It was a teaspoon.
A standard, stainless steel teaspoon. I was loading the dishwasher - a task I loathe but was dutifully performing - when it slipped from my fingers.
It didn’t just fall. It pirouetted. It bounced off the top rack, hit a ceramic plate with a piercing clack, and clattered onto the tiled floor.
In a neurotypical brain, this event registers as a “Minor Annoyance.” A 2 out of 10 on the frustration scale. You bend down, you pick it up, you move on.
In my brain, at 7:45 PM on a Tuesday, that sound was a declaration of war.
I didn’t just feel annoyed. I felt a white-hot, volcanic surge of rage that started in my chest and blinded my vision. I wanted to rip the cabinet door off its hinges. I wanted to scream until my throat bled. For a split second, I hated the spoon, the dishwasher, the kitchen, and the very concept of domesticity with a frightening intensity.
And then, just as quickly, the wave broke.
I stood there, shaking slightly, adrenaline coursing through my veins for a fight that wasn’t happening, looking at a teaspoon on the floor.
And then came the second wave, the one that hurts more than the anger: The Shame.
The Monster in the Kitchen
If you read yesterday’s Signal Saturday, you know the mechanics of this. You know that we discussed DESR (Deficient Emotional Self-Regulation) and the “Fronto-Limbic disconnect.” You know, intellectually, that my Prefrontal Cortex failed to send the “brake” signal to my Amygdala.
But knowing the science doesn’t stop you from feeling like a monster in the moment.
This is the personal cost of DESR that the diagnostic manuals don’t talk about. They talk about “irritability” or “impulsivity.” They don’t talk about the terror of feeling unsafe to be around.
When we snap - at our partners, our nieces/nephews, or our innocent kitchen appliances - we are often terrified by the speed of our own transformation. We go from “loving partner” to “hostile threat” in three seconds flat.
And when the dust settles, we look at the people we love, and we see that slight widening of their eyes. We see them doing the calculation: “Is it safe to speak to them right now?”
That look breaks my heart every single time.
It Wasn’t the Spoon
Here is the therapy work I had to do on myself, and the work I invite you to do today.
It is never about the spoon.
The spoon was just the final straw on a camel that had been carrying a mountain all day.
If we rewind the tape of that Tuesday, we see the real data:
09:00: An email that was vaguely passive-aggressive sent my Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) into a spin.
13:00: I skipped lunch because I was hyperfocused. (Low blood sugar).
16:00: The fluorescent lights were flickering at a frequency only I seemed to notice. (Sensory gating failure).
18:00: I masked my way through a social call I didn’t want to take. (Depletion).
By 7:45 PM, my “Inhibition Tank” was empty. I had spent every drop of dopamine and executive function holding it together for the outside world.
When the spoon fell, I didn’t have the biological budget left to inhibit the reaction.
The Repair: Moving Beyond “I’m Sorry”
The cycle usually goes like this: We explode → We feel shame → We over-apologise → We promise to “try harder” next time.
But “trying harder” doesn’t refill the tank.
If you are prone to the “The Snap,” you need a new protocol for repair. It isn’t about grovelling; it’s about explaining the hardware failure without excusing the behaviour.
1. The Cool Down is Non-Negotiable
When you are in the “Red Zone” (post-snap), your IQ has effectively dropped 30 points. You cannot process logic or empathy. Do not try to resolve the conflict immediately.
Say: “My system is flooded. I need 20 minutes to reset so I can speak to you properly.”
2. The Autopsy (Without Judgement)
Once you are calm, don’t just say “Sorry I got mad.” Explain the mechanism.
Say: “I snapped because I was overstimulated. The noise of the spoon was physically painful because I’m running on fumes. That wasn’t about you, but I know it wasn’t fair to you.”
3. The Prevention
This is the hardest part. You have to stop being the hero during the day so you don’t become the villain at night.
If I had cancelled that social call at 6:00 PM, I might have had enough fuel left to handle the spoon at 7:45 PM.
The Grace Note
I picked up the spoon. I put it in the dishwasher. I walked into the living room and told my partner, “I am operating at 1% battery. I’m going to go lie in a dark room for a bit.”
He smiled. He understood. Because we have built a system that accommodates the reality of my brain, rather than pretending I’m someone else.
You are not a monster. You are a high-performance engine that is prone to overheating.
Forgive the version of yourself that is just trying to survive a world that wasn’t built for your sensory system.
Build Better Systems.
If you want to understand the “Hardware” behind the “Hangover,” read yesterday’s deep dive into DESR.
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