Your weird reactions to severe stress?

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Heavy anxiety, with a rather uncomfortable dose of paranoia.

I did some very weird things to tell people I wanted to be left alone, and am glad I don't do those any more... Not going to get into it, but it made a lot of people either hate or fear me. Also, as a note, I can't knowingly inflict harm on another, I just can't bare to see others suffer.

I've been very lucky in that I don't melt down under stress. Sometimes I have a slight shut down, but not catatonic or anything. The only time I can remember doing something totally bizzare was during boot camp for the Navy. We had to go into what they called "the gas chamber". It was to show us what tear gas was and how it worked on people. So all fifty of us in my company marched into this big room with gas masks on, and they shut the door an pumped in tear gas. Then they told us to take off our masks. What I did next was the strangest thing. While everyone else was just closing their eyes and taking deep breaths, I started jumping up and down on my toes and flapping my hands. I got about as Autistic as I've ever been. I would have been embarrassed if I had stopped to think about it, but my body did this all on its own. Keep in mind that this had nothing to do with fear. Our instructors told us right from the start that we weren' doing anything life threatening. Every boot camp company has to go through it, and nobody ever dies. All you do is breath in the tear gas and then walk out no worse for the wear. But what the tear gas did was assult four out of my five senses at the same time. It burned my lungs when I breathed in, it made my eyes water and itch and close, so I lost my vision, I could taste something on my tongue from the gas and of course it didn't smell all that good. I think having all that happen at once sent me into the closest thing I've ever had to a melt down. I didn't calm down until the instructors gave us all an order to walk out the door in an orderly fashon. We had to say our name before they let us out, so I had to come back to reality pretty quickly. Thank God I did or I might not have passed boot camp. At the time I had no idea what I was doing, or why, but since the only person who seemed to have noticed was one guy standing next to me it came and went without any problems and I forgot all about it. Looking back though, it seems like I was displaying my true nature.

Hand flap
finger fidgeting
if really bad cry

The weirdest reaction to severe stress I've ever had... Three nights ago, in response to an intense argument I was having with the person I live with, I had a severe panic attack. I'm quoting from my post over in The Haven...

I don't know whether most of my reactions to severe stress are weird; the extra stimming (vocal and motor) and hitting self probably are. I get various other symptoms: anxiety, weeping, paranoia, self-loathing, psychosomatic complaints, laughter ...

I've started to have jaw, neck and back spasms, other than the usual TERRYFYING panic attacks in stressful situations . Really scary, involuntary and very very painful -and I keep straining the muscles in my neck and have shooting burning electrical nerve pain in to my head.

It's really getting on my nerves, scuse the pun.

I also do all this:

In certain types of stressful situations I can't avoid to laugh nervously but it looks like a crisis of giggles. It can be embarassing...

I often twist my fingers "one upon the other" when anxious... And then I put my nails in the palm of my hands.

What I'm doing when just a little nervous is to snap my fingers a few times (however I needed years to learn how to snap my fingers).

An other thing I do is to flap one of my feet particulary when I'm in my bed.

And, really strange, I tense some of my muscles one by one or all at the same time : ellbows, calves, knees,...

I pace around and hyperventilate. I try to talk to people about it but it just gets worse. Eventually, I just have to listen to my record player really loud to calm down. Preferably, Velvet Underground.

I don't really do anything too remarkble when stressed and just jiggle my leg a bit, in the worst times I cry but that's it. I've never had a stress meltdown or anything. I'm pretty boring compared to you guys, which is a good thing in a way isn't it because I don't embarrass myself with the whole hummy rocky stuff

If It is to much, if I can then I go out for a calming bike ride, or listen to calming music by myself. If I cant get away, it is to much and I get overloaded, then I bite my hand or chew on a finger (not to hard anymore). I almost am never able to talk when I am stressed out.

I throw up and get diarrhea.

As mentioned, I also clench my hands very tightly. I also grind my teeth. But these are reactions to relatively mild stress. When confronted with severe stress, I have only one reaction - shut off, push the feelings away. I have no coping mechanisms. If I don't push it away, I feel that I will explode or I feel like I want to pull out all my hair or stab myself in the face or other very violent actions. If the stress happens to be a person who does not let up once I've shut off, I can get violent to them.

If the stress is prolonged and difficult to resolve, I get a strong desire to die.

This isn't quite what the OP was probably looking for as a response, but I once became so stressed out, overwhelmed, and impulsive that I quit my job, dumped my girlfriend, had to move back in with my mother for a little while, flew off to a music festival that I couldn't afford and proceeded to drink myself into a stupor for three days, came back and went back to college, and generally acted like a crazy person through most of 2005.