The New Girl

The Great Temper Experiment.

I don't remember exactly what it was that pushed the point home, finally.  Pushed it in far enough for me to act on my realization.  I had an epiphany for sure, though.  (An Aha Moment, if you're partial to Oprah-speak.)  The way that it usually works for me is this: I suddenly realize something that I've known for a long time, even maybe forever.  It's like, in an opportune moment, I really see this thing.  I see it clearly and in a way that is sudden and complete.  Like lightening striking.

How am I supposed to teach my daughter to stop screaming and yelling when she's angry, if I'm all the fucking time screaming and yelling when I'm angry?

Bzzzzt.

I have long thought that my yelling and carrying on (in the parenting realm) was related to my own upbringing and an innate lack of patience.  But included in this Not-Too-Comfortable epiphany was this, here:

It's not Lack of Patience.  It's Lack of Impulse Control.

Bzzzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt.

When the realization hit me that my ever-increasing-in-frequency episodes of over-the-top, in-the-fucking-red-zone, aggressive-yelling were, indeed, were more about a lack of impulse control than anything else, something in me clicked.  

Initially, it was more than a little humiliating, actually.  I can only surmise that is why it stayed outside my conscious thought process for such a long time.  But a few moments after that, it started to sink in. I was impulsively acting out my anger.  And that, I needed to fix.

So, I started with a decision.  A decision that will, no doubt, sound absolutely crazy to some of you but what can I say?  It's what I did.

I decided that the following day I was just...not going to act angry.  Even if I was.  I went from thinking that in order to have fewer angry incidents, I would have to do the hard-if-not-impossible work of cultivating more patience (HA!) to deciding that even if I was pissed off, I was going to deal with it internally.  I was not going to act angry.

Or, more like it, I was going to act 'not angry,' even when I was*.

As a therapist, I am incredibly adept (most often) with keeping my own feelings to myself.  It is a skill that I have honed over the years.  I'm actually very good at it.  For me to have a feeling and act on it impulsively, professionally, would be unheard of.  I am able to compartmentalize and stash away my own feelings for my later examinations.  I mean, I worked through two hard pregnancies and the death of my mother, all the while attending to the needs/feelings/problems of my patients when I was at work.

It's not a giant stretch to bring some of that talent to bear with regard to keeping in check my anger at my 3 year old kid.  

So, I don't remember what it was that flipped the switch but I remember when it was.  It was June 17th.  It was a Thursday and I was in the doctor's waiting room with my dad, looking at some parenting magazine with a bullshit(ish) article on 'How To Get Your Kids To Listen Without Ever Having To Endure A Tantrum EVER,' when the lights came on in my head. 

And I made my decision to Act 'As If.'

The basic premise being that, initially, I would 'act as if' I wasn't angry, allowing my brain to burn some new neural pathways so that eventually, I really wouldn't be angry at stuff that didn't need to make me angry.

I started that day and have been doing it every day since.

Here are a few things I've found so far:

1)  It was easier than I thought it would be.  Once I made that decision to act in a certain way, regardless of internal, emotional experience, it gave me a framework, I think.  Something concrete to do instead of flip my shit.

2)  There were many, many times that I wasn't even really, truly angry.  My anger wasn't, isn't, *real* anger.  Not the kind of anger that is founded on some reasonable action/reaction loop, anyway.  It's an impulsive, angry reaction, out of proportion to the situation at hand.  Given 3.4 seconds, I was able to chill and realize that she's just testing or testing or possibly even testing.  Like 3 year olds are supposed to do.  In fact, if I'm totally honest, I found myself 'trying to teach the importance of certain points' via the angry tone and scowl.  As if.

3) Me simmering the fuck down, in an of itself, helped her to simmer the fuck down.  Of course, it stands to reason that when your mother is visibly angry and yelling that you, as a kid, will feel...a lot of intense emotions.  I did a little thinking about-slash-remembering-slash-realizing how I used to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing (LAUGHING!) in my screaming mother's face.  It is counter-intuitive maybe, but I found that when there was less anger from me, there was more compliance from her (which, I imagine, is due to less anxiety and impulse to be oppositional when a stark line is drawn.)

