Your weird reactions to severe stress?

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It's almost funny to read the OP, because I just found out my Dad has small-cell lung cancer, and he's refused chemo. He's asked for hospice, and after he released himself from the hospital, I drove him home, stopping only once to buy him a carton of cigarettes. (What's the worst it'll do...Kill him?)

Extreme stress makes me shut down emotionally, to a point that I function on a totally analytical plane without thought to others' feelings. In this state, I've done things like throw out an abusive husband after telling him I wanted a divorce from his scuzzy rectum, and my sarcasm kicks in to a point that it's deadly and cutting. My second husband, darling that he is, understands that when I get to that state, he just needs to leave me alone until I make myself "feel" again. That's probably the worst part of the process, because when it comes out, the sobs and the stimulus onslaught causes me to hyperventilate. It's a nasty process, so I don't let anyone watch. My husband's only seen it a few times, and only after something devastating. The last time I did this was after I found my grandmother dead in 2007.

Physical symptoms...I flex my ankles rhythmically, especially in bed. I also bite my bottom lip, or wring my fingers.

Severe stress gives me crying spells, I lose my speech or shut down completely.

First I will get really tired and will throw up but if the trigger continues and I get too stressed or overwhelmed I will just shut down both emotionaly and physicaly. I loose all sensations and forget where I am and what is going on.

I want to be left alone and I scream and get violent. I start hitting and throwing things, I am yelling and I can cry and carry on, bang my head, pace rapidly, flapping my hands, rocking. Lukcily this doesn't happen very often.


I was pretty bad this morning but I don't think I was severely stressed but I was screaming at my boyfriend to leave me alone and don't talk to me and I had my hand out like a stop sign. I mean I shouldn't have to yell to get him to listen. If he would listen to my words, I won't get any worse and then I get pushed over the edge I am screaming at him and then throwing stuff at him. And that's my fault?

I talk to myself, replay conversations over and over...insomnia, often with muscle twitching in my legs. It can get so bad it's like a 'high kick' except you're lying down.

My ex-girlfriend couldn't understand why I simply had to laugh more than to cry the day she left me...

stimming, tapping forehead, hand flapping around head, which can escalate to delightful little meltdowns requiring the departure of others.....

I forgot a thing I did frequently as child and that is coming back sometimes : to hit violently the back of my hand on a wall. The pain helped me not to explode...

this is a 2-5 mouse wheel spin post. (depending on your font size)

i do not get severely stressed except on rare occasions.
i always have a mild level of stress.
when i have nothing to stress about externally, i then stress internally in a hypochondriacal way.

1. extreme stress.

6 years ago, when my mother went to hospital to have a heart valve replacement, there was <1% chance of her dying from complications . i was only anxious, but not stressed at the time the operation was performed. i did not think she would die.
i was at a shop buying a TV during her operation, and i got a call on my mobile from my sister who sounded hysterical, and she said "oh god mark. we're on our way to the hospital!! there's something wrong with mum!!". i said "is it bad?" and she said "i think so!! please get to the hospital now!!".

i got pins and needles across my scalp, and my lips went numb and tingly. i tried to call the hospital but i could not read the number correctly on my note in my pocket, and my hand was too weak and shaky to hold the phone and push the numbers.
when i got in the car, i could not get the key into the ignition and i tried but i was shaking and i just was hopeless. i shook my bunch of keys violently to untangle them and tried to get it in the ignition. i started saying "oh god don't! please don't please don't please don't please don't please don't..." (about mum).
i got the key in and started the car and screeched out of the car park and through traffic at an insane speed. i nearly hit so many things because my arms felt like jelly and i felt i was going to have a bowel movement in my pants.
for the entire 15 minute drive to the hospital, i repeated only "please don't please don't please don't please don't please don't"..etc in a rapid and rabid plea. i also had an ache in my chest that was severe.

when i got to the hospital years later (as it seemed to me), i parked in a garden of theirs because i could not bother to look where to park. i just sped in the gate and the car went over a gutter and onto a circular lawn where there were flower beds and seats, and it skidded to a stop and i fell out of the car (i got caught on the seatbelt i was not wearing). and got up and ran inside. i pressed the wrong buttons on the elevator and i was a gelatinous mess. she was on floor 5 but i pressed basement and then level 3 and then 2 and finally 5. i had to stop uselessly at those three levels on my frantic way to see what was wrong with my mother.

when i got to her ward, i was shown where to go, and my father and sister were waiting there in a room. they looked distraught.
they said someone was coming to tell us what happened.

