Avoiding meltdowns

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I went on a weekend trip with a friend recently. Even though it was short, it seemed there were a couple incidents that made me realize that I still have some of the same problems as I did when I was younger. They just don’t go noticed as often because I’m not in situations when it could come up very often anymore.

There was a hiccup in our travel plans, which caused me to throw a fit –a short one –but I had a small outburst. And that put me in a bad mood and my friend working to do damage control. Another problem was when the friend scheduled time for us to spend with his friends, whom I didn’t know. I judge people quickly based on appearances (I know that is wrong, but it happens). I became angry that he wanted us to hang out with people who, as nice as they may have been, were not up to my (irrational) standards of coolness. I did not have the option to separate because of logistics (or maybe I did, but I would have only been able to go to the hotel, where I would have just been bitter and wondering if my friend was having fun without me).

These incidents from the trip remind me of times when I’ve yelled at teachers, friends and coworkers if things didn’t go exactly how I wanted them to. Those incidents were more serious, but I could feel the same part of my brain activating this weekend – the part that causes me to temporarily not care about how others will perceive me as I get things to be the way I want them to be, or fight hard and loud trying.

What should I do when that feeling of needing to get what I want and not caring how many people I upset making it happen? What can I do to be more willing to go with the flow (as in the case of accepting my friend’s friends as an asset rather than an interruption that isn’t good enough for my attention)?

I find going off by myself and sitting somewhere relaxing or quiet helps. It's hard to stop them when you keep getting constant sensory input overload.

Basically what tinky2 said, alone time.

I need at least 3 hours to be alone, draw, shower, browse on the Internet, and listen to music (I have a specific playlist) in a dim lit room that is quiet. In that order. Even at a sleep over I do this. It is important I will definitely shut down or I could meltdown which is worse.

We're not talking about sensory overload here. This is about being in a social context and things not going the way I want making me upset and how to learn to accept things as they come or learn to compromise rather than being a jerk and lashing out.

I know what you're speaking of. I have issues with this sometimes, too.

Does your friend know that you have problems with things not going how you imagined them? Have you tried talking your feelings through with him when it happens?