Mom's Bad Temper: Warning Signs You're About to Lose Your Cool #248
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No one pushes your buttons like your kids or partner can! Angry moms unite!
Jokes aside, when anger gets out of hand, nothing good happens. Not only do we hurt ourselves and the people around us, the shame and guilt add on even more weight.
This was a huge problem for me for the first few years of parenting. I still yell sometimes cuz I’m not perfect. You can be free of the angry red eyed monster, too.
How can you tell you’re about to lose your cool?
What can you stop taking your anger out on your family?
How can you show up as the caring, calm mom you want to be?
Let’s discuss.
Read more on this topic on my blog: https://www.patriciasung.com/adhd-blog/adhd-and-anger
Links mentioned in this episode:
Work with Patricia to get your crap together and be happy with ADHD.
10 ways to calm down when you’re about to lose your ish (free video): patriciasung.com/calm
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New workshop alert!
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In under an hour, I'll teach you how to —
>> use 1 simple movement to disrupt growing anxiety so you can avoid a total shutdown
>> save yourself the embarrassment of panicking in public with a subtle move to pull yourself together
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Just this one time, I’ll be offering the ADHD Anti-Anxiety Workshop live at no cost. It’ll come back in February as a paid course.
Sign up today: patriciasung.com/workshop
Patricia Sung [00:00:00]:
Are you an angry mom? Are you the yeller? Are you the one who gets physical when things get frustrating? I never thought I was gonna be an angry mom, and yet, here I am. Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy? You can't figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family. I get you, mama. Parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life, creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families well. At the end of the day, we just wanna be good moms.
Patricia Sung [00:00:58]:
But, spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama. You can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story, and I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on. Welcome to motherhood and ADHD. Confession time. I always thought I was gonna be an excellent mom. I thought I was gonna be, like, Pinterest worthy, a plus, excellent role model of all the moms because I was a teacher. I know how to deal with kids.
Patricia Sung [00:01:33]:
I was the oldest of 5, had a lot of practice. And generally speaking, I'm a pretty patient person. Like, it takes a lot to get me, like, route up as a general rule, except by my family, Like, they have the buttons, like, on speed dial. They just know how to irk me. And I don't even think it's that they know how to irk me. It's that what they do irks me more than other people. Like, I am so patient with my students. I am so patient with my friends.
Patricia Sung [00:02:06]:
I'm so patient with so many people, and yet the people who are in my house are the ones that I am not patient with. And I never thought I would be here. I thought I was gonna be an excellent mom. I had all of the credentials. I had all the practice. And then here we are in real life, and it's way harder than I thought it was gonna be. The level of stress that we carry as parents is so much higher than pre parenting life. Anytime you are a caretaker for someone, and this includes, like, elderly parents or, like, anyone who you are caretaker, like, when you are fully responsible for somebody else's well-being.
Patricia Sung [00:02:47]:
That level of stress and responsibility is hard to describe. It is hard to explain to other people. I think that's why they don't tell you that before coming a mom. Because how do you explain being responsible for someone's life? There are a few other jobs that have that level of gravity, and even still those are jobs. You get to leave. The moment where I knew that this was a problem and I need to do something about it, I think my son was probably about 2, maybe 3 years old, and he was so upset. Like, you could see, like, the glazed over look in his eye where it's like, he's not even, like, really there. He was just so mad.
Patricia Sung [00:03:25]:
And I was in a power struggle of, like, no. You're gonna do it my way. Like, insisting, like, I'm the grown up and I'm gonna do it my way. And he was so mad, he tried to stomp on my feet. And this was a couple days after I had had ingrown toenail surgery. Apologies. I know it's gross. And so my feet hurt so bad, and he was so mad.
Patricia Sung [00:03:45]:
Like, he knew all the last couple days, I'd be like, why don't watch out for mama's feet. Watch out for mama's feet. And he knew, like, that was the place where I was hurt. And he tried to stomp and, like, hit my feet. And that was that moment where, like, it was the first time that I was, like, truly scared of my child. And, like, knowing that he could, like, really hurt me, I'm looking at my sweet baby who's, like, barely older than a toddler preschooler and being, like, I am responsible for this ball of fire that is trying to hurt me, and I don't know what to do. It was this moment of, like, panic and being scared and sad and mad. It was like all the feelings of, like, I didn't know what to do.
