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[Scoops Novel]

I'm curious as to whether there's any well defined term of thinking you're emotional and logical response is out of sync and overcompensating as a result, or simply being worried about becoming something worse, reasonably or not, and overcompensating? Say, reading of something terrible, evoking a emotional response, but one which your logical response too is far more severe and forcing yourself to evoke a stronger emotional response? Ah, humanity. A nest of contradictions.

[Tylui]

Wh... What? You example isn't very exampleish. Like laughing at an obituary?

[Scoops Novel]

Nah, rather having a negative response, and then feeling that you haven't had a sufficiently negative response. Like stopping smiling after hearing about a brutal death, go back to continuing what you were doing and recognizing on an intellectual level exactly how bad that was and forcing yourself to picture it in the worst possible light, as if to sate your lack of emotional response. Say, scrunching your eyes as hard as you could while you did so.

[Tylui]

I have the opposite reaction... I tend to never look at anything emotionally ever. I'm pretty sure this is known as "repression" and it's probably why dog food commercials can make me very emotional if I'm particularly vulnerable.

[Scoops Novel]

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[Ogdibus]

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[Scoops Novel]

A form of OCD triggered by intrusive thoughts sounds about right. "According to Baer, suppressing the thoughts only makes them stronger, and recognizing that bad thoughts do not signify that one is truly evil is one of the steps to overcoming them.[9" He's right, with myself at least that was crucial, though i never believed it in the first place. It was a "niggling" doubt that i didn't completely pin down however. Derealisation may have been an aspect of it though in a inverse way, as i wasn't fully recognizing that the emotional response from say reading depressing events in a poor-ish book and witnessing an event are going to have varying strengths.

[Ogdibus]

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[Shook]

Another possibly applicable term would be Cognitive dissonance, though i'm not quite sure on that. I mean, it does cover the whole "two conflicting thoughts" idea, so it might be right.

[martinuzz]

Repeated exposure to negative stimuli will invoke a less severe emotional response over time. There's nothing abnormal about that.
Example:

1) You see a child rape scene, uncut. You are utterly traumatized.

2) A Police investigator from the sex offense department sees the same video. He has unfortunatly seen similar videos hundreds of times, and doesn't even blink.

What you could be confused about is, whether your reduced emotinal response to it's trigger is 'normal'. I can tell you that there's nothing abnormal with being numbed by repeated exposure. Everybody is, at least since the introduction of mass media. It is possible that your being aware of this numbness conflicts with your social views, or if you will, your conscience. Nothing wrong with that. It would only show that you care. Do try not to overcompensate though.

[Scoops Novel]

It's mostly a past problem. I've just been trying to define it. Thanks Bay12ers!

[Imp]

Makes me think of blunted or flat affect, of being consciously aware of the difference between your actual experience and what you expect that your actual experience should be, and attempting to compensate(lie/act/force reaction).

Wikipedia describes blunted affect:

Blunted affect is the scientific term describing a lack of emotional reactivity (affect display) on the part of an individual. It is manifest as a failure to express feelings either verbally or non-verbally, especially when talking about issues that would normally be expected to engage the emotions. Expressive gestures are rare and there is little animation in facial expression or vocal inflection.

...flat or inappropriate affect, with splitting of feelings from events...feelings seem flat instead of being in contact with what is going on...

...a "dissociation between reported experience of emotion and its display" – supporting the suggestion made elsewhere that "blunted affect, including flattened facial expressiveness and lack of vocal inflection...often disguises an individual's true feelings': thus feelings may merely be unexpressed, rather than totally lacking.

[Tylui]

A form of OCD triggered by intrusive thoughts sounds about right. "According to Baer, suppressing the thoughts only makes them stronger."

A couple of times a day I get a particularly brilliant thought about some subject or other and immediately my mind goes to "Oh crap don't forget this one, like you did the last!" and I start a mental panic and usually will forget the entire train of thought that I wanted to keep, no matter how much I thought about it before losing the thought...

Crap I lost the game. Hmm I see many similarities here.