How do you handle emotions?

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I get very easily excited and overly entusiastic, or so i'm told. I get excited about very strange things too, and people often look at me strangely when i'm acting hyper and happy.
I do have a bad temper though, or rather i hand stress really badly and get tense and grumpy for very shallow reasons, this goes up and down, but it can make me hard to live with. I've only really lost my temper a very times, but when i do i see red, forget what i do and then 'wake up' later to realise that i've frightened someone, hit someone(this happened once) or broken somethings. Thankfully this has only happened three or four times.

Stress is something i've learnt to deal with quite well which is why i don't blow up much and i cope by retreating into my interests and cutting myself off from the outside world. i do this with people and emotions too. People have told me that i'm not very affectionate and that i am aloof and stand offish (which is true)It is only by cutting myself off from people for periods of time that i can preserve my staus quo. If i am trapped and unable to escape, stuck in some very stressful situation or without a book or something to escape in to then i am in trouble. And i do one of too things, phase out, or get angry.

When i was younger i used to get angry much more often, i would snap and snarl at everyone and hated to be disturbed. I'm much better at controlling it now but i still get stressed, i just manage my actions better.

I have very vague "pictures" in my head of being very "spastic" when I was a child and happy /excited...jumping around,doing alittle dance or singing a silly song,making noises...This pretty much disappeared by 15 or so...lost the ability to feel this happy...now I am "happy" in the absence of pain,depression or anger...The closest I can get to happy is watching my cats or bunnys do something silly or cuddling them...There are things I enjoy but happiness seems a far away concept and I am actually annoyed around people who are very smiley or "cheerleader exuberent"...Though I still like people who act "childish/silly happy"...

I was "trained" by the family that adopted me...that sadness and anger are not exceptable, they were very strict and I learned pretty earliy to cry silently and never talk back to them...I was with a temporary foster family for awhile and they were always screaming and throwing things and I hated the noise ,so I have never been like this....I tend to walk away...mumbeling my rage under my breath and go into my room and complain to my stuffed animals ....or curl up with them and cry(grade school and Jr High)by High school I would cut myself or bang my head on walls,or use alcahol or sex to escape my feelings...

Now that I am sober and dont have those escapes I am again having difficulty with my anger at work...the apathy of co-workerss and one client who is OCD and talks ALL the time ,are driving me insain...I would never act violently, but I walk away and scream in my head,have a cigg and come home and complain to my boyfriend(poor guy)...I havent resolved this but am scheduled to start seeing a therapist who specilizes in aspergers and hopeful can find a job that is less stress inducing .
I really dont feel that I am going to be able to overcome what triggers me,just try and find a place where I dont have those triggers...

My reactions to negative emotions are to either explode in anger or implode in sadness-I get weepy or enraged. I dislike feeling these emotions so strongly-my intellect can't restrain my emotions sufficiently.
Can't absorb/take in more than certain level of positive emotion, I've nowhere to go with it-other than laughter. When I do feel okay, there isn't much more beyond that I can really feel. I can be excited about a trivial thing that I like, but my enthusiasm is fleeting.
Having low self-esteem, I feel uncomfortable being praised yet I want to feel good about myself. Means I have difficulty believing anyone who says positive things about me. Compliments make me squirm, despite my wanting to be liked. Can't figure out way to tolerate (or evaluate) others' views of me, or how to be less judgemental towards myself.
My emotions (and my physical/sensory sensitivities) weren't taken seriously or considered important when I was growing up. I was (and am) stubborn (esp. about refusing things I dislike), but obedience & intellect were priority to my family. Wasn't dx'd AS 'til I grew up, so there were no excuses made nor insight available for my behavior. As an adult, I can spend less time fighting against others' ideas about what's right for me. Instead I can put my efforts into sorting out my tangled mentality (both past & present).

I usually keep myself on an even keel. But when somebody says the wrong words about the wrong thing, or they treat me like a Loser, I get very hurt and I fall to pieces. I find it very hard to forgive that person for a long time. Another thing that I might do, is tell that person how I might change to please them, which I haven't done since the last Week of December.

Sometimes I'm completely overwhelmed by positive emotions. If I'm happy or excited about something, it's just like an excess of energy I can't get rid of, and I act like I'm high on something. Every so often I have to go somewhere quiet and jump up and down for a while to try and get rid of it.

I feel like I'm all or nothing-- either very emotional or completely blank. I don't know if the "blank" is just feeling distant from my feelings or what. The "blank" is something I have begun to feel more and more as I get older.

Throughout my life I have tried to figure out ways not to get too emotional about things. Sometimes I am able to just turn it off, other times it is hopeless and I get swept away by this ferocious current of emotion. It's hard.

while i do have issues with emotions, i have found that i can supress a lot of my immediate irrational (?) rxns, at least to the observations of people around me. im told that i most often have an expressionless face often when ppl talk to me... ive always thought of it kinda like being in the military... when they get all in your face and try to make you flinch. it has worked for me, to control more of the negative feelings that fill me in response to [whatever] in many social situations...

only thing that sux is that i think most of this adaptation works in a social situation where i know there are strict boundaries and i know i can't react the way i feel like doing... i think this is kind of why ive adapted this blank face, cause i dont know when i overstep them so it's kinda like an all purpose safety net....

but one thing ive found when i date someone... i kind of lose some kind of inhibition and i tend to be a real b***h to whomever im with whenever somethin disagrees with me... somehow i know im being unfair or mean or... i dont know... but i can't help it and at the same time, i don't feel like im wrong for my responses and this kind of acts to reinforce the behavior... it's almost like an outlet..... lemme tell yah, it does nothin for the relationships... and i've tried repressing even these outbursts in more recent relationships... but that just leads to more crap.

so i dunno guess ill figure it out sometime

It depends on my prior mood, and the intensity. Basically if I was happy before a negaitve emotion hit, I'm more likely to be able to control it, as long as it's not extremely intense. If I was somber (which is usually the case at home) or if it's really intense, then it's harder for me to, and I tend to struggle and accidentally make an ass of myself. I try to always appologize for it later.

My experience is that I let my head rule. All decisions come from there. My emotions are team players that feed into my head. I allow and enjoy muted emotions, but never allow them to rage unchecked.

I can also enjoy emotions through someone else that I'm close to enjoying them. When my wife is thoroughly engaged with something or laughing or afraid, I can feel that. Before her, this never happened. Since her, I've enjoyed it, mostly through her but on rare occassions, through others.