In my idiom, at least, "kind of" is not solely deminisher, but can also be an approximater - to say something "kind of upset me" _could_ mean "it upset me, but

In my idiom, at least, "kind of" is not solely deminisher, but can also be an approximater - to say something "kind of upset me" _could_ mean "it upset me, but not a great deal", or it could mean "it had an effect on me which is complicated and difficult to concisely describe, but which can be approximately described as 'upset'". In that reading, this isn't a contradiction at all - "which honestly had an extremely large effect on me which was similar to, but not entirely the same as, being upset".