anybody here ever blow things way out of proportion, but not on purpose, or not knowing their doing it?


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20 Jul 2008, 10:38 pm

Age1600 wrote:
Everybody says I overact or blow things way out of proportion. I honestly dont realize it, I just cant control my emotions, so i get really angry over nothing, or really upset of the stupidest things, and take it to the extreme, i mean my daily schedule and routine are predictable do the exact same thing everyday, but my moods, my language, my ticcing, my sensory problems, my stimming, my level of functioning are allll very unpredictable, so i can go from rocking in my own world and literally seconds later meltdown to the point i attack somebody over moving my phone one place to the next. To everybody else it was blowing things way out of proportion, but to me, that moment, my scratches on my legs were getting stuck to my pants bothering me, my hair was in my mouth, their were weird noises everywhere, and the flipping of the tv channels was bothering me, so moving my phone just set me off like a timebomb. Anyways Does anybody here ever blow things way out of proportion, but not on purpose, or not knowing their doing it?


Yes. It has happened to me. On occasion my mind has a tendency to take things out of proportion and think something is much worse than it really is. When that happens, I will become very obsessed about it night and day. Kind of a meltdown in your mind in a manner of speaking but I will not lash out physically. They may come up suddenly are very intense but will also blow over very quickly as well.


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Bradleigh
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20 Jul 2008, 10:38 pm

Well there is often a breaking point, the thing is that people tend to only look at what it was that set you off but realy everything should be taken into acount. I have done things like this before like had a meltdown and was yelling at my brither who only did one little thing wrong at the time, yet it was the continuos noise that I had that day. I have done it where I get realy angry at someone and then I get told they were only jokeing, but that does not make it any less hurtfull.


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20 Jul 2008, 11:07 pm

Yes I have done it. I used to do it more often, now it's hardly ever. I got upset when I came home from work one night and saw the computer had been moved to the other side of the room and it was sitting on something else. I felt like a jerk afterwards.

Oh yeah and few weeks ago I freaked out when my boyfriend walked on our kitchen floor with his shoes on. I screamed.

Sometimes my old traits slip in.



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20 Jul 2008, 11:33 pm

It's always the smallest of details that be grating on Omar, not the major issue. If you got a torn shirt, you replace it, but if you just got a couple of buttons missing at some disadvantageous positions so your gut be busting out like you in you'll drop into labor at any beat...then things get annoying.

'course you can always them needles and threads and sew that ShirT up...just careful you dont prick your fingers.



anbuend
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20 Jul 2008, 11:39 pm

All the time.


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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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20 Jul 2008, 11:43 pm

Age1600 wrote:
Everybody says I overact or blow things way out of proportion. I honestly dont realize it, I just cant control my emotions, so i get really angry over nothing, or really upset of the stupidest things, and take it to the extreme, i mean my daily schedule and routine are predictable do the exact same thing everyday, but my moods, my language, my ticcing, my sensory problems, my stimming, my level of functioning are allll very unpredictable, so i can go from rocking in my own world and literally seconds later meltdown to the point i attack somebody over moving my phone one place to the next. To everybody else it was blowing things way out of proportion, but to me, that moment, my scratches on my legs were getting stuck to my pants bothering me, my hair was in my mouth, their were weird noises everywhere, and the flipping of the tv channels was bothering me, so moving my phone just set me off like a timebomb. Anyways Does anybody here ever blow things way out of proportion, but not on purpose, or not knowing their doing it?


I do the same thing, I just overreact and obsess on something and cannot stop thinking about it, complaining about it. I don't attack anyone, I just feel really anxious and panicky and cannot stop thinking about something I find worrisome. It usually happens when I have to go someplace that is very crowded like a restaraunt or a movie theatre.



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21 Jul 2008, 12:06 am

Yes. I have and done it alot.

I tend to worry about it a long time after.



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21 Jul 2008, 12:55 am

I have triggers, I guess. It's not really random things that make me crazy, it's the same things. Usual Aspie things, noise, light, crowds, etc.



lelia
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21 Jul 2008, 1:03 am

I feel sorry for the people whose lives I've made unpleasant by overreacting. I am much much more considerate now.



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21 Jul 2008, 1:18 am

Age1600 wrote:
Everybody says I overact or blow things way out of proportion. I honestly dont realize it, I just cant control my emotions, so i get really angry over nothing, or really upset of the stupidest things, and take it to the extreme

Yes, I'm very volatile ("labile" mood/affect as the shrinks call it). When things are bad, they are very bad-when I'm sad/mad, it's accumulation of all the times I've ever felt that way before & I'm mad/sad about all those memories, too. Am not an effective (mental) compartmentalizer.
In the moment, I have awful temper & am easily irritated & become hostile, resentful, defensive. May "know better", on some distant intellectual level, but that carries no weight, has no influence over my immediate extreme reaction-other than to add "feeling bad about feeling bad".
Age1600 wrote:
Anyways Does anybody here ever blow things way out of proportion, but not on purpose, or not knowing their doing it?