Patricia Sung [00:04:28]:
I couldn't help my baby because he's also trying to attack me. Like, I didn't know what to do. And that was that wake up call of being, like, I can't keep doing this. Like, I'm over here yelling and trying to get him to do something that he doesn't wanna do. Honestly, I don't even remember what it was about. Granted, it was many years ago, but, like, I don't even remember what it was about. But that, like, moment of recognition and being, like, me yelling and me stomping my feet isn't actually solving anything, and it's actually gonna get me really injured because those toes sure did hurt. I promise you that.
Patricia Sung [00:05:02]:
Like, realizing, like, I was totally out of control in the situation, but also, like, within myself. My level of anger was so big, and his level of anger was so big. And I was like, how am I supposed to teach him how to deal with this anger when clearly I'm not dealing with my anger? And that was the moment where I realized, like, this this is not okay. I gotta do something about this. And as always, I'd love to tell you to be like, and then I solved it all. No. It still took me several years of work to get to the point where I could control my anger. There are times where I still yell at my kids, but I know that I am doing so much better than I was.
Patricia Sung [00:05:39]:
And that's the reason I'm talking about this today is because I want you to know that if you are an angry mom, like I am an angry mom, that you can learn the skills to deal with your anger, and then in turn teach your kids how to deal with their anger. So when I talk to you about being angry as someone with ADHD or having a bad temper or having, like, a full on grown up meltdown, like, I come by this advice, honestly. I have had to do so much work, and I am not perfect. I still get frustrated. I still yell. But I think about how many times I stop myself from yelling and I stop myself from losing my cool. And I think, oh my goodness. I can't imagine if I had not done all this work to be the kind of person that I am now.
Patricia Sung [00:06:25]:
For sure, I should be saving for a therapy fund over a college fund at this point. Like, being a parent is hard. So when we think about anger, first, I wanna say, like, being angry is not a bad thing always. Like, anger is a basic emotion. So there's 6 basic emotions that are, like, just generally accepted as being anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. Now if you have watched the movie inside out, hello. Adorable. Like, we see these emotions play out.
Patricia Sung [00:06:59]:
These are the emotions that seem more like automatic. They're the ones that we have at a younger age. It's easy to associate them with certain facial expressions or, like, body movement. Like, there are a whole bunch more emotions that are complex and involve, like, mixes of these, again, inside out too. But anger is one of the basic emotions. And so having anger isn't necessarily a bad thing. Like, being angry in and of itself is like a neutral thing, and this is something that I wish more people understood about feelings. Like, feelings are not bad.
Patricia Sung [00:07:29]:
Feelings are telling you they are communicating something to you so that you can do something with it. And there's definitely good anger. Good anger fuels a lot of grassroots organizations and people getting stuff done. Being angry is not necessarily a bad thing. But in that, emotions are a way to communicate information to us. Like, we have to know what to do with that information once we get it. So when we become angry, that's our body telling us something, and what are we gonna do with that information? Generally speaking, people with ADHD tend to have more sensitive nervous systems, are more aware of what's going on around them, can be, influenced or, like, notice things that are different more easily. And I'm not gonna get on my tangent of, like, trauma response and all that.
Patricia Sung [00:08:16]:
Because this is really complex topic, and I I don't wanna have a 7 hour episode. Like, my main goal here is for you to know you're not alone, and that there are things you can do with that. And that you don't have to stay in a place where you're like, I don't wanna be angry mom anymore. Spoiler alert. You don't have to stay there. And we'll talk about that in a bit. Like, this is my main goal here is for you to know, like, being angry by itself is not bad. Emotions are really good.
Patricia Sung [00:08:39]:
They give you the information to be able to do something about whatever's happening. But, like, what we can do with that information. And going back to what I started on, I got on tangent, is that when we have ADHD, because we tend to have a more sensitive nervous system, we can get angry more easily, I guess, would be the how I wanna word it. That the different inputs coming in can cause reactions that feel more out of proportion with what's going on. And I talk about this extensively when I am teaching and coaching. But, like, when we are angry and when we're feeling any emotion, honestly, like, a lot of times it feels like, oh, wow. That was a really blown out of proportion reaction. But here's the thing.
Patricia Sung [00:09:19]:
That is because you did not notice all the stuff that was happening earlier. I won't get on that soapbox either. But, like, if we talk about, like, you know, people are saying, oh, like, he just went from 0 to a100. He was fine. And then all of a sudden, my kid was, you know, losing their mind. They weren't fine before that. Like, something was happening throughout the day that got them all the way to 99, and you saw the one thing that went from 99 to a 100. And so you're looking at that tiny thing that only jumped the needle one point.
