emotional landmine 

Seeing Facebook memories pop up in your newsfeed after a break up

I'm avoiding Facebook this week for all the emotional landmines that they want me to share!

emotional landmine by thegoodex August 7, 2017

Emotional Landmine 

An Emotional Landmine is someone with unpredictable, turbulent emotions, and/or unexpected and extreme reactions to seemingly benign conversation. Emotional Landmines tend to hide their boundaries until you cross them, and seek revenge for the unintentional slight. Some Emotional Landmines may ghost close friends for setting them off, without even telling them that they've done anything wrong.

Some people on the autism spectrum see allistic (allistic means "not autistic") people as Emotional Landmines, and vice-versa. It's important to remember that the neurotype barrier is not a flaw with the other neurotype, but a "it's six/no it's nine" situation, neurologically. Some things that upset allistic people are totally fine and normal to autistic people, and some things that upset autistic people are totally fine and normal to allistic people.

Neither are wrong; it's important to recognize these differences, and acknowledge that other people may not know how you feel. This is not a lack of empathy, but rather, a lack of understanding. If they knew how you felt and why, they'd likely be supportive. Please be patient with people, especially strangers.

Please don't be an Emotional Landmine. Anyone can be one, especially under immense stress, so please be mindful of other peoples' perspectives.

Use in sentence:
"Hey, what happened with Andy the other day? He stormed off like he was pissed."
"I have no idea, man. I asked him how pizza night went, and all of a sudden he blew up in my face like I offended his ancestors."
"Sounds like he's an emotional landmine. Maybe be more careful around him."

Example 1:
"Hey Greg, how's the wife?"
"She died last week, you jackass."
"Woah! I had no idea, I'm so sorry!"
"It's too late for sorry! You should know better!" <-- Emotional Landmine

Example 2:
"Hey dude, how's it going?"
"Not great, my dog is missing and I'm super worried. Last time this happened with my other dog, we had to cremate. How about you?"
"Awful, now that you just trauma dumped on me. Why did you start the conversation like that?"
"Because you asked how I was doing???"
"You're supposed to just say 'yeah I'm fine' like everyone else. Dude, screw off." <-- Emotional Landmine

Emotional Landmine by Majestical Discomfort May 7, 2024