Kid-1 fired this missile at me this morning. It hit hard for two reasons. First of all, it really says something about how he sees his father. I love Hubby dearly and he loves us too. But he sure has a temper. And it's rather fragile. It doesn't normally take much to set him off. Once he's pissed, all hell is going to break loose. He has a naturally loud voice and when he's mad it gets much louder. Then comes the word vomit. He goes off on a rant that would rival my mother though without as many insults. Heaven help the person who tries to stand up to this. Then he gets so mad that things may get physical.
I work with him all the time to try to curb this. When he's "in a mood" as we say around here, I will try to prevent the things that bother him and intercept him before he goes off on the children. I take responsibility for it and I take the heat for it. If I can't get in between him and the kids, I try to slow him down. This often backfires and I catch twice the hell he was dishing out to them but at least it's not raining down on the kids. And I have been known to flat out stop him in his tracks. I have yelled at him (yes, in front of the kids. Sorry, but he needed an intervention immediately) and once I even squared off against him before he could touch them when he was getting violent. Again, that doesn't end well but it ends with the kids safe.
I know this affects them. We talk about it afterwards and I try to reassure them that they are okay and that he is overreacting. They know that they can come to me to help head off something before it starts or to soothe hurt feelings afterwards. I know they are aware that this is just how Hubby is but that we are working to improve it. And yes, I know that there are times when they are frightened of him. (I am too at times!)
I just didn't realize how strongly they felt. Kid-1 said that to me while listing out the myriad of reasons why I obviously don't care about him. He told me that I am starting to scream all the time and that I am starting to sound like Hubby.
The last thing I want to do is hurt my children. And yet this accusation is a double-edged sword both because it highlights that Hubby's behavior hurts them more than I thought and because I am hurting them like that as well.
Logic tells me that it was just the angry ranting of a 13 year old boy who didn't get what he wanted. So he lashed out in any and every way he could think of. Which strongly implies exaggeration at least. And yet... I think there must be an element of truth in there, something for it to have sprung from.
And I do yell from time to time. Not as much as Hubby or my mother, but it has been more frequent recently. I blame it on stress, on lack of good sleep, and on chronic headaches (which are most likely all related to each other).
I remember a bad patch I went through a while back - right around the spring of 2000 I think. I was angry all the time and would go off on these blind rages where I (literally) saw red and had some massive word vomit going on. Right around the same time, I started getting treatment for my migraines. And almost as soon as I had the headaches under control, the anger issues dissipated. I hadn't realized how much the chronic pain was affecting my temper......
For the past 6 weeks I have had a near constant headache. They are tension headaches so my migraine meds don't help until the headache gets so bad it triggers a migraine. I'm sure they are stress related but I don't have any idea how to adequately reduce the stress without sacrificing things in my life that I am not willing to take away from my family.
Are these headaches contributing to the escalation in my yelling? If so, what do I do now? If I try to tell the neurologist about these tension headaches, is he simply going to tell me to reduce my stress? If I talk to The Shrink about my stress levels is he simply going to tell me to stop doing some of the things I'm doing? I don't see how I can back away from any of the things that stress me out.
More on stress later. The point is that Kid-1 really nailed me where it hurts. He told me that I am becoming that which I most fear. He gave me some serious food for thought and it's not comfort food...
The worst jokes I have ever written
14 years ago
3 comments:
Your hubby sounds just like my dad when he was younger. He had a awful temper, and he was LOUD. My mother always kept silent during his tirades. She was passively agressive, I think. If she was mad enough, she would give my dad the silent treatment long after he had come down from his temper tantrum.
I know that my dad's temper affected me hugely as a kid, even though he never hit or yelled at me.
Polar Bear,
If it's not too personal, can ask you what, if anything, you think your mother could have done to help you cope with your father's temper?
Interesting question, SV.
I think keeping silent was probably the best thing my mom could have done because if she had retaliated, things could have gotten a lot worse. There isn't really an ideal to such a situation, I think. i think the ideal would have been that my parents settled their differences by talking rather than losing it and throwing a temper tantrum.
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