Patricia Sung [00:09:44]:
I mean, maybe it's not even like a jump because it's only one point. The thing that moved the needle, just that one point to hit a 100 and have the explosion. But something happened or many things happened up until that point that got to 99. So when we are very stressed, you might have started the day at a 30 or a 40 or a 50. If your kid had a rough day at school, they may have walked in the door at 87. And so you've only got 13 points to play with before the explosion happens. And this is what stress does to us, is pushes us to the point where we don't have a lot of capacity left over to deal with whatever has is coming next. Because all day long, it could be that itchy sweater that's annoying you.
Patricia Sung [00:10:25]:
It could be that your, you know, sister-in-law gave your son a whistle and you would listen to the stupid whistle all day. It could be that you're worried about serious things like bills, you know, somebody being sick and, like, things that actually have weight that also like, all those things play into us being stressed. So we don't start the day anew at level 0 depending on how you slept. You got a newborn, you're sick, you have a chronic illness. All of these things are taking away our capacity so that we get to 100 so much faster than what we wished we were. Like, well, then we than what we wish would happen. Like, we want to have more capacity, but we didn't. And that's how we got to this point where anger has taken over.
Patricia Sung [00:11:05]:
And anger can also be a learned response from family patterns, especially if you have a lot of undiagnosed ADHD people in your family, because you probably do. Like, all of these things come into play and give us less capacity to stay in a place of peace and calm. And again, like, I don't know my God controls not the word I want to use, but like, to be able to deal with this information incoming, because anger can be that crazy big, you know, bonkers meltdown explosion tantrum, whatever you're labeling it as, but it also can just be really irritating, really frustrating. That also is anger showing up. And when it comes to people with ADHD, sometimes that anger when it builds up to get to a 100, sometimes the way it comes out of us is an internal hurt. It makes me think of, like, teens who are cutting that they're taking that, I don't know how to deal with this pain or anger, and I'm taking it out on myself. Or it can come out as an external way to be coming out onto others, and that's when we're yelling at our family or getting into, like, a physical altercation with our teen. Like, that is that anger getting to the point where, like, I don't have capacity to deal with this anymore, and it is coming out of me in a way that I don't want.
Patricia Sung [00:12:21]:
I want to choose something different. So I want you to know that, like, all of these things going into the anger into that angry feeling, it's like the overstimulation, the emotional dysregulation, overwhelm, not sleeping enough, you know, having sickness or a lot of responsibility or anxiety. Like, all these things are playing into the anger, and there will be some point where you can't carry it all by yourself. Anxiety can be debilitating, and oftentimes, it's obvious, stage fright, Heights, claustrophobia, panic attacks. But anxiety can also be subtle. When you can't fall asleep at night thinking about your sick parent or your teen who's struggling making friends. It can be helicoptering around your toddler at the playground or not listening to your partner because you're in your mind spiraling about your kid's school struggles. People with ADHD can hyperfocus on these worries to the point where your worry takes center stage.
Patricia Sung [00:13:18]:
But what you really want to be is present in the moment, more carefree, feeling lighter, having that space and the freedom to be the fun mom that you thought you would be. If you're ready to feel more relaxed and calm every day, join me in my upcoming event, the ADHD Anti anxiety Workshop. In less than an hour, I will teach you 3 ways to stop anxiety in its tracks. It's time to let go of the grip anxiety has on your happiness and for you to step into the main character role of your everyday life. Cherry on top, it's free for now. It will be a paid course shortly after, so sign up while there's still no charge. Head over to patriciasung.com/workshop, and sign up for this event. Now, if it is after the event, still head over to that link.
Patricia Sung [00:14:02]:
It'll have the information on how to get the workshop, and see whatever new workshop I have coming for free. Again, that's patriciasung.com/workshop. It's time to say no to worry. The workshop is taking place on January 23rd, that's a Thursday, at 11 AM CST, which is noon EST. So now that we've, like, dug into, like, some of the basics, not that basic basics, of, like, why we end up being angry, and, like, I want you to have grace for yourself. Like, it's okay to be angry, but, like, we gotta do something about it. 1, we have to understand what are the things that trigger that anger, and then what are we gonna do to get that anger out of us so that it is not coming out in a way that is hurting ourselves or others so that we can create more capacity so that we don't hit that 100? Like, when we hit 80, can we do something to get ourselves back to, like, 40 so that we have space to get through the rest of dinner and bedtime? How do we create that flexibility in the capacity to be able to deal with everything that's coming up throughout the day? Because we can't control most of what happens throughout the day, but we can control what we do with it. But we can't control what we do with it if we don't have the skills or we don't even know that that's what we're dealing with.
