Getting Angry More Often, and It's Affecting My Kids

Yeah, we probably have. During my teen years, my Dad and I became very close and are that way to this day. I'm 32 now. My Dad had a lot going on at that point in his life and he didn't have a lot of support. He was the primary breadwinner at a time when his income was lower and I've come to learn he was regularly dealing with panic attacks and anxiety around the time he smashed the guitar. Having experienced my own issues with anxiety and having had the benefit of treatment, which was not available to my father, I can understand what he must have been experiencing emotionally.

About 8 months ago, my Dad finally confided in me that his own dad, my grandfather, regularly beat him and as a child until he was 15 and too big to pick on anymore. If the worst thing my Dad ever did was lose his temper and smash a garage sale guitar to pieces, I'm very, very lucky. I forgive my Dad, I'm much better off for having had a Dad around that cared.

You should talk to someone (a professional) before you do something worse than throwing toys. You're self-aware enough to realize something is going wrong, and you've "caught it early" so to speak. All it takes is one bad mistake to ruin everyone's life. Step up and go take care of your mental state, your family is counting on it.

I know exactly how you feel. Uncontrolled anger can really be destructive. I’m glad you want to get hold of it.

Here is a Bible verse that you might find helpful.

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬-‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

bible.com

Galatians 5:16-17 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflic | New International Version (NIV) | Download The Bible App Now

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflic

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You seem angry. Calm down.

I saw the same thing once we had our second kid. Love em both. Love my wife. Had access to counseling and they identified pretty immediately that my "trigger" for random reasons was a lack of balance, specifically 50/50 split of duties in the house. I was shouldering more of the burden than my wife, bottling it up, and then I'd have days or spurts where I was just mean, raised my voice, but never physical acts. Just took some recognizing and vocalizing with the misses silly things like "hey I've given them a bath the entire week maybe you could do it for once" or "can you help with X trivial task". Stack a few of those on top of each other and I would get awful frustrated with the kids and wife when all it would take is saying something earlier. Classic don't be a martyr and communicate stuff.

Your self-awareness, open communication, and willingness to change signal that you can certainly turn this around. Lean into your self-awareness more. The goal is to make thinking about your current state instinctual, so you're automatically aware when you're giving in to the anger rather than taking an angry action without thinking about it.You'll still get angry, everyone does - the goal is to control your reaction and be able to calm yourself down.

You can practice by periodically thinking about how you're feeling and what actions you've taken. Try to detach from the busyness and auto-pilot of life for a minute and reflect about your current emotional state. Do this somewhat often. Try to do this more when you are feeling strongly emotional, either positively or negatively.

Some would call this meditation, or would point you towards meditation to hone this skill. That path often leads to some level of spiritual discussion/teaching and has a lot of buzz words/ideas attached to it. If that doesn't interest you, don't worry. You can practice turning off your auto-pilot and thinking consciously without going down that path.

Exactly.

Which is why civilians should never be given access to firearms

^seriously. get outside, start meditating, talk to a therapist and be up front that you're dealing with anger and rage issues.

I love it when people hear about someone else's struggle and use it as an opportunity to explain how well-adjusted they are.

To the OP - seems like there are a bunch of things you could try, like talking to a professional, consolidate your life to eliminate stress, etc. I have had to deal with my temper in the past (I'm about your age and am a parent), and I've found running/exercising to be tremendously helpful during those times. It's great that you have the humility to recognize that there is an issue to address.

The answer is to run more. Will help with the stress. Do it early before anyone is up and do it every day.

The other answer is to not take any sort of life advice that does not relate to running from anyone on this site.

OP, your situation is complicated.

Historically, psychoanalysis has this rule:

fear leads to anger...anger leads to hate...hate leads to suffering. Fear is the path to the dark side.

You are at the anger phase. This is coming from fear. You need to find the source of that fear. Ask your loved ones what do they think you are fearful of.

Sounds like me. Two little kids, very stressful job, money, marriage, moving to a new house etc. Within the last year I found my temper getting extremely short; two years ago it wasn't even a thought to lose my patience. One day I got mad because my kids refused to turn off the TV, so I punched the TV and broke it. A few months later I slammed the counter with a kitchen utensil and chipped off a huge piece of granite. In general I just turned into a not very nice person and was unpleasant to be around most days. Your situation sounds exactly like mine.

I went to a Dr to have my hormones checked, as I was exhausted every evening from life and stress at work. I figured the constant exhaustion was causing me to be short tempered and not logically think things through. Better yet, I didn't have the energy to work out at night.. or i was in such a bad mood by then, I didn't want to. My testosterone was pretty low (in the 400s, not abnormal for a guy in his early 40s), as was my cortisol level.

I ended up supplementing with testosterone and took a herbal supplement to help with the low cortisol, which gave me more steady energy throughout the day and in general, I just chilled the F out. Patience increased, my mind was less foggy, I could deal with stress better.. it was a nice improvement. I'd get tired after the kids went to bed, rather than the minute I walked in the door each night. It really, really helped. I know, not a popular stance here on a running forum, but I don't run competitively, am not fast and honestly don't care. I was seriously worried I'd hit someone or take it out in a way I'd regret.

I'm in my early 40s. It might not hurt to have your hormone levels checked, then you can decide what you want to do.

Get help.. you might not mean to be so aggressive in front of the kids but your kids don't know the difference. They imitate what you do as their parent and do it themselves some day.

Point was to illustrate that the kinds of fits of rage OP was describing are not just a normal or to be expected side effect of all those pressures he described.

OP, no need to do anything. Just watch this commercial from Australia, 2013:

Loved the Aussie commercial.

The OP shouldn't feel too bad. Is it good behavior no? But the one kid whose dad did it 20 years ago is very close to him. I'm not trying to justify it, just explain why it happens. I don't think it's a male thing either. Women that are working a ton also do it.

I think as parents you a) Have zero time to yourself if youaren't careful and b) you are responsibel with trying to get an irrational person to do things all the time which is isn't easy and parents have no experience with. Prior to having a kid, your only focus is yourself (well I guess we all are irrational but not as much as kids).

Lots of good advice on here. I have 3 small kids too and am prone to anxiety and losing my temper. It comes down to a few things for me.

What you need to do is figure out ways to minimize that stress. Things that work for me: working out, getting up early before the chaos starts, listen to music, drink herbal teas, get good sleep.

You also need to learn how to give up. There's a lot of value in learning to say "f- it" about something that's not important, and really mean it. As a runner, you've trained yourself over the years to get what you want by putting in the time and effort. Its linear, its rational, and you can pretty much guarantee results if you do things the right way. With kids/work, it doesn't work like that. You have to change from being type A about everything to more or less just trying to steer the ship in the right direction.

one last thing - alcohol and caffeine. For me, there's the initial impact, which is obviously great, but then its nothing but stress and anxiety. Cut them back and you will feel noticeably better almost immediately.

You need some pootang my friend! It’s that simple.