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emtatiana
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22 Mar 2012, 8:36 pm

Hi - just wondering if enyone else has uncontrolled and unexpected emotional reactions. Mine are related to music/singing. I can hear a few bars and if it is going to create an emotional reaction, it is almost instant and completley encontrolled - I will either be happy or really sad, to the point tears well up. The reaction doesn't seem to relate to NT understandings of the music either. One of the songs the kids sing at school (happy and fun) makes me cry....
I also can't watch conflict/tension on tv it makes me highly anxious...
anyway of others do have these sorts of things, I wondered how you deal with it. I am generally a control freak and like to 'be in control' of myself all the time :-)
thanks



Aharon
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22 Mar 2012, 9:11 pm

Adagio in g minor makes me cry sometimes. I am very moved by music.


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AspieAshley
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22 Mar 2012, 9:12 pm

There has actually been a fair amount of rescearch done on how music affects the brain. Look it up online, visit your library, etc.
Music has always bothered me for some reason (especially when it is played as background music in a store or public venue which the vast majority of stores do). I haven't read about the subject in depth myself but after hearing about just how profoundly music affects the brain, I wonder if one of the reasons it's so distracting to me is because it's such a powerful emotional stimulus. Even happy songs can cause a person to cry. Do you feel happy or upset when this song makes you cry?

You may be an HSP--short for Highly Sensitive Person. My current phone counselor thinks I am an HSP.


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goodwitchy
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22 Mar 2012, 9:34 pm

emtatiana wrote:
I also can't watch conflict/tension on tv it makes me highly anxious...
anyway of others do have these sorts of things, I wondered how you deal with it. I am generally a control freak and like to 'be in control' of myself all the time :-)
thanks

This is just like me too. I get extremely tense and I don't know what to do when people are arguing and/or have personal conflicts, especially in real life (not just on TV - I just want to run far away so I can't hear it or see it. I'm also a control freak.

Music very much affects my mood as well, but it rarely makes me cry (but I don't listen to sad songs or typical love songs).


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Lucywlf
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22 Mar 2012, 9:37 pm

That happens to me too, especially with music.

I've been numbed to most television violence these days, but when I was a kid I had real problems with it.



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22 Mar 2012, 9:45 pm

Sometimes, but not too much, except when I was on one of those opioid pain meds for a shingles outbreak a few years ago. I took myself off of it as soon as I could manage the pain without it. Reading sad or mean stories, or watching them on TV, or hearing them on the radio can make me act that way, though.

I have a problem with argumentative type radio talk shows, even when I like the host and am interested in the topic. I will often change stations or turn off the radio. My TV is broken, so I haven't been watching fr a long time, but I didn't care for argumentative TV talk shows either. I think a lot of that comes from having been raised in a family environment of argument, yelling, screaming, anger, etc. It was very stressful. When the talk shows get to doing that I start getting stressed out again, just like when I lived with relatives. Now that I live alone I don't have to put up with that much, and I can change stations/channels or turn off the radio/TV, so I don't have to deal with it there either, unless I am very interested in the topic. It's not so bad even then because I know I control the on/off switch. Living alone is definitely better for me.


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emtatiana
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22 Mar 2012, 10:21 pm

I feel all choked up when I am having a sad reaction to a song - even though I may have been feeling fantastic seconds before. Once the song changes I'm fine again.
I grew up in civil war for about 20 years could not watch anything about war, but now it has no emotional impact at all. Now the impact is from people arguing etc in a movie that I am watching, even if I am not in the least bit interested and it is on as background. I am studying and I find it hard to work unless I have noise on too. I used to sit in lectures with headphones on listening to my walkman (which shows how old I am!), reading a book and writing notes. I hate doing one thing only unless I am reading/doing something really interesting or painting/drawing/taking photos.



ellora
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28 Mar 2012, 8:29 pm

I become anxious if I watch TV for to long, no matter what the program. I never watch anything violent or the news, its not worth the mental stress.
Do you notice this in interactions with others as well? I've noticed that I waiver between extremes in relating to others. I am most often very controlled, even cold seeming, I've walked right past crying people without even acknowledging them. Yet, on occassions when I do feel compelled to try and help, I become upset beyond what is normal, extreme empathy, to the point where I sometimes make the object of my attentions uncomfortable and they end up trying to console me instead.
I deal with these issues mainly by remaining detached unless its a situation that I can really be of help in or by writing as oppossed to speaking. as for emotional reactions to music/TV, if I am alone I just accept it and recognize its transient nature, even laugh at myself if it gets out of hand.



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29 Mar 2012, 1:32 am

I actually like being sensitive to music...I mean honestly music can have a quite strong effect almost similar to psychoactive drugs, not even joking about that. But I enjoy it, and for some reason listening to sad music if I am feeling sad helps...maybe it just helps me with getting my feelings out in the open so they don't build up so much inside...but I am not quite sure.


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NicoleG
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06 Apr 2012, 11:10 pm

This animated short made me cry, so I posted it to my blog so that others could cry, because it's one of the good cries. Death and lots of life/living themes ALWAYS make me cry.

Yes, I'm very moved by music as well.

I have a hard time dealing with my emotions because I want them to make sense, and most times they don't make sense. I've spent more time trying to reason out how I'm feeling than anything else. A friend commented to me that feelings aren't meant to be reasoned out, but to be felt, and some situations you are just meant to feel your way through them. This confused me, because I always thought that I should feel one way, and only one way, about a situation, so having multiple feelings about one thing has always seemed wrong to me. I agree with the whole control freak idea, and I'm beginning to think that one can be just as overloaded from emotions (which is just inputs from your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems) as any other input system our body tries to regulate.

This article I read helped me realize how useless it is trying to rationalize emotions: Misattribution of Arousal. This guy has a ton of really great articles that I recommend for reading for everyone.

I'm trying to accept that my rational brain and my emotional brain just aren't going to ever get along.



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07 Apr 2012, 2:04 am

When I watch a very romanitc movies that deals with emotion it makes me feel like butterflys are flying around inside me I feel this way when I read a love story of any kind.



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07 Apr 2012, 9:35 am

I am very much like this with music, any music can make me cry. Even songs I like at first can make me cry uncontrollably after I've listened to it a few times. My reactions to it can just change like that. And some that have made me cry in the past now make me happy and relaxed.


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07 Apr 2012, 10:41 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
I actually like being sensitive to music...I mean honestly music can have a quite strong effect almost similar to psychoactive drugs, not even joking about that. But I enjoy it, and for some reason listening to sad music if I am feeling sad helps...maybe it just helps me with getting my feelings out in the open so they don't build up so much inside...but I am not quite sure.

Yea. I don't even have to be feeling sad to enjoy sad music. I sometimes crave that strong poignancy, if I'm the right mood. It can give me a nice deep chill down my spine. It's better than anything any drug can do.



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07 Apr 2012, 11:46 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
I actually like being sensitive to music...I mean honestly music can have a quite strong effect almost similar to psychoactive drugs, not even joking about that. But I enjoy it, and for some reason listening to sad music if I am feeling sad helps...maybe it just helps me with getting my feelings out in the open so they don't build up so much inside...but I am not quite sure.

I use music as one of my main tools for influencing my mood and calming or stimulating myself. It has a very strong effect on me.


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johnny77
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11 Apr 2012, 1:08 am

Use this to let out pain, increase joy, and some time crying lets off tention that you did not even know you had. Just not in public.



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24 Apr 2012, 5:45 am

A wise person once said that music is how feelings sound. I completely agree.


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