Conflict

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When someone confronts you, how do you react?

If I'm rowing with my parents and my dad raises his voice to me, it's like I'll need a few minutes to process it all and then I'll say 'calm down' to buy myself even more time to think of something to answer. I don't mean 'calm down'. Maybe it's like a little mantra. Anyway, it shows the other person that I'm reacting to what they're saying in an appropriate way (although my dad hates my 'calm down' thing, I've explained to him why I say it, but he still thinks I mean what I say with it) and then I can keep thinking. But honestly, it's like I completely freeze, can't talk. Or if two people are talking to me at once, I'll freeze.
Like once my dad spilt something over and it was going to go on something my mum had spent ages painting, so they both yelled at me (not nastily, just urgently) to get some paper towels. I just stood there staring at them, they got so annoyed! "Don't just stand there! Be useful!", like I'm doing it on purpose, all the yelling just made it worse. Does anyone else get this?

Also, do you cry mostly from sadness or frustration? I hardly ever cry from sadness. Mostly I cry (not v. often) because I can't explain what I mean, I can't make them understand what I'm thinking about and time is ticking and it's so much PRESSURE! Once my mum wanted to move my wardrobe a couple of inches in my room because it was blocking something, but I'd got used to it being exactly there, and suddenly I felt completely desperate and down came the flood (nice NT metaphor there for you), which sounds spoilt, but is this a sort of 'meltdown'? I can think of a few other times it's happened, usually relating to change, stuff I can't do much about.

When i get yelled at i usually start yelling, if things start getting mean (i.e insulting start flying) i start insulting.
but if something cuts particularly deep (i.e an insult/comment that hits a nerve) then i get a bit unpredictable, not violent i just have no clue weather i will shutdown meltdown shrug it off walk away or return an insult that i know will hurt just as much if not more or some alternative that won't occur to me until after it happens.

on the occasion when i cry/feel like crying, it is more often then not from frustration

I cry when I think about doing something I don't want to do but am being made to do...like go somewhere I don't want to go. I used to cry thinking about that.
When someone verbally confronts me I either argue with them or tell them it was a mistake or whatever if it's something I didn't do right.

I tend to avoid conflict but when I am faced with it I shutdown. My brother used to get violent with me and when he did I didn't have much to do but guard myself. When I was in high school my friend was confronted by another girl. I had recently lost a friend because she got into a fight and I didn't defend her so I jumped straight in. I remember being awake and what happened but I don't remember doing anything until it was over and then I had to hold my nerves and try not to cry. I figured this must be because it is my usual response to fighting.

I understand what you mean with the yelling. It is not so much yelling but when people say things in haste which puts me under pressure. Things that I could normally do if it was just a simple instruction are impossible when I am under pressure because my mind goes blank.

I cry mostly from frustration and meltdowns. My counselors used to say that I was having panic attacks but I found it weird that I would cry. When I asked them about it they just said everyone is different and left it at that. Might I add I am not diagnosed with AS. More recently I have found out that they are due to emotional or sensory overloads. Situations where I can't handle things anymore and just breakdown. The most recent time I can remember was I was late for an appointment. I was sitting on a seat at the train station when I heard the news from my mother. I didn't even remember I had an appointment. I burst into tears pulled my knees up to my chest and started to rock back and forth. I couldn't imagine what I might have looked like to the people on the platform but I didn't care.

It is hard dealing with things that we can't change and I don't think it is abnormal for most AS even some NT to get upset about.

I hope it makes you feel a little better knowing you are not alone

I shut down. A switch gets flicked and that's that. If I'm yelled at then my head turns into jelly and all the things I'd thought I would or should say just disappear. If I do manage to respond with something it's usually (a) over-loud (b) completely unscripted (c) off-the-wall emotional and (d) irrelevant to what was happening anyway.

I sometimes tear up through complete frustration at failing to explain something, because I can get a whole avalanche of thoughts and everything collides in a heap, but I don't remember actually full-blown crying about it.

I act agitated, but not upset or angry. My emotional regulation is better than it used to be.

I hate conflict. I don't argue, because I'm not interested in arguing in the first place, and because I can't ever say what I mean anyway, so I just end up sounding like an idiot. I generally apologize (even if it isn't my fault, which irritates me) and leave. If someone gets in my face and won't leave me alone, then I'll go into what I guess is a meltdown and start crying, which is really humiliating. It's impossible to talk at all at that point, even if I know I'm right and have a clear, rational response in my head. The worst part about that is that the idiots always win without having to be right or make sense in least, and I'm the one left looking like a loser.
Fortunately, that hasn't happened in a while.

I am still trying to sort this one out in my head. I used to always think that the panic I feel when others begin to argue (whether with me or in simply in my presence) was due to my childhood experiences. However, the more I hear, I am beginning to wonder how much of what I think and feel is a conditioned response, and how much is simply my nature.

When people start raising their voices, my heart starts to race and I find it difficult to think properly. I fear either saying something to upset them more, or since I cannot order my thoughts, saying something that makes absolutely no sense at all and making the situation worse. I generally tend to quietly respond to the person yelling at me until I am so frustrated that I do not know what else to do. Then I will either shut down entirely and stop talking or walk away (preferred when possible). Once I have removed myself from the situation, then I am able to once again start processing my thoughts and feelings.

Yes, I often find that I cry when I am frustrated or angry. I hate having conversations about something I have done wrong or that I need to change with my supervisors. Inevitably, I am almost always overwhelmed by the situation and start to cry. I feel so childish at that moment, and am sure that people above me see this as a sign of weakness. I once broke down sobbing over not being able to explain my thoughts clearly to someone else. I was on the phone with a friend and was trying to tell them something I was thinking, and I just could not find the words to say to help them understand what was going on in my mind. I told them to talk to my roommate for a minute, and then I broke down. I could not stop it, and I do not think I was ever able to fully explain what was in my mind. I just remember feeling like no one ever understood me...

In fact, it is not only conflict, but anything that creates intense emotions or causes me to imagine that intense emotions would be felt by others makes me. Movies make me cry when others might not. Like in A Beautiful Mind, when he is cutting open his arm to try to find the implants and has the moment where he realized they are not there....I cried so hard because I thought of how it feels to realize that you are insane and feel completely alone in the world (this may have been more because the feeling insane and feeling set apart from the world resonated with me). I used to always cry when I saw or heard ambulances and fire trucks because they made me think about people being terribly injured or dying. I cannot stand to see someone/something hurting. If I am not the one tending to their wounds, I will break down crying.

Depending on circumstances, like how the conflict started, how much of a surprise it was to me and how serious the conflict is... I usually either freeze and turn mute while I process what the other person said and how I should react to it, or I get really shocked, angry or hurt and turn mute and have a meltdown.

I usually can't argue back much or well or explain my perspective or stand up for myself during conflicts. I usually lose arguments because I turn mute and either freeze or have a meltdown and can't say anything to support my argument, defend myself or stand my ground. By the time I regain my ability to speak and have been able to process what happened, it's usually too late to do anything or there's no point in trying to get back into the argument because the same thing would just repeat itself when the other person would respond.

I hate conflicts, especially vicious sneak attacks.

I tend to fly off the handle and respond with as much or more anger than was directed at me. I've gotten better at not doing it though. Now it takes repeated or insistent badgering before I let someone have it. I'm not proud of it. It's gotten me in a lot of stupid trouble and worse conflict.