Sometimes it's "one little thing" by itself, sometimes it's "that last little thing". Either way, whatever's happening & bothering me now is what predominates & is "the end of the world" for me, according to my perception.
Am never intentionally choosing to be difficult, excessive, or problematic (for self or others). I freak out because whatever really does thoroughly feel like a crisis, unbearable, & I need help. Can't do that "futurebrain" magic trick where one imagines future that holds promise of amelioration, relief, satisfaction, or forgetting-and somehow that "vision" or belief is supposed to enable me to "control myself" in the present & not flip out over every little thing ?


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21 Jul 2008, 1:49 am

Age1600 wrote:
Everybody says I overact or blow things way out of proportion. I honestly dont realize it, I just cant control my emotions, so i get really angry over nothing, or really upset of the stupidest things, and take it to the extreme, i mean my daily schedule and routine are predictable do the exact same thing everyday, but my moods, my language, my ticcing, my sensory problems, my stimming, my level of functioning are allll very unpredictable, so i can go from rocking in my own world and literally seconds later meltdown to the point i attack somebody over moving my phone one place to the next. To everybody else it was blowing things way out of proportion, but to me, that moment, my scratches on my legs were getting stuck to my pants bothering me, my hair was in my mouth, their were weird noises everywhere, and the flipping of the tv channels was bothering me, so moving my phone just set me off like a timebomb. Anyways Does anybody here ever blow things way out of proportion, but not on purpose, or not knowing their doing it?


Yep...and I'm also called immature, told "grow up", ( I'm 46 how much more growing do I need to do?) because I'm told I take things way too seriously. Which is another way of saying , they were joking , usually at my expense and I didn't get the joke.



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21 Jul 2008, 9:07 am

Yeah I do it more often than I'd like. It's always the tiniest thing that open the floodgates for me. One thing happens that changes my plan, I'm okay I'm handling it, then some loud repetitive noise, okay I'm handling it.... then maybe I spill something, and make a mess... now I'm NOT handling it! The world has ended for me for what appears to others is a spilled drink, but it was really a whole slew of things. The drink was just the last straw. That's just one example of how things build up, sometimes without me even realizing just how anxious that I'm becoming until I explode. Evening seems to be my most emotional time. I guess by then my patience are gone.



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21 Jul 2008, 9:22 am

I think this is pretty common behavior, even outside the spectrum. Hence the expression "Don't cry over spilled milk."



Bradleigh
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21 Jul 2008, 9:22 am

Often you start thinking that why have I gone off about a small thing or at least that is how others act and that makes things worse.


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21 Jul 2008, 9:59 am

I think you didn't blow this out of proportion. Not that it was good to have a meltdown, not at all. It's just a bad collection of details that bothered you a lot and thus made you blow up but that the average person isn't bothered by.
Why did the TV had to run? Could you have left? Well, no matter as that is of the past. Anyway:

Age1600 wrote:
To everybody else it was blowing things way out of proportion, but to me, that moment, my scratches on my legs were getting stuck to my pants bothering me, my hair was in my mouth, their were weird noises everywhere, and the flipping of the tv channels was bothering me, so moving my phone just set me off like a timebomb.


If you would have felt perfectly fine, not bothered by the scratches on your legs, hair, the noise, the flipping TV channels but blew up over the phone being misplaced... then yes, I think that would think that's like blowing things out of proportion. If you wouldn't be bothered too much by the phone being misplaced yesterday, but it suddenly made you blow up - while you felt totally fine, totally rested, no other issues - I think that would be like blowing up and like an emotional tantrum.

People always wonder while I get annoyed if I have to read but listen at things at the same time, sit under the artificial yellow light, see and feel people moving around the room, all at the same time...

It's like +1 bothering thing, +1 bothering thing, +1 another bothering thing, +1, +1, +1... and at 20 points I'll blow up.

If there's a day on which you go from like 0 points to 20 over something that's usually just +1 point for you, not a big deal usually, then that's blowing up without reason, I think.

But if there's already a long list of stuff that's bothering you, even if it's not bothering the other people, it's just natural to feel super stressed.

I know other people aren't bothered by artificial lights, by people moving around, by listening to talking while having to read, because their brains allow them to do all this. Mine doesn't, so these things tend to bother me a lot. I also have to endure the regular 'I feel all my clothes, I hear other people breathing, I hear their steps, I hear the noise my pen makes on paper'. I could get along with that, but not if another 20 things come on top.

Uh, sorry if I rambled on. I do got told I'm blowing things out of proportion a lot in the past.

Then I started to explain to people how I perceived the situations, described them what I saw/heard/felt and they were suddenly understanding how come I was so stressed. They also told me how they perceived the same situations very differently.

Usually, they notice a lot less stuff than me. If somebody's talking, they're not that bothered. They can 'shut it out'. I was seeing all these people running around in a bar, really distracting me and the person I was with just answered, after I explained why I had trouble listening and talking to them that 'they didn't really notice all these people who were running around.' All right, no wonder they were okay.

So... maybe you do blow some things out of proportion. I do and I think all people do, sometimes. But your example is something I wouldn't consider blowing out of proportion.


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