When it comes to disagreements

It depends on the topic and the person in question. Generally, I'd say I try to be rational and stick to the topic, but when confronted with unmoveable stupidity or people who become blindly aggressive, I go nuclear and can completely unload on a person, going out of my way to be as insulting and nasty as I can be. It's rare for me to do that, but it has happened.

On emotional or relationship-ish fights, I can go into shutdown mode. All those squishy, irrational emotions are much more difficult to talk about.

I like to argue for the sake of arguing. I also enjoy arguing positions I actually disagree with.

It depends on the person and the situation. If I believe I am right, I am going to do whatever I feel is necessary to handle the particular situation.

2 examples.

I almost got into a bar fight. The girl was trying to provoke me to hit her (including poking me). I held my ground and just kept telling her how I felt about the situation until someone else intervened when it was obvious that I wasn't going to rise to the bait or be intimidated. (I was scared to fight her and my adrenaline level was very high, but I have never been more proud of myself for handling the situation as well as I did.)

I was trying to get a couple of guys to stop doing something that I considered wrong on the ship. They were ignoring every attempt I made to reason with them and continuing to engage in the destructive activity. I went to get help from the higher ups because I knew that there was no way I could physically stop them or even make them understand reason and they needed to stop what they were doing before someone got hurt or something got broke.

BDBoop said:

So what's your plan b? Mine's the shutting down bit, but I'd love to have a means to end it without just screaming "ENOUGH!" and stomping off for a good cry.

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If I can escape, I just leave. Otherwise I end up melting down rather spectacularly and then either exploding or fainting. Last time I exploded, I almost committed suicide afterwards and spent a week in the psychiatric hospital. I'm a little bit better nowadays, but the doctor's still considering putting me back on tranquilizers as-needed for when I have to go out in public.

I think everyone tries to stay rational, but there's something about some peoples responses that almost forces you to respond back. A level of nastiness or...something...that seems to make it a more personal retort against YOU rather than the issue being argued about. That's when I tend to fly off into the stupid with whoever I'm arguing with.