Over the last couple years I’ve learned what circumstances trigger my rage episodes, and they are as follows:
Low blood sugar – If I go too long without eating, or if I eat all the wrong things, watch out! When my blood sugar gets low I feel frantic, anxious, on edge, and my patience is on a very short leash. I yell at the nearest person or dog at the slightest provocation. When my blood sugar is low, I definitely feel out of control of myself.
Running Late – If I need to be somewhere in five minutes but Thomas is not moving fast enough for me, he is screwed. Poor kid. And he’s one to freeze in the face of conflict and stress, too, so the more angry and impatient I get, the more he freezes up, which only increases my impatience. It’s a quick ride to CrazyTown when we get into that loop.
Too Busy – Occasionally we get into a week when we’re never home. Laundry piles up, clutter builds up, and dishes don’t get done. Sometimes the kids don’t get to bed at a decent hour, and I’m so tired at the end of the day I crash into bed without any sort of mental recharging. When going at a pace like this, my body aches and my brain hurts. Literally.
PMS – I know it sounds cliche, but it’s true. I started tracking things related to my cycle several months ago, and as it turns out I’m a complete irrational bitch the day before I start my period. Not the week before, not two days before, but the 24 hours before I start.
Well guess what? The last two weeks have been a perfect storm of all these challenges, and I’ve been rough on my family. But this is not to imply “the devil made me do it” or any other such blame shifting. I’m the first to admit I create most of these scenarios because I’m selfish and easily distracted.
99% of the times I run late it’s because I was doing something I shouldn’t have been doing rather than getting everyone ready to go. And running late is usually the reason I forget to eat a meal, which makes me insanely grouchy as we’re rushing out the door behind schedule.
Sometimes I can’t help how busy we are. We generally do a pretty good job of saying no to things and leaving white spaces on our calendar, but on occasion everything just happens to land during the same week, and I can’t really do anything about it.
What I would like to be able to say after a stretch like this, is that it was a hard week but I managed to find peace and focus in Jesus. I would like to be able to say I resisted the urge to give in to my anger during these weak moments, and breathed deep from the Holy Spirit. I would like to be able to say I put others before myself and stayed on task, thereby avoiding 75% of these situations altogether.
But I can’t say this.
Yet.
Or at least not all the time.
Definitely not this week.
But there’s always tomorrow.
One of my epic fails as a parent is trying to dictate what kind of children I have. I spent all of Ruthie’s early years trying to find a toy – JUST ONE – that she would play with. I never had any luck with that. She always preferred my pots and pans over her toy kitchen, the pens from my desk over her crayons, and my kitchen utensils over the official Play-Doh utensils.
Up until Ruthie entered kindergarten, all her friends were the kids of my friends. We’ve had our biting incidents, our fights over toys, and the he said/she saids with these friends, but I always know the other kids well, and I have the luxury of knowing my parenting style is consistent with my friends’ style.
Make writing a priority. Up to this point my creative times were written in pencil. I’d block out writing time on my calendar, but override it if I needed to make a dentist appointment or get the bookkeeping done. It’s as if I feel guilty for taking time to write, thinking I should be doing something more “productive.” This goal requires organization (to make sure there isn’t something else I should be doing), a mind shift (to take myself seriously), and support from Bryan (which I have).