Patricia Sung [00:15:16]:
We have to have the awareness and the skills to be able to deal with it. So how do we know? How can we tell we're getting angry? A lot of us with ADHD don't realize that we're getting upset. We didn't realize the 0 to 99. We only realized, oh, no. I'm at a100. How can you tell when you're getting upset? Listen to yourself. When you're getting angry, how do you know that? Do you feel it in your body? Does your temperature change? Do you find yourself changing into fists? Like I can even feel like as I'm talking about Ingram, like, oh, wow, like, I'm actually getting a little hyped up here. Who planning to do the techniques I'm gonna tell you in a second I need to do now.
Patricia Sung [00:15:55]:
But it's like, what are the ways that you know you're getting angry? Do your thoughts change like the way you think about things? Are your thoughts racing? Is it that there's too many and you can't keep up with them all? Like, what are the things that you notice that tell you I'm getting angry? Because we can't identify things that we don't know exist. Okay? So as you're going throughout the day, when you have identified, this is what makes me angry, then you can notice throughout day of, like, oh, wow. I keep finding myself with my shoulders up by my ears because I am stressed. That's a signal for me that I need to make more capacity because I'm not gonna be able to get to bedtime before I hit a 100 when I feel like this. So identifying those feelings in you that tell you you're getting angry. You can also identify, number 2, what are those things that you know are gonna make you angry? What are your patterns? Do you get frustrated at a certain time of day? Do you get more angry if you haven't eaten lunch? Oh, what's that thing? The halt? Hungry, angry, lonely, tired? Also, side note, I was on a podcast the other day. I was actually talking about anger with Laura over at ADHD, for understood, and I totally made up the wrong words to I said thirsty instead of tired. It was I was not.
Patricia Sung [00:17:03]:
I was like, man, ADHD, man. But, anyways, are you halt when you get angry? Are you hungry, angry, lonely, tired? Can you do something about one of those things that's happening? Sometimes we can. Sometimes we can't as parents sometimes like, well, I'm trying to take a nap, but I can go grab a granola bar to the cabinet. Do you tend to get angry at different parts of your cycle? Like, that is expected because hello hormones, hello inflammation, like, but when you know that those things are going to irritate you, when they start happening, your brain will be like, oh, it's that thing. And you can do something about it. During the week before your cycle, you can plan for less things to go on as much as you can. Hey. I'm not gonna put 17 things on the calendar that week.
Patricia Sung [00:17:46]:
Bump them next week when I'm in my spring part of my cycle when I actually wanna talk to people. But you can plan for the things that you know are going to upset you when you realize they're going to upset you. When you know going to Thanksgiving at so and so's house, that person's gonna make you angry, you know I'm gonna send you my best to avoid the person. I'm a tell my partner, if you see that person coming near me, you gotta come rescue me. You can have it planned out for that conversation. So as soon as they start talking to you, you can do your polite hello. It's so great to see you, and I'm out. Oh, gotta go to the bathroom.
Patricia Sung [00:18:16]:
Like whatever you need to do to plan ahead for that because those people so even though we are going to have those kind of people in our lives, and it may be your own child today. We can prepare ourselves to deal with that. Because, again, anger is a communication to us to know, like, hey. Something's going on here. I need to deal with that. You don't have to just sit there and be upset. The next thing we can do about being an angry person is just caring for our ADHD in general. Anything that you're doing to help your ADHD will help you with your emotional regulation and in dealing with all of those emotions, anger included.
Patricia Sung [00:18:50]:
So if you're going to therapy, if you're taking medicine, if you're in coaching, all of those things will help you create capacity and create more flexibility to deal with what's going on in life. Another thing we can do with anger is learn some calming techniques. Now there's gonna be some that annoy you. Like, whenever people tell me to, like, count breathing, we're not no. I don't wanna count anything when I'm mad. Don't don't tell me what to do. Don't give me more jobs to do when count, but there are breathing techniques that don't involve counting that I like very much. So, for example, top up breaths.
Patricia Sung [00:19:18]:
When I take a deep breath in, then you top it up just a little extra, and then breathe out as slow as you can. That one doesn't involve any counting. But when we can regulate our breathing, it's not just a, you know, the thing that roll your eyes at. You're actually telling your body, like, hey. I'm safe. You're lowering your heart rate. You're lowering your breathing rate, and you're sending your body signals of, like, hey. It's not World War 3.
