Is there a noun that means "the state of being flustered"?

I was writing a bit just now and found myself typing the word "flusteredness", which gets the meaning across but is rather awkward and decidedly non-standard.

Is there a more common or natural word that means roughly the same thing?

Instead of saying something like “Pat had noticed my frequent flusteredness. . .” you could use:

• “agitation”
• “bewilderment”
• “befuddlement”
• “discombobulation”
• “disquiet”

There’s also “dithers” and “tizzies” to consider for different constructions.

I’m rather fond of “discombobulation” if I had to pick just one.

One obvious noun for "the state of being flustered" is ... flustration. Writing in the late nineteenth century, Farmer & Henley, in Slang and Its Analogues (1893), list it as being "old and colloquial":

FLUSTRATION, subs. (old and colloquial).—Heat; excitement; bustle; confusion; FLURRY [in the sense of "agitation"].

[Example] 1771. Smollet, Humphrey Clinker, I., 126 "Being I was in such a flustration."

[Example] 1843. Major Jones' Courtship, viii, "The old woman's been in a monstrous flustration 'bout the comet."

[Example] 1847. Porter, Quarter Race, etc., p. 177. "My wife is in a delicut way, and the frite might cause a flustration."

[Example] 1848. Jones, Studies of Travel, p.21. "The old woman was in such a flustration that she didn't know her lips from anything else."

[Example] 1872. Mortimer Collins, Two Plunges for a Pearl, vol. II, ch. vii. "Then was this pretty little actress whom he admired in a great state of flustration."

The word remains in use today, but it has never escaped the ignominy of being excluded by, for example, the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary series. Owing to its status as a word not in good standing, it can be damaging to the credibility of people who use it in serious writing—people like Martin Loosemore, in his book, Crisis Management in Construction Projects (2000):

When parties abuse their illegitimate power, weaker parties, who may be in the right, suffer unduly. This causes malevolence, flustration, and the potential for conflict. Try to ensure fairness in the bargaining process.

On the other hand, there is something quite evocative in this comment from William Gormley, Jr., The Politics of Public Utility Regulation (1983):

What then, can we conclude about the politics of public utility regulation? It is a visible process that frustrates participants who lack political support. It is a technical process that frustrates participants who lack expertise. It is an expensive process that frustrates participants who lack resources. It is a controversial process that frustrates participants who make authoritative decisions. In the patois of the deep South, the politics of public utility regulation is the politics of "flustration."

It may be tempting to read flustration here as being simply a regionalism for frustration, but I think it is perhaps more accurately viewed as an amalgam of two notions: being frustrated and being flustered.

If you fear the ill effects of using flustration (and I certainly would), you might opt instead for pother, which Merriam-Webster's accepts as being a word above suspicion, and which means much the same thing as flustration, to judge from its entry in the Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003):

pother n [origin unknown] (1591) 1 a : confused or fidgety flurry or activity : COMMOTION b : agitated talk or controversy over a trivial matter 2 : a choking cloud of dust or smoke 3 : mental turmoil.

Definitions 1a and 3 seem most on point here.

Disconcertment and Discomposure (antonym of composure: what you would lose in a flustered state) would be good alternatives to "flusteredness"

It's less common than its use as a verb, but "fluster" can be used as a noun to refer to the state. It's most commonly used in the phrase "in a fluster".

Depending on context, you might try tizzy. It's a bit lighthearted but fits the bill.

tizzy |ˈtizē| noun (pl. tizzies) [ in sing. ] informal

a state of nervous excitement or agitation: he got into a tizzy and was talking absolute nonsense.

Most of the suggestions here seem to relate more to pure confusion, but a tizzy is just as likely to result from surprise, even at an event that should have been expected.