My roommate's friend just brought in her friend, this girl I've never met before, into me and my boyfriends bedroom and said "I think you two would get along!" and left for 20 minutes. I went pretty quiet, trying to small talk a response here and there, but we had nothing to talk about. I was incredibly uncomfortable. My home and particularly my bedroom is my safe space, after a lifetime of having dysfunctional homes. I'm also autistic so I have trouble talking to strangers in general (especially women, I don't know why I just have so much trouble generating dialogue with them. It feels so fake. P.S. I am a woman) but if I'm somewhere else I can leave.
My safe space is like..holy territory to me. Having a stranger in it makes my safe space feel dangerous, and I go into fight or flight. All of me tenses. Suddenly not a bone, muscle, or thought in me is relaxed, in a space that I'm usually able to be myself in completely. It's so triggering. I just want to tell them to leave, so badly, when something like that happens. She was in our room for 20 minutes and I had to disassociate for an hour to recover from how burnt out it made me.
Does anyone else experience this?
Very much, yes! I’m a very extroverted person that rarely meets a stranger out in the wild, but I am very protective and territorial over my personal spaces. It’s easy for me to feel intruded or threatened when a neighbor tries to come over unannounced or uninvited, and I can not imagine how uncomfortable that must have been for you. I enjoy having company when I am doing the inviting and have plenty of time to mentally prepare, but I have rarely ever invited someone into my bedroom aside from close friends/family. That was a complete invasion of privacy and totally uncalled for.
I’d definitely have to have a conversation with said roommate, as this feels extremely inappropriate and disrespectful and I would be sure to place heavy emphasis on making sure nothing like that happens again. I likely would have responded in anger and panic, jumping up immediately and insisting that we go to a more open and shared space such as the living room or even sitting at the kitchen table or outside if the weather is appropriate. Trying to force ourselves to remain present and calm while in fight or flight can take such a mental toll and is exhausting. I almost always fall into a multiple hour comatose-like nap to reset afterwards. To some extent you probably felt like you were fighting for your life and I think your reactions and feelings are appropriate in this context. I’m pretty sure I am also on the spectrum, so my opinion is completely subjective of course. But all this to say, your feelings are totally valid and I actually admire you for holding it together so well, because I would have had a high speed come apart!