Patricia Sung [00:19:40]:
I can, in fact, be safe where I am. So it's not a bunch of hooey. And if you want, I have a, like, a free video download. It's 10 ways to calm down. Pretty sure it's patriciasung.com/calm. Wasn't planning on throwing that in here. So I'm hoping that was right. Patricia sun dot com slash calm.
Patricia Sung [00:19:55]:
I'm pretty sure. If not, I'll put in the show notes. But you can learn these techniques to help you calm down in the moment because, yes, we can prepare for the things, and we can know what to do after the things. But in the moment, it's just like, I need I need something to calm down right now. These are techniques that you can use at the drop of a hat. Because the part that makes my heart hurt the most is that when we don't figure out how to deal with our anger, like, we aren't the only ones who are hurt here. This is something that really affects our family. And, like, we already have enough guilt and shame piled on in the first place.
Patricia Sung [00:20:28]:
Like, when we start adding on more ourselves because the way we spoke to our kid or the way we treated them, like, like, this is why I do what I do Because I don't want you to have to continue living like that. I want you to know that there is freedom to do something different and that you can learn the skills to be able to deal with the anger in a way that is healthy for both you and your kids. Because, unfortunately, like, I think the reason that, you know, people with ADHD end up in prison more or have more drug issues and have addictions with gambling and drugs and alcohol and, like, whatever else is your coping mechanism of choice, it's because after the anger explosion, sitting there and dealing with all that doo doo I'm like, I don't think I put an expletive reading on this podcast episode. Sitting with all that crap is the reason that people go, and by people I mean, like, literally everybody, go and find escape in drugs and alcohol and gambling and, like, whatever other shenanigans you're up to, ma'am. That is because we don't wanna deal with the stress that's going on in our lives, which totally makes sense. I get it. And that doesn't mean that we want to be choosing that particular coping mechanism in that way. Actually, having a way to cope is a good thing.
Patricia Sung [00:21:47]:
You want a coping mechanism. It's when that coping mechanism starts to be more of a hindrance than a help that then we have to look at it and go, well, crap. What am I gonna do about this? I need a different coping mechanism. I need a different way of doing things because I don't wanna be an alcoholic. I don't wanna be using drugs. I don't wanna be gambling away my savings. I don't wanna be shopping impulsively. I don't wanna be a perfectionist talking to myself this way.
Patricia Sung [00:22:12]:
I don't wanna be yelling at everyone. Like, we will all get to that point at some point to be like, I don't wanna do this anymore. Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom in order to look for another solution. I hope you don't have to learn the hard way. Sometimes I've had to. Like, this is why I do what I do. This is why I coach. This is why I have this podcast because I want you to know that there's another option available.
Patricia Sung [00:22:33]:
You can learn how to deal with your anger in a way that doesn't involve something that's hurting you more than it's helping you, or something that is hurting your kids more than it's helping you. And I am not saying that to give you guilt or shame. I'm telling you that for, like, a wake up call of, like, you don't have to do it that way. You have the option to do something different. You can let go of that. You can find a way to deal with all the crap that builds up in life without harming yourself and harming your kids. It is possible. A living proof.
Patricia Sung [00:23:03]:
I see it in my clients every day that you can learn to do things differently so that you don't have to be miserable. You don't have to be angry all the time. You don't have to be delving into your addiction of choice in order to not deal with what life is giving you right now. So please ask for help. If it's not with me, cool. But find a therapist, find another coach, find a friend to talk to, go download all my free stuff if you can't do coaching. Like, do something to take care of you so that you can reduce your stress level down to the point where you have the capacity to do everything you need to do without being angry all the time. And when you know how to do this for yourself, you can then turn around and teach your kids how to do it too.
Patricia Sung [00:23:47]:
Because I can't tell you how many times I'm yelling at my kids and they start yelling and I'm like, don't yell while I'm yelling. I can't teach them from a place where I don't have capacity. I can't. So if you find yourself in a place where anger seems to be running the show and not you, there is hope. You can figure out the things that trigger you. You can know what it is that's going on with you, like, know yourself so well to know, like, I'm getting to the place where I don't have capacity. I need to do something to take care of myself so that I don't keep up these continual patterns of hurting the people around me or myself, and that you can have the capacity to do that. You can learn the skills to be able to do that.
Patricia Sung [00:24:27]:
You can manage your ADHD to where you can actually live really well and be happy. It is possible. You can move from being an angry mom with a bad temper to being the kind of mom you wanna show up as every day. We don't have to be perfect, but things can be different. I'll talk to you soon, Successful Mama. For more resources, classes, and community, head over to my website, motherhoodinadhd.com.