4) The Out of Proportion Angry Responses were cyclical in nature, creating a counterproductive loop and also a larger pattern of communication.  Disrupting that cycle, that loop, that pattern, has resulted in a more peaceful cycle, loop, pattern and house.

5) There are benefits to slower, longer reactions. It was an unforeseen outcome that, while trying to keep in an impulsive action, I was slower to react and thus, took a little more time to work things through.  This afforded me some opportunities to actually negotiate and stay places vs. cutting and running when TLNG was acting up.

If I were a math person, I'd be able to calculate for you a percentage of reduction in episodes of Out of Proportion Anger but in my 'just-eyeballing it' kind of way, I'd say it's been nothing short of stunning.  They say that to make a new behavior a habit takes a good 6-8 weeks.  And we're close to that.  I've had slips and I'll continue to have them, I'm sure. 

Some days are harder than others.  But it's so much easier to recognize and regroup.

And it makes me feel much, much nicer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*It may go without saying but I'm going to say it anyway, just in case.  I'm not talking about not expressing valid or justified anger/upset.  I'm not even talking about not expressing annoyance or frustration.  I'm talking about a certain level of pissivity, an impulsive acting out of a rush of exaggerated anger.  It's hard to define it, really, as it's all on a continuum.  I know it when I feel it, though.

Through this experiment, I've found that expressing even my legitimate anger/frustration/whatever in a calmer, quieter way gets better results. Makes a better loop. It's a work in progress, I suppose.  I share it as another way of working through. And to close a circle.  If you have questions or comments, I welcome them.  Don't be shy. It's not like I'm going to FLIP OUT at you. HA HA HAAAA!

It's Like A Bad Phil Collins Song. Or Great, You Know, If You Love Phil Collins.

He's said it only a couple of times, mostly lightly, even in passing, but it never fails to unnerve me nonetheless--in spite of or maybe because of the inherent truth in it.

"It's like we're two people who happen to live in the same house.  It's like we're living separate lives, together."

It's not meant to be hurtful.  It's not even really meant to convey a problem from his perspective.  It's meant merely as an observation that's been inserted into a couple of conversations we've had about other things.

But it kind of makes me shudder.

Because it's kind of true.

I get up super early with two small kids.  I spend the entire day, almost every day, corralling, feeding, cleaning, wiping, changing, and herding.  With a side of becoming an indoor jungle gym-slash-drool cloth.  He gets up early and goes to work, braving a long-ass, awful commute and a hectic never-sitting-down-lucky-to-get-lunch-day.  In the evening, I'm juggling kids, trying to make sure only the dog is eating the dog food and trying to prevent his water bowl from becoming a mini-water table while at the same time, making WHATEVERTHEFUCK for dinner.  He is braving the long-ass awful commute back home and walking into controlled chaos. (Sometimes it's controlled. We have cable.)

We eat together and I take The Boy, he takes The Girl and we do baths and bedtime. 

Then he goes downstairs to do more work and I spend some time arranging and cleaning and then [fucking around on Twitter for a while] reading before collapsing into bed.  He's a night owl and I don't even know what time he comes to bed.

Then, you know. Rinse and REPEAT.

He and I have been together forever. Well. You know. Like 15 years or something like that.  Our relationship, our marriage, is solid.  Built on bedrock.  Having been together for 12 years, married for 8, before having kids has given us a couple of incarnations of our relationship, really.  Dating for 4 years before getting married, we were students, then professionals.  Married for the 8 years, we were professionals, working and getting promoted and having expendable income.  We traveled some.  We remodeled some.  We went to dinner and movies and shit like that.

And then we had two small kids.

We went down to basically one income. We travel less. We go out with the kids but not a whole lot without them.  The day to day caring for children, leaves me with less Nice at the end of the day.  It probably leaves me with no Caring For Someone Else, if I'm honest about it.  His job is stressful and demanding.  It's not easy, I'm sure, to have the sole responsibility of maintaining and providing for a family.  And although he never complains about it, I would be wicked stressed if the situation was reversed.

