To not expect to be derided for startling easily

Stop, please stop, hornungthehlpful. This is like reading a horror novel written from the point of view of a smug serial killer with a fetish for self control. I can well imagine you as an estranged gransnetter one day complaining that your children never visit just because you raised them so righty right right.

Don't be so dramatic (again - are you seeing a theme here?). Of course I have both reactions and emotions. But I generally consider that - where possible (most of the time for most adults) - controlling them so that they don't impact on my day-to-day life is sensible.

If I couldn't have a family member play a silly (and unkind) trick on me without crying - and considering crying to be an appropriate response to my emotions - that's something I would want to address. My tolerance for drama queens has gone right through the floor now I have small children, but I can't say it was ever high.

The problem isn't that you have reactions and emotions, but that they are inappropriate - either entirely, or in their intensity - to the situation in which they arise. That you continue to think that you shouldn't have to control yourself says a lot about you.

I startle very easily too, but not for any trauma reasons, just seems to be how I'm wired. I just tend to have a laugh reaction though once I've unpeeled myself from the ceiling so no-one gets cross with anyone.

For anyone saying it's an overreaction though, it is completely involuntary.

It’s like the Katherine Tate skit with the toaster

Yeah don’t worry about it, I used to live in a houseshare as a uni student and one of my flatmates had a boyfriend (now husband) who was over a lot.

The way into the flat was through the patio doors in the kitchen from the courtyard. I’d be working on my laptop on the kitchen table then when they appeared I’d look up and see them and each time without fail I’d scream 😱

Their faces were so funny , they would just shake their head at me goodnaturedly and roll their eyes as if to say Hotskies will never change 😂

Almost two decades later all three of still chuckle over that.

Once a guy in a Lidl car park out of nowhere came up behind me and my friends in the dark and i screamed at him too lol but nowadays I tend to gasp and stiffen. I think screaming was my flight response and now I do more of a silent freeze response.

Agree with all of this. My DH startles easily, I scare him almost every day just by being somewhere he apparently didn’t expect to see me. I can’t actually articulate why it’s so annoying but it drives me bananas.

Yes, with me, presumably.
I have already mentioned that I'm not interested in your advice on 'getting a grip' and 'controlling myself'.
Human emotions and reactions are perfectly normal, and the fact that you seem to have neither is quite worrying.

Apologies - from this I had confused you with another poster

I had to stop watching Ally McBeal after a couple of episodes because the character "startled" every time someone spoke to her and it was incredibly irritating, although I can't really tell you why.

You must be confusing me with someone else. I don't cry, scream or fall down in hysterics. I jump. And sometimes yelp. And no, I am not an anxious person. There are other causes.

Sorry, he was callous to say that. Not to condone it, but maybe he doesn't quite understand that it's involuntary? I've got PTSD from being robbed at gunpoint when I was a teen and knifepoint again more recently (am South African) and I also startle easily. My husband understands. I'd be really hurt if he was mean about it or judged me.

Must be nice to be a big burly man and not have an instinctual reaction to being surprised by someone 3x your size.

Tell him he's wrong to be rude to his mother and he should respect women.

I startle easily, probably due to bad eyesight and PTSD from abuse. I laugh it off and so does everyone I live with, I wouldn't appreciate being made to feel small or ridiculous because of it.

Sorry, long day. Spelling and grammar were crap there

My 15 y/o DS doesn't mean to but he makes me jump sometimes because he can be v quiet, I turn around and he is there, usually in the kitchen, scavenging for food. It always makes me jump.

Everywhere else in the house he noise like a rhino stuck on the bathroom!

Her own son? In the home they both live in?..

He is completely out of order. If he can't understand why a woman is startled when a man comes up behind her then he is completely immature and emotionally stunted! If he can't respect you in your own home then maybe it's time he looked at moving out. If he was living with other people he would learn that you are in the right over this.

Your startle reflex is the musculoskeletal response. Tears, screaming, falling down in hysterics - none of these things are part of a "startle reflex". So even if you do have a very refined one, that has nothing to do with behaving like an adult and having a grip on your horses.

BTW, anxiety and stress both cause a more pronounced startle reflex, so if you are actually talking about your startle reflex then you may want to revisit your view that you are not an anxious person.

If the space belongs to the person, like a bedroom or an office, I knock, even if the door is open. If it is a shared space like the kitchen I say hello.

in both scenarios I am intentionally making noise so the person hears me before they see me.

my husband who knows about my autism and my history of abuse will very kindly make his presence known very loudly from very far away.

It's annoying because a) it makes perfectly normal, every day interactions into a big drama and b) it means everyone around you is walking on eggshells and being made to feel guilty and apologetic when they've actually done nothing wrong. It's just a lot of fuss about nothing, which is annoying for people who don't like needless fuss and angst.

I would also be massively irritated at being expected to apologise for, as your son said, walking through a door.

I jump very easily but we all just laugh it off.

@AppleDumplingWithCustard @CaptainFuture I just saw you already referenced Catherine Tate! That's funny we thought of the same thing.

This would be a great premise for a sketch, I'm thinking Catherine Tate. A bit like the couple who find everything funny.

Being jumpy and screaming at nothing is a disability? Are you sure?

(I have CPTSD thanks to years of child abuse, I jump and get an adrenaline rush which annoys me, but that's my problem.)