then a man dressed as a priest walked in and i knew, and all the circuits in my mind shut down. i dimly perceived my father and sister erupting into terrible grief, but i fell back into a chair and gripped the armrests as hard as i could and said "mmm hmmm" over and over. (in the same inflection like one says "uh huh" in acknowledging something). i said it for 20 minutes and they left me in the room and they all went to see my dead mother, but i was like on a doomed ride to somewhere and i could only say "mmm hmmm".

so i was a helpless pile of goo who added to the drama that day with my meltdown.
meltdowns are where the fabric of control is melted into a soup of incapacity.

i do not go to pieces in emergencies, but if it is my mother, and the emergency is over, and the battle was lost, then i am defeated and that destroys my ability to respond.

it may be said that i did not know the emergency was over (that she had died) at the shop. but i knew that i could not contribute any effort to saving her because i have no qualification to participate in the effort. even if i had ideas to try, i would not be allowed any where near the crisis. the matter was out of my hands, and that was a major factor in my pre meltdown numbness and stupidity.


2. moderate stress.

today my girlfriend had a "lap band" operation to help her lose weight.
she told me at 11 am on the hospital phone that she was the next in line to be operated on ("production line" i thought but whatever).
her operation went for 2-3 hours and at 2pm i was moderately stressed.
the severe experience of my mothers death (when in a low risk operation) conditioned me to feel anxiety and mild dread.

so my response to moderate stress such as this, is to pace alternately through every room in my house and look out every window. i do not know what i want to see, but i look out anyway. when i do not see what i want, i continue to pace and i eventually reach another window and look out it. i also chew the skin around my fingernails, and i nibble the insides of my cheeks.
i inspect my teeth with the tip of my tongue constantly.

3. mild stress.
this is like stress about financial things, or things to do with security of my lifestyle.
* the financial crisis has impacted me and i am anxious to a degree.

* there is a planned 4 lane highway in the future that goes right through my house. the government will force me to sell my house to them so they can destroy it to make way for the highway. my house is in bushland and i have wild animals that i know and love (they are my best friends and i pet them and care for them) that would be also doomed if it went ahead.

* my niece is living rent free in my other house. it is a big house, and i bought the house i live in now because i did not need all the space in the other house, and i was going to rent it out for $1200 per week.
but my niece asked if she could live there while she found a place to live,
i said yes, and she is still there after 3 years.

i can not chuck her out, because her mother (my older sister) is executor of my fathers will and he is worth a lot of money. she also has power of attorney.

she told me that if i throw her daughter out, then i will get nothing from my fathers estate when he dies. i love my father and do not want him to die, but i do not want his money to go only to my sisters as they will spend it on having fun, where i will spend mine on making life very good for me and my animals and tammy. simple goodness.

i already have enough anyway, so i am not very stressed about it, but it is a lot of money i can not ignore.

anyway, that is mild stress. it is the normal everyday stress that i can ignore, but i am aware of. i give it some consideration every day.


4. no stress (leading to internal stress).

if there is nothing at all going wrong (only about 3 times in my life has that been the case), then i will start to become a hypochondriac.
i may have a mild cough and i worry it could be lung cancer.
i may feel a small lump on the inside of my cheek and i worry it maybe oral cancer (even though i am not a candidate for it).
i imagine if it is a cancer, having my mouth cut away and being left with only an upper jaw after the operation.
i actually hate times of zero external stress because i become panicky about my health (internal worry).
something always is potentially worrying to me, and i like it to be external and mild.

In a life threatening situation, I tell jokes. I don't know why. Some of my funniest moments have come while facing death. And I am not one of those people who fantasizes about death.

I find that going to the toilet (lol not actually going to the toilet.. but sitting there) helps...

Something about regaining my own space when I first meet people or am feeling stressed helps me to calm myself down.

I simply get that sick feeling in my stomach. If something bad happens (like failing a college course) I try to forget about it and out my mind to other things.

K9 have you talked to a lawyer about the situation with your other house/niece/sister?

Legal Aid can be quite helpful and it's a free phone call, in this state anyway. You can always contest the will, but that ends up being more money for lawyers. In NSW the laws regarding executors and will are very old and they presume honesty and good intentions on the part of the executor. I had a lot of problems with my brother being sole executor and he wanted to buy mum's house (which he concealed), but it was a falling market then so he kept taking the 'for sale' signs down and refusing to put it on the market. There's a lot executors can do to favour themselves which isn't exactly 'illegal'. I'm not sure which state your father lives in but it would come down to state legislation on wills and executors and a lot of legislation is now online.

I quickly make a hasty exit. I like to spend a lot of time in quiet introspection anyway.

Earlier I bit my hand really hard for a long time.. It looked like it was going to bruise. Didn't tho, I guess.

Severe stress?

I loop my motions or stop moving altogether.