"You're overreacting!"

A Ukranian Ironbelly overreacting at Gringotts Bank

It's easiest to see it in others - the moment when a seemingly-benign question or statement causes an outsized reaction. One minute, everything is fine, and the next minute, someone is yelling and someone else has stormed out of the office!

We all like to imagine that our brains are rational, well-ordered places, and that we have reasons for everything we do. So once you've yelled at your spouse, you’ll be likely to justify it to yourself, "S/he was way out of line! What a crazy thing to say." But we're all capable of overreacting. 

Usually, this wild swing in emotion isn't about the situation in which you find yourself right now. It's more likely that you're actually responding to something that happened days, weeks, or even years ago. Your brain is primed by that past experience, so when you find yourself in a similar situation, you react without thinking. 

In a way, this is helpful. Your brain has learned and you can be better equipped for the future - but your brain can also overfit that reaction to a much less serious situation, too. When that happens, you might be halfway through running away before you realize that you're safe. 

Then, you try to interpret what happened: "If I ran away/screamed at my dog/hit the neighbor, there must have been a good reason for my reaction." And there is! But the reason might be long distant, and you still need to apologize to the neighbor (or dog). 

When you find yourself or someone else having overreacted, try asking yourself when you remember feeling this way before. See if you can find a pattern. If it's another person who is overreacting, consider his/her past. Anything that might make their current situation more difficult for them? 

A therapist can help you look into your earlier experiences to help you understand your current behavior, and then help evaluate whether it's working for you, and s/he can help you understand others’ reactions as well.