Emotions when stimulated

[daniegirl6224]

Do all of your emotions shut off when you get overstimulated? Like normally I feel emotions extra deep, but as soon as I am stimulated, I feel no emotions

 

[kriss72]

I think for me, it's more like I can't handle them while overstimulated...

 

[Outdated]

I emotionally shut down when I'm in situations I can't really cope with, usually the domestic argument with a girlfriend type situation. All emotions just vanish and I become very logical and pragmatic.

 

[daniegirl6224]

I emotionally shut down when I'm in situations I can't really cope with, usually the domestic argument with a girlfriend type situation. All emotions just vanish and I become very logical and pragmatic.

Yes exactly!!!

 

[Judge]

Do all of your emotions shut off when you get overstimulated? Like normally I feel emotions extra deep, but as soon as I am stimulated, I feel no emotions

In my own case it comes down to select forms of being "overstimulated". I have had shutdowns as the result of being around too many people in too small a space...such as aggressive shoppers in a mall in the Christmas season.

Intense stress when I was employed could also put me into a shutdown mode, when I had to escape being around people period, to recover after so long a time.

Once I shut down, it's as if I go into a sort of trance...where at times I may not know how or when I got someplace to recover. When I don't feel anything at all....kind of creepy at times.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

Do all of your emotions shut off when you get overstimulated? Like normally I feel emotions extra deep, but as soon as I am stimulated, I feel no emotions

Not really, for me. They just turn into negative emotions. It also depends on the type of overstimulation.

When I'm what I call "oversocialized" - too little time to myself, having to socially interact a lot, not enough possibility to wear headphones and retreat from the social setting, my routines disrupted because of people, such as when having guests or being a guest - I tend to get irritable, angry, close to tears, really tense, until, at some point, I'll end up just snapping at people, wanting to push someone. You might picture it as a cornered animal, trying to fight an attacker back through lashing out. I don't physically hurt someone, but I really get backed into a corner, metaphorically. So there's more tension, anger, irritability.

When I'm sensorily overstimulated, like in a crowded area, a store, a crowded museum, etc., I get anxious. If we stay at the animal metaphor, I go into flight mode. I get metaphorical tunnel vision, just wanting to find somewhere quiet. I am also very tense there. Tension and anxiety are mostly present, but no anger. Confusion also plays a role there - I find it harder and harder to listen to someone and to gather my thoughts.

In both cases, I seem to lose control over my emotions at some point. I can't help getting all angry and irritable and snappy, or getting anxious and confused. The only thing helping me then is to remove myself from the situation and be somewhere quiet with no external input, especially no auditory one.

 

[Outdated]

I have had shutdowns as the result of being around too many people in too small a space...such as aggressive shoppers in a mall in the Christmas season.

I think what daniegirl6224 is asking about is quite specifically Emotional Shutdown. I don't have the full shutdowns like I've heard some people describe, I don't shut down, only the section of my mind that processes emotions shuts down.

All emotions vanish. I become cold and clinical, analytical, a machine intelligence. No love, no hate, no anger, no passion, no excitement. Simple straight logical responses delivered in a cold and emotionless voice.

I don't think this is really a part of autism, although autism possibly makes it easier for small children to learn it. It's a common response to emotional abuse as a small child. If someone starts trying to pluck at my heart strings they disappear.

 

[thejuice]

I used to shutdown when I'd get the bollockings/ corporal punishment from parents and teachers or bullying from brother etc.. Then id be accused of being defiant for not responding

 

[thejuice]

Sometimes I'll be shutdown and then all the emotions come out like an eruption and then I'll use something to squash it all back down again

 

[daniegirl6224]

I think what daniegirl6224 is asking about is quite specifically Emotional Shutdown. I don't have the full shutdowns like I've heard some people describe, I don't shut down, only the section of my mind that processes emotions shuts down.

All emotions vanish. I become cold and clinical, analytical, a machine intelligence. No love, no hate, no anger, no passion, no excitement. Simple straight logical responses delivered in a cold and emotionless voice.

I don't think this is really a part of autism, although autism possibly makes it easier for small children to learn it. It's a common response to emotional abuse as a small child. If someone starts trying to pluck at my heart strings they disappear.

Yes this is exactly what I experience. Did you happen to have an narcissistic/ overly controlling parent growing up? Curious if it goes back to that

 

[Judge]

I think what daniegirl6224 is asking about is quite specifically Emotional Shutdown. I don't have the full shutdowns like I've heard some people describe, I don't shut down, only the section of my mind that processes emotions shuts down.

All emotions vanish. I become cold and clinical, analytical, a machine intelligence. No love, no hate, no anger, no passion, no excitement. Simple straight logical responses delivered in a cold and emotionless voice.

I don't think this is really a part of autism, although autism possibly makes it easier for small children to learn it. It's a common response to emotional abuse as a small child. If someone starts trying to pluck at my heart strings they disappear.

Interesting. Yeah, when it comes to the term "shutdown", I think of it in a much broader sense. When all my senses and emotions shut down at the same time, and I must physically retreat to somewhere alone to recover.

When I almost feel like an "alien abductee" who can't necessarily account for lost time, let alone the events that may have transpired at the time. Definitely different from what @daniegirl6224 seems to be experiencing.

 

[Outdated]

Yes this is exactly what I experience. Did you happen to have an narcissistic/ overly controlling parent growing up? Curious if it goes back to that

Yes, my father was an emotional bully, a control freak. If he had a rough time during the day he'd come home and torment the rest of us to make himself feel better. My sister and I were incredibly strong willed and never caved in to him, we were simply never able to submit in that fashion to anyone so we had to learn other methods to cope instead.

Our younger brother ended up being a carbon copy of him, and my mother ended up an alcoholic by the time I was 12. By the time I was 16 there wasn't much of my mother left, just a parrot that repeated his words on demand.

My sister and I both have extreme reactions to bullies, we can be spectacularly brutal too.

 

[thejuice]

It's probably different but I've heard depression described as a generalised shutting down of emotions, perhaps more like a numbing. So it works to mitigate the worst of the pain you feel but it also stops you feeling joy as well.

 

[Xinyta]

I've spent a large amount of my life in a endless shutdown. Everything was panic inducing and stress inducing. Too scared to say anything. Too scared to ask questions. Too scared to share anything about myself in any regard.

Getting hit by a truck recently, has shown me my part of the blame in things that occur, like that.

I personally feel that when I shutdown originally. I was too young to understand the consequences of what I was doing. Let alone how life works. I was so narrowly focused on what was immediately going on in my life and what I wasn't getting. That I disregarded everything else entirely.

I now am trying to dig myself out of that hole I buried myself in as a result of it. Victum mentality, depression, anxiety, psychosis/schizophrenia, and possibly even Alexithyma.

But long story short. Yes. I do think shutting down, does affect the way you feel about things. Shutting off everything and making you robotic and, in my case, following mindless pathing.

I find happiness and other emotions, an elusive thing. It's hard to even understand how I could start feeling those things. Never mind knowing them.