Surprises turning into unexpected anger (at them, not me)

[Granta_Omega]

I hate surprise parties, uninvited visits, and most of all, surprise pets (keep reading).

I love animals. I love them more than I do people. I have a macaw and 3 dogs, and I had several cats throughout childhood. About 12.5 years ago my parents decided to surprise my sister and I with four new cats, and I completely flipped out on them, and they were shocked at my reaction.

I asked them why they didn't tell me about it first to give me time to get used to the idea, how I am supposed to just get excited with the idea of having 4 additional cats (6 total), what everyone will think about that, and absorbing everything of how I'm going to cope with accepting new pets into the family giving me only a matter of a minute to get used to the idea.

The next day, I was fine. I bonded with the cats and loved them. However, it made me so angry and my heart started racing and I felt emotionally painful that my parents threw a random surprise at me that way.

To this day, I guess I cannot really explain in detail why I was so upset at them. I simply felt at the time I wished I would have known in advance before just having it sprung on me. I felt everything was going in an opposite direction for some reason and my comfort and security of the animals I had was all shaken given that I had 4 more without an opportunity to absorb it.

Also, in general I just hate people doing spontaneous things, and having to think about my life in a different way than I thought about it the day before.

Does anyone understand kind of what I'm getting at here? Has anything such as this happened to anyone else?

 

[Stacey]

Yep. I don't like surprises either. Thankfully I rarely ever get them.
I like to know what's coming next. I like to plan visits, and I like to know what time it is.

 

[CJinherPJs]

I don't like surprises. Unfortunately though my dad has always had a habit of springing things on me, saying, "We're going to do this today". I remember one day last year, when I had some coursework to do and was planning on using that day to do it, when my dad suddenly comes out with, "We're going to see Grandma and Grandad today, and you're driving". I told him at first, and kept telling him, "I'm not going". My mum eventually talked me round though, and she agreed that my dad shouldn't have sprung it on me like that. If he'd told me a few days in advance, I would have been more accepting. The fact that I don't exactly have the best relationship with my grandparents probably played a part in my reaction too.