An overwhelming feeling of something being not right

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In certain situations I get a very strong, visceral feeling that other people seem to not experience.

My mind just keeps thinking "This isn't right" over and over again even though logically it makes no sense to be so upset. I feel all weird, (I don't know how else to describe the feeling) and like I'm about to have a complete meltdown. I can control this feeling if I can get away from or fix the situation, but for an hour after I'll feel very tense and upset usually with a very strong urge to hit my head on something repeatedly.

This seems to happen in situations such as something being asymmetrical or not aligned "correctly" somehow. I also seem to have an eye for color and composition when making artwork that a calmer version of this feeling directs.

Sometimes when I have this feeling I can't even figure out how something isn't "right" I just know it isn't.

It also occurs to a slightly lesser degree when someone does something differently than how I would do it. Once I got very upset because someone living with me folded pastry dough differently than how I would when making pastries. D:< The shape was all wrong and different.

My question is: Can anyone else relate to this? Is this normal at all? What is this? D: I'm sick of not understanding.

Last edited by Makar on 04 Dec 2013, 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I get that feeling, mostly in relation to change in my life, for example I went to my supermarket the other day and they changed the layout and I was thinking it was not right the whole time I was there, I feel its a anxiety about my environment or situation but you cant really pinpoint why you find it a problem which is annoying

It is extremely annoying D: I can't identify most of my emotions unless the emotion is very strong and has a specific physical feeling accompanying it. For example I know when I'm very anxious because I get strange sickly stomach feeling and I feel very jittery after something bad has just happened. It's very frustrating to not know really what I'm feeling or even why without guessing or over analyzing the situation.

Last edited by Makar on 04 Dec 2013, 8:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sounds like a form of paranoia to me.

yeah I sometimes have trouble with what I am feeling, its really quite hit and miss with anxiety sometimes I know what it is sometimes not.

Have you noticed that the not right feeling is connected to specific situations, you might be able to find a common factor in where you feel the not right feeling

I don't think it's paranoia. I never worry about it happening and it seems to happen mostly when I'm already overwhelmed or stressed. It's very similar to how I feel when my clothing is too overwhelming due to tactile sensory issues.

I think it's mostly connected to when something in my environment isn't the way I feel it needs to be. Or sometimes when things are different from how it's been before. I wish I could clearly explain this. I also feel this way (though less upset, it just feels wrong) if I'm pacing and I for some reason have to change my pacing route.

yeah that's exactly when I get that feeling as well I understand completely what you are saying not with the pacing but with the environment. I recently had to come back from university because of being in such a different environment made it impossible to cope, that feeling of it being wrong was intensified and it went on for weeks along with mood swings.

You described perceiving things not aligned-correctly as some sort of huge "threat" when it isn't. That's being paranoid.

there is no real thought process to it though, with myself anyway which I think its what the op is describing there is not a thought of something is a threat but more just an emotion I think its a bit different from paranoia but its hard to explain.

from what I have read paranoia relates specifically to perceiving people as a threat and excessive distrust of people

The basic definition of paranoid is "imagining threats that aren't there" like what the OP described. Doesn't have to be exclusively other humans. Also, note in my first post I said "a form of paranoia".

You could be right. Personally I was hoping this was an aspie trait. To be more specific about aligning issue: The incident I had in mind when describing it this way was once I was reorganizing a very large pantry/storage cabinet in my house. I spent quite awhile carefully organizing everything inside the cabinet into categories by what type of food it is ect. and I was feeling a bit exhausted and overwhelmed because I feel the need to have everything organized correctly or it makes me feel a bit upset. I started noticing that the cabinet itself was actually unevenly aligned between two walls and sticking out more on one side (it was suppose to be exactly in the middle) and so I tried to fix it. It was so large I couldn't move it at all. For it to be "right" I needed to fix it but I couldn't and once I had noticed it I couldn't stop noticing it. I tried to get someone else to help me move it but they couldn't get it right either. By that point I was so frustrated with that WRONG feeling I had to spend some time by myself for a while in order to not completely explode.

I'm normally a pretty calm person and this isn't an issue for me often, maybe once a month or less. It's just such a strangely specific and irrational feeling I find it confusing.

I have something like that, too. It could be quite disrupting and stressful. I was thinking it's related to OCD.

Yeah, I think we're talking about the same thing. Every time I move somewhere I get something like a mild agitated depression for a minimum of 4 weeks. I feel out of place and like I need to do something but I don't know what all the time and then it just spirals down from there. It actually took me going on vacations or moving a few times to figure out the pattern. At the time I couldn't figure out what was actually wrong.

Last edited by Makar on 04 Dec 2013, 8:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The more I talk about it the more it sounds that way to me. This really is the only symptom of OCD I have if that's the case. It's also not frequent enough to seriously impact my life. I've read that people on the spectrum can have OCD type traits without having actual OCD, so I was kind of hoping it was something like that.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I was initially diagnosed with OCD. Then only recently with ASD. Now I think it was ASD all along rather than OCD. The OP's description also sounds like OCD-like ASD traits.