I have to get angry before some people listen to me

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Some people just cannot respect my boundaries and drive me to the point of anger. In most cases, I politely explain to them what my boundaries are and what I want them to stop doing, and they just ignore it. I usually stay pretty calm for a long time while it continues, and just try to explain it in a reasonable way. But then it keeps on happening. And it keeps on happening. To the point that I'm getting obviously annoyed, and not doing anything to hide that. Until finally, they keep pushing me so far I get angry and start raising my voice.
The response most of the time is disbelief, and telling me not to get so angry, that I have no reason to. Which only makes things worse.

For example, this guy kept dropping by unannounced and expecting me to let him in. I told him I hate it when people come by unannounced. Even if it's just for 5 minutes. I told him that if he wanted to come by, he should contact me and ask if it was okay. He figured that texting me when he was at my door was enough. Then getting annoyed that I didn't let him in. I kept telling him I really hate it. He kept ignoring it.
Until finally when time I snapped.
The conversation went in the lines of "I'm not letting you in and you very well know why."

"You don't have to get so angry."

"You don't respect my ******* boundaries. I told you calmly for hundreds of times and you just won't ******* listen (I tend to swear a lot when I'm angry)." He walked off being furious.

But my sister is the worst of all. A while back we went shopping for clothes along with my mom. I needed some new pants. I only like jeans and slacks. Luckily these things never go out of style for men. But there was this fashion of pants with a different fabric (don't really know what tbh) and colors like pale green and pale orange. I really don't like how those pants look.
My sister pointed them out and said "what about these ones." I told her "no, I think those types of pants are ugly"

In my mind, saying that should be enough for her to realize I think they are ugly, and I would never wear them. Not for her.

"Just try them on."

"No, I think those types of pants are ugly."

"But why won't you try them on."

"Because I think they're ugly."

"Just try them on."

This continued for about another minute, to the point I got very annoyed. She asked again and I raised my voice, causing a small scene and store clerks to look at me funny. Even then it wasn't enough for her. At this point my mom had to intervene and tell her "If he doesn't like those pants just let him be", and my sister responded with an eye-roll , annoyed that my mom took my side. Wtf.

After that I clearly explained to both her and my mom that I can quickly make up my mind, and that it drives me crazy when someone tries to change it.

Yet she still doesn't listen. The only times I can get her to listen is when I'm angry and start yelling. I don't want things to go that far, but I have found no way to make certain people listen when I'm calmly explaining my boundaries.

Lately she's been complaining a lot about her love life. She has a ton of collegues and friends she can talk to about it. But I already asked her several times to stop talking to me about it. I've been getting over a broken heart, and listening to her nag about her vastly better love life only makes me think about how terrible mine is. Somehow she doesn't get that having a ton of men after her, just not the type she's looking for, isn't nearly as bad as having to be reminded on a daily basis that the way your aspergers manifests, it's incredibly difficult to find any meaningful relationship. That I feel that it I might never become a father because of it.

Yet again, she doesn't respect my boundaries and keeps on doing whatever she wants.

I don't know how to solve this.

By continuing to stick to your guns.

You could look at your sister talking to you about her problems in a different light, she's trying to connect/include you in her life. Maybe she's feeling jaded as well and the only person she feels she can trust enough is you, her brother. Maybe not though, maybe she is just immature and screwing with you. That's your call.

I've had this happen to me a lot, too--with groups for assignments, with family members, with strangers. I feel as though they look at me and think I'm wimpy or docile/submissive (when in reality, I'm either being contemplative, minding my own business, or using life threatening amounts of energy to restrain myself because they've pissed me off), so therefore it's okay to ignore me. It drives me up a wall.

I wonder if body language might be part of the problem. If people don't give your words weight, because your accompanying body language doesn't match the emphatic feeling behind your words.

I've had this happen too. Some people do this on purpose because they just want to get a rise out of you. Either because they think it's funny, or because they want to act like you're being mean to them when you get mad.

And I think some folks just don't want to be considerate of other people, ever. They ignore your boundaries because they don't believe it should matter. They think you're supposed to just accept whatever they do. And they will keep pushing for what they want until they can get their way. I've found the only way to deal with people like that is to cut off all contact with them, or else severely limit the time I spend around them.



Calmly explaining absolutely does not work with these people. I mean it would be like calmly explaining to a 2 year old why they can't have their way. You have to be very direct and just say no. I don't want to. I don't have to. That's not going to happen. And use a firm tone of voice.

I'm cautious when a person asks "why not" because usually they are looking for leverage, something they can argue with to overcome your decision.

Body language and tone of voice do make a difference. I've had to retrain myself how I respond to people. Like if a person catches me off guard while I was daydreaming, I might respond in a faraway voice and not really look them in the eye. People seem to take that like a green light to proceed, no matter what words are coming out of my mouth (such as a flat "no").

I think maybe you have to remind yourself, the other person actually wants something from you. When you let them know how much it is bothering you, how much you want them to stop, they feel like they are getting the advantage over you. They think they will make you give in somehow. You have to kind of take the opposite stance and act like you have the advantage over them. Because in fact, you do. They want something and you get to make the decision to allow it or not.

The same thing happens to me. I do think that body language or something else I am doing/not doing along with my words contributes to the problem, because it even happens with people I KNOW genuinely care about me, like my family.

I've also had difficulty getting doctors to take my problems seriously (an example was the amount of pain I was in when I was having my back problems.) Somehow, I was not able to communicate how serious it was.

It seems that I have to get a bit dramatic to be listened to, but I don't know how to do that and am not naturally inclined to do so.

I have taught my family that if I have MENTIONED something, the urgency level is already at a 7 or 8 out of 10.

This pissed me off just reading it. I don't understand how they don't respect your boundaries.

This pissed me off just reading it. I don't understand how they don't respect your boundaries.

I have the same problem! In fact I posted my own version of this earlier, problems with asserting boundaries when someone keeps pushing at them.

Kraftiekortie's "Stick to your guns" is the way forward, I think, though it's not always easy to do. You're not alone. My difficulties with this are tremendous.

When I was in a phase in my life when nobody was actually even testing my boundaries that much, of course it didn't cause me problems. But lately I've been challenged a lot and I'm having a terrible time with this skill.

I think practicing a "script" to say and then keep saying it is one way of coping with this.

This has always happened to me. I think they do it just for the purpose to get you angry, and amuse themselves with your frustration.

Many years ago, before cell phones were common and texting even existed, I had a friend (at least HE thought he was my friend) who did the same thing, always showing up without warning and expecting me to be up for whatever he wanted to do on the spur of the moment. I finally found one of those hanging signs that small stores use, that says "Hello! We're OPEN!" on one side and "Sorry, We're CLOSED" on the other and hung CLOSED on my front door and simply refused to answer. Eventually, after knocking for a half hour at a time and giving up, he figured out I meant what I said.