Paint Colour Led to a Meltdown...

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My partner painted the wall in the dining room....and I had a melt down.

I tried to control it. I didn't look at it, and told myself that given time, I would get used to it. But everytime I'd glance at it, I'd start to shake. Heck I even started to hand-flap, and I don't do that...

Every so often, without any volition of my own, I'd blurt out a phrase, "it's wrong, that colour is wrong," or "it's bad, very bad," and I couldn't help it at all.

My poor partner tried taking me out of the room, tried calming me down, everything...but I kept freaking out.

The next day we chose a different colour, and repainted the wall. Now, even though I don't like the colour, it doesn't bother me in the least!! ! I can look at it, I can walk by it...

It was almost as if my brain couldn't process what colour the first one was. It wasn't brown, or red, or pink, or terra cotta, it wasn't anything. But it was BAD. Until it was covered up, I was a mess.

Now I feel like an idiot, like I should have been able to control it. Anyone else have this, or something similar happen? What do you do? Can you control it? Do you feel stupid if you can't? I feel so bad for my partner...

we just had to move due to the Adjustable Rate Mortgage crisis, and the first couple days of packing and moving I was okay, I was doing a lot of it on my own. Come that Saturday, when the deadline was approaching that we had to be out, I found my anxiety level approaching redline. At one point a couple my wife knows offered to come over and help and the very thought nearly pushed me into a nervous breakdown. They're very nice people, but I've just not been around them enough to develop any real comfort-zone, and between the pressure of the deadline and the trauma of having all my belongings and surroundings in upheaval, I absolutely couldn't cope with the added stress of having to socialize with people I still consider relative strangers. I'm sure they think I'm a complete jerk, but I had my wife call them back and say thanks, but no thanks.

BTW, I had a similar knee-jerk reaction to the color she painted one of our dining room walls, but I kept telling myself, it's the dining room, that's more her space than mine. Then I went to my office at the other end of the house and hid for four years. That dining room's one part of that house I won't miss.

thats coz of routine chance...we as people need someting that stay and more time to prepare chances then nt,s

had meltdown once because I did not like one of the murals someone had painted on the wall...it really freaked me out.
i can look at it now, but it took a while.
I still don't like it.

What was the color?

Their are some colors I really, really don't care for (pink for example), it's okay if I see it somewhere else or someone wears that color, but I would never want a wall in my home painted that color...I'd have to paint over it before I could sleep again.

I don't think it's odd to react to color. Some are just horrible. I get a little queasy from some. It is believed that color affects mood.

Don't be hard on yourself. I just set my computer up on my desk, and am about to have a nervous breakdown because of all the cords, and that terrible humming sound it makes.

We had a bright set of curtains when I was a very small child and I would scream the place down if my mother put me anywhere near them. We believe it was the colours but there was nothing that could be done to make me get used to them.

My wife painted the kitchen a drastically different color and it was a week before I could go in there without feeling like the walls were crushing in. The walls that previously were not noticed, but rather taken as read, were suddenly very visible and upsetting.

atleast it was associated with the paint on a wall

I have issues with what I can only call the psychic vibrations of the area....

An ex of mine used to wear toe socks that were very bright colors, and often two or three bright colors... I had a huge problem looking at them.

So what color was the wall painted after all of that? In my house, every single wall is beige. It's a nice, neutral color with a touch of class.

Have experienced this many times. Have you ever experimented with psychometry - holding a physical object and visualizing it's history and associations by tuning in to it's individual vibrations? Fascinating phenomena. But you can't make a living with it.

Oh, yes - the color of the wall...in my case it was a sort of pastel lemon yellow. Never have liked high yellows, especially by themselves. Deeper amber shades are not so bad. If there's a complimentary color involved to offset the yellow, it's much more tolerable.

Yes, those sound like the phrases I come out with when in heat of moment, confronted with an environmental discomfort.

The most obvious instance I can call to mind is old, but still...at my 5th birthday my mother handed out "party favors"-felt birds on pipe cleaners. Each one had two different colors. I hated the one she gave me-it had dull boring ugly colors. I "threw a fit", was inconsolable, wanted another bird-not the one I'd been assigned/given. My mother got mad & exiled me from my own party & made me go stay in the back room by myself for remainder of time.

I didn't have dx back then. Have had plenty of similar reactions since then, but none have stuck with me so intensely as that one from childhood. It takes me a day or a week to get used to haircut of my partner or of my therapist.

Some things I can't ever get used to. Along the lines of what you said, I just keep muttering, "it's not okay, it'll never be okay-it's just wrong !". Color does have f/x in my opinion & experience, and not merely basic colors, but minor (to other people's eyes) variations, shades, hues, subtle distinctions. I draw "art"-color is big deal to me, and I notice tiny differences between visual stimuli.

When I was younger and before medication. I got pissed some took my 4 $5 bills and replaced it with a $20 bill. And eventually led to the tearing up of the $20 bill