Overreactive to stress or traumatic events

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Is it an autistic trait to be overly sensitive to distressing events, and overreactive, like not being able to get over it, crying all the time, being upset that this awful thing happened and not being able to find any peace or consolation?

Specifically, I've had occasions when a group of people who I thought were my friends accused me of something, not something really serious, but they accused me of being unfair or not nice in reaction to something mean or untrue that someone said. Basically, according to the norm, I overreacted. And then overreacted again when I was accused of overreacting, and as a result people turned against me and I was crushed and despairing. And I couldn't get over it. I felt that I had been dealt with unfairly and then on top of it lost my friends because I was unable to calm down and apologize. Even though I didn't really think I had done anything wrong, apologizing would have smoothed things over and if I could have done it, it would have saved me so much heartache and emotional pain.

More recently, the person I am closest to in the world really did a number on me by suddenly turning a cold shoulder, and I reacted by crying for months. And then whenever I was feeling so upset and hurt that I didn't know what to do with my pain, I would call him and yell at him or, alternately, sob and tell him how hurt I was and ask him why he wasn't trying to make amends. This went on for months.

I feel foolish and embarrassed, even though I was technically in the right because he really was unfeeling and did a terrible thing to me. But in a practical sense, this is no way to deal with either emotional pain or trying to get back into a friendship.

It's weird and unsettling to see myself doing something that if I saw someone else doing it I would think that they were unhinged, and yet I have been unable to not do it.

Is this an autistic thing, or something else?

First, I am so sorry you had this going on. Being in a state of emotion upset is awful, to say the least. I get it as much as I can from my own perspective and I hate that sort of stuff. It makes me feel like I'm dying to crawl out of my skin, my head, and there is no escape from it. Meh.

I can be an internally reactionary person. It's not a thing I like about myself, in fact, it's a thing I hate about myself. I also check most of the boxes for alexithymia. Emotions both overwhelm and confuse me. It's all even worse when it's negative feelings towards someone I have positive feelings for. Arguments, misunderstandings, disagreements with friends, family, partners, are things that I handle poorly. Those things make me feel like they might actually kill me when I'm living through them. I used to do a lot of things I would regret later. These days I know that those moments are temporary, that emotions are temporary. At least I don't generally act on those thoughts/feelings anymore. It still sucks living through it, but I don't have to play 'disaster clean up crew' after the fact anymore. I try to keep it to myself now so I don't cause anyone else any upset when I'm dealing with the emotion onslaught. For the most part I do okay with that containing bit. But damn, I still hate living through it. It still kills me when that stuff is going on.

Is it an autism thing? I have no clue. I am a trauma survivor (started in childhood and had a few crap relationships/incidents in adult life) and I never know if my emotion dysfunction stuff comes from nature or nurture. It can be really hard for me to pick all that apart. At the end of the day, i don't stress much where it comes from and try to focus more on what to do with it, how to be less destructive with it.

Sounds like PTSD to me. Although I don't think you should believe diagnosis from a total stranger. It could be all sort of things, like anxiety, a personality disorder, poor immune system, chronic infection or even nutritional deficiency. If you haven't done it, it's best to talk to your GP and start with a physical checkup. You might even want to talk to a naturopath if you have insurance.

I've had a similar experience with a friend. We are both autistic although I didn't know it back then. We both screwed up in an autistic way. I think that at the core of all of it was that we were changing towards different believes and lifestyles, but we did not know how to mediate that correctly, to the point that we became resentful of each other.

I'm not really sure. Children have tantrums so it may not be as noticeable in a child, so I don't know if my reactions were exaggerated or not, but I think yes, they were.

As far as frequency, it only happens when something that I think is terrible happens, so it's fairly uncommon (every few years), but then this feeling of being unable to take it lasts for months and years. On the other hand, I avoid things so much that if I was out in the world interacting with people all the time, then maybe it would happen all the time. I don't have a job and don't really have friends so I don't deal with people a lot.

I'm not sure if this answers your question.

Bee33, the reason I am asking you these specific questions is that as far as my doctors and therapists know, I am the only person they have ever heard of who has been able to survive to adulthood having this particular issue that I have. That is why it is important to know if you might have it also or even if you might have something similar or related to it.

I do believe that it's an autism trait because I'm almost exactly the same way. Every time someone I love is sick, I want to hurt myself because I feel so guilty that I can't take their pain away. I also worry excessively about them when I can't be with them. Say for example if my friend writes to me and says she doesn't feel good, I ask what's wrong with her. Then, if she tells me she has a headache, her back hurts, and she has a cold, I feel sad and anxious. She'll always say "enough questions. Too many questions make me feel sick." It's hard though because I want to constantly be there for her and I want to take her pain away, but I can't. I rarely get headaches, but I have a high pain tolerance so I would much rather take the headache myself than know my friend is in suffering and I can't stop it.

As far as you mentioning the closest person to you betraying you, I have a best friend of over 13 years who's not invited me to her wedding. This is despite the fact that we talked about everything all the time and I thought we were close like sisters. This has been one of the most difficult things I've ever had to deal with. Others include my ex transgender boyfriend who broke up with me 9 years ago and finding out that the child I mentored moved away 2 years ago.

I have a lot of emotional scars on my heart and crying doesn't always help. Sometimes I cry at night for a few minutes and it just makes me tired and puts me to sleep, but it doesn't seem to make the pain go away. I'm currently working on finding a new therapist to talk to because I let a suicide note 4 Tuesdays ago when I decided the only way to end the pain and feel better is to die and be with God. Yesterday, my dad made me promise to never commit suicide ever. That was the hardest promise to make. Long story short, I feel your pain.

Maybe you have OCD as Co morbid like myself if so yes any trauma you will find a nightmare to get rid of.

Seems like time is the only releaver, after a while the pain and thinking reduce but sometimes be replaced by the next trauma.