When words fail.

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When I get like that, I just escape. I say, I need a cigarette. Thanks to all the non-smokers, that means I get to walk away from the situation and chain smoke until I hash it out usually by myself. If someone follows, or if I know they will, I tell them straight up that they are ticking me off and I need to chill before I can finish the conversation. Once I calm down a little, it helps me to write things out either as a letter, email, or even complaining to someone else in a forum. But then again, the only thing that makes me like that is an argument where my words weren't working for me to begin with because of people's failure to listen. But I have a strict rule now to prevent that...all arguments are to be done in email. If on the phone, I tell them to take it to email. Since they always tell me what I said and it being wrong because what they think I said means more about what I feel on the situation than what I feel, email also gives me a way to prove what I said. It also lets me write what comes to mind, save as draft, walk away from it for a few hours, and then re-approach it and revise which usually means I re-write things out where my communication is much more effective as opposed to therapeutic. And, it gives me time to organize my thoughts so I can articulate better. It almost with me is a process. If I don't type things out for therapy where I'm really rude, really honest, and a total meanie, I can't calm down enough to organize my thoughts to come up with something constructive.

Walk off... unless someone tries stopping me. Then I lash out. They know I need to get away, but still try stopping me 'for my own safety'.

Also, poetry.

The 'take it to email' sounds like a good solution.

It's too hard face to face if the other person talks over you, stands over you, twists your words, or even if you just need time to think.
If I consistently can't make myself heard to a particular person though, I re-evaluate being around them.

Thanks.. my point wasn't so much a me-right-now thing as that that's how it is for a lot of people.. I guess kids/adolescents in particular. Where they're in a situation where they have no real rights and no real choices and "mom, I'm so miserable, I don't have any friends, I just can't take it" coming from a 12-year-old in hysterical tears on the floor gets no results.. When they say that self-injury is an attention getting thing done by someone who dosn't have the skills to ask for what they need more effectively.. frequently it's that they did, and nobody bothered to pay attention anyways. Ok, maybe not so clearly as what I put in quotes, but pretty flippin' clear anyways. sometimes it really does have to be a life or death emergency for there to be help, and the largest part of the dysfunction isn't on the part of the person attempting the communication, but the person not paying attention to very obvious distress.

I usually cry. I basically close up. Whenever I try to use words I just stammer and always (as far as I remember) end up feeling really stupid and that nothing that I wanted to communicate got across even when people (usually my parents) think they get what the problem is. I've tried the writing them before, but writing my feelings makes me feel stupid as well...so I guess I'm still looking for something that works. Ideally, I'd be able to just say the words, but every time it feels physically impossible to do it (at least the way I'd like to.)