Losing ability to speak when upset

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I went to a professor's office hours to ask her about a grade because I felt like she graded something too harshly. She was being unfair and rude, and I was getting more upset and frustrated. Then she asked me something and stared at me for a long time waiting for me to respond. I couldn't respond. It felt like I lost the ability to speak because I was so upset. Does this happen to anyone else? How should I control something like this?

Yes, happens to me too. The only thing I've found is to control upset when talking to people, it's too hard to talk when I'm upset. This isn't that uncommon, and you don't have to have ASD, either. Though I think it's more common in people who have ASD.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Sometimes I feel that if I talk in such a situation that I will start to cry.

I lose the ability to talk when I am upset with someone,
but I still have the ability to talk with people I am not upset with.
I think I can't talk when upset because I can't put on a pretense of not being upset, which is what I would have to do to talk to them, without seeming like a blithering idiot or baby.
I don't know what to say or how to say it so I can't say anything.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Well, I usually don't lose my speech for good when really upset/frustrated, not as in "no matter how hard I try, I can't get a word out". I just get some sort of "language hiccup", so at one or two words I start to stutter until I "hang up" at some word (repeating it twice, thrice or more until giving up) for good. When I try to rephrase what I tried to say before, it can happen quite often that I just forgot it by that time and then I'm so to say "speechless". This is sort of ironic, considering how that "language hiccup" as I like to call it, causes further frustration, which worsens the situation. Though it's definitely not funny when it's happening.
It can be embarrassing, to be honest, but luckily I don't get upset or frustrated to such an extreme extent that often, I have a fair amount of self-control and usually try to remain calm.

I experience that anytime I'm thrown into a social interaction unexpectedly, or being verbally abused or pressured. It's all back to that neural processing - my brain can't funnel everything that's happening, digest it, and still come up with rational words at the same time.

I think it's more that I get brain fog and don't know what to say.

Hi teacup! welcome to WP. My speech deteriorates when I am upset, usually when I am anxious or scared or nervous. When I am angry I can talk like a tornado! But when I am anxious or scared my speech gets very infantile and it's harder to find words or to make it fluid. I usually start stimming during those times too like rocking or rubbing something smooth or both.

Sylvastor, I like language hiccup. That is a cute way to put it.

YES

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

It's immensely frustrating, because once I calm down (even if it takes days....) I can then play the conversation back in my head as it 'should have gone'. I love the internet - it lets me talk without having to speak. Very liberating.

Oh yes....and I quit speaking entirely. You might instead try to communicate in writing, but what is written is unlikely to be read.

like a deer in the headlights with me.

That happens to me, though I then tend to growl if I'm annoyed.

When I start to get very upset or angry, I start to stammer and it gets harder and harder to force the words out and eventually it's very hard to say anything at all.

It happens to me too, not every time I get upset but sometimes. I feel really vulnerable when it happens, it is like the other person can just run all over me and I can't do anything effective to stand up for myself. I don't have a problem with being assertive, I can do it very well as long as I have my words, it's just a problem of losing my words. I try to back out of situations like that when I feel the signs coming on that I'm getting tongue tied.