Experiencing Trauma when watching Bart vs Thanksgiving

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I know this may sound a bit weird to most people, but there is something that I want to get off my chest here.

Does anybody remember an episode from The Simpsons called 'Bart vs Thanksgiving'?

There was a scene where Bart knocks Lisa's centrepiece by accident after an argument about whether the turkey or the centrepiece should go on the table. Lisa gets upset (obviously) and Homer demands that he go to his room. Bart just shrugs it off as been typical Homer, but then Marge says,

"Yes, you do! I hope you're happy Bart! You ruined thanksgiving!"

It's been at the back of my head for a while, but for some reason I experience emotional trauma when I view this episode, particularly when hearing Marge's response and looking at Bart's nightmare. It makes it pretty much the most disturbing thing I have ever seen, and this is coming from somebody who has watched a fair number of disturbing movies. It's a lot like the Ludovico Technique from A Clockwork Orange, only it's coming from a Simpsons episode.

The feeling I get is one where I feel really stomach sick, and I feel this choking sensation in my throat where it's hard for me to breathe. When I first saw it, I ended up ruminating over the episode for quite a long time, and to this day I get an incredible sense of overwhelming shame from it, to the point where it puts me off from doing anything else.

I have gotten similar feelings from other TV Shows, but this one resonates the strongest, and it strikes me peculiar because whenever I witness strong disapproval from others, it also hits me to a traumatising extent, especially when they are coming from trustworthy figures.

What I want to ask though is what does everybody else feel when they witness situations like this in your own shoes, and most importantly, how severe are the emotions that you experience? Is it something that's fairly common in the autistic community?

I can't think of any specific examples at the moment, but I can definitely relate to this phenomena. For some reason, whenever I'm watching something that features some sort of a child vs teacher/parent/other authority figure conflict, occasionally I'll feel really bad for the kid, like I'm the one being scolded or whatever. In a lot of ways, despite being 20 years old I still feel like a kid, and I haven't "grown up" the way a lot of my friends have. About the only "adult" things I do are work and drink, and even then those activities are fairly common among teens.

The same sort of thing actually happened to me once when I was about 9. We had family at our house, and I can't remember what I exactly did but I was being awkward and upset everyone, and my mum was so cross with me that I felt embarrassed and angry, and I sneaked out after I was sent to my room. I wondered down to the woods and stayed there for quite a while, then I thought it was time I came home. The others had all gone, and it was just my mum and my brother there. I went to open the back door but then stopped and worried about them still being really angry with me. So I played for a while in the garden, then my mum came out to get the clothes in off the line. She still seemed a bit annoyed at first but I knew that if I had been gone longer she would have started getting worried, so I think she was relieved that I was there in the garden. We had a little talking and then I said sorry and we went back into the house and it felt like it had never happened.

Then about 6 years later I saw that episode of the thanksgiving and I enjoyed it because I could relate to Bart.

There was an episode in the seventh season of Buffy where everyone basically rejected her and told her she was doing everything wrong, and that was actually rather nervewracking for me, because I have been through too many conversations like that.

Sounds likely.

I have a pattern of "getting a feeling" or having a sort of meta-thought that some experience or idea in something I am seeing or experiencing is more significant than it seems.

Sometimes this is to do with things on TV or Films. For example, I was watching a not very good TV drama when there was a scene with a man in hospital and near death after a terrible car accident. It was really not very good, but I was suddenly, inexplicably crying. Trying to understand this reaction eventually made it clear to me that I was still having difficulty processing the death of my father several years before that event. In hindsight, it's very clear but at the time it was a mystery.

Another thing is that I remember hearing people say and do things that seemed significant but made no sense, and I know realize they were talking about me, having noticed that I was not "normal." It's almost like part of my mind took this in and was trying to let the rest know, but I couldn't accept it.

A third thing this makes me think of is the intense power of shame and the feeling of humiliation and embarrassment that comes with being caught out in public doing something stupid, or mistaken, or terribly wrong for the context. Those moments come back to me with great intensity, no matter how much time has passed. I think that kind of shame, and often the sense of unfairness at the way your mistake was judged, is extremely powerful and can drive the kind of reaction you describe in the OP.