And so, there it is.

I don't think that there's anything wrong in our relationship.  I think that having two small kids, who rightly need a ton of attention and care, siphon so much of our finite physical/emotional energy, that our focus has shifted temporarily.

Does that make sense?

I just don't think that we're alone.  As strong and as deeply rooted as our relationship is, it's just not an easy time for the Couple Maintenance, if you know what I'm saying.

But, I think the reason it makes me shudder is that those very sentences are spoken thousands upon thousands of times. To, like, divorce lawyers. Or Oprah.  You feel me?

I am as sure as I can be of anything that The Man and I are long-termers.  I think, though, if we're living separately together, there has to be a liiiiittle more overlap.  Maybe we get a sitter and go to dinner and a movie (or maybe just dinner because *YAWN* I might not be able to make it through both.) Or, maybe I go to more of his baseball games with the kids in tow.  Or maybe I turn off twitter and go down into the basement and sit with him.  Or give him a back rub or bring him some cut fruit before I go to bed.

I don't want years to go by, with the only increasing busyness that comes with kids--when the bounce-house play dates turn into weekend-long travel soccer--only to find that we have stumbled into some tired but still painful cliche.

Because I love The Man so.  I really, really do.

I mean, you know.  That's how we ended up these Little Cute-Ass Time-Slash-Attention Suckers, to begin with.

So, This Is A Redirect Post. I Apologize In Advance.

I've been somewhat in health-kick(ish) mode and I've been posting at Balancing The Scales.  I've gone back and forth about that blog but find it helpful to have a certain place to put my ramblings about my interests...which seem to be, uh, food and my issues with well, my issues.

Probably related!

Anyway. There's a post up about my baby-bentoing.  And my weight.

And if THAT doesn't grab you, I just don't know what will.

How about my kid in a crazy hat that his father purchased.  It doesn't have a chin strap (DUH) so 3 seconds after you put it on him, he does his impression of ET taking off that damn wig.

For reals.

It's A Shame, Shame, Shame. It's A Damn, Damn, Shame.

I could make that shit into a song, you know?  I was looking back at the holes where the posts about my boy should be and whoa, it's a DAMNED SHAME. There is an EMPTY VOID looking back at me.  I fail at record keeping in all it's forms, obviously.

Anyway.

Wanna take a guess at how old my baby is now?

...

He's NINE MONTHS OLD. Nine.

(Can you hear the angels singing sweet, sweet music?)

(I can.)

At nine months old, we have officially exited the DREADED MONTHS of infancy, at least for me.  At nine months old, I think babies hit some weird peak of cuteness.  They are Adorable and still so...Innocent.  No ulterior motives, no real Knowing-Better when they are doing something naughty.  They look at you like you are the SUN RISING when you come into their rooms in the morning.  Plus, they start doing all kinds of cool things.  For me, this is when it starts to get good.

 

It's funny to me, because somewhere I have pictures of TLNG doing almost all of this same stuff.  When she was nine months old, the [bitter, horrendous screaming] colic/reflux hell was mostly over, so she was pretty sweet, too. 

It's so hard not to compare them.

I try not to.

He's generally a super-happy boy, with an incredible disposition.  Meaning, I can go almost anywhere and do almost anything.  Provided that he has enough 1) food and 2) sleep. (In that order.)

He says, 'mmmmmmm' anytime he's in the presence of food or drink or anyone eating or drinking.

You could die from the cute of that alone, trust me.

He's curious and once he figured out how to crawl [omfg, I'm so dead, yo] he was on that shit like it was his JOB.

I guess it is his job, though. So, GOOD WORK, KID.

He's also clapping and waving.

And smiling. A lot.

Oh. And he found the dog.

Just for kicks, here's a picture of my daughter at this age:

And the dog says:

'Oh, what the fuck. Here we go AGAIN.'

In case you're [still reading] interested in a comparison, here's my girl at nine months. Holy hell, it seems like yesterday.

In a way.

If yesterday was also forever ago.