I want to share a question with you that I ask myself often. Well, I guess it is several questions, all variations of the same. But of course I am going to share it within a story 🙂
I sit here typing, struggling. I think I have another mild concussion or at least whiplash. May 5, 2017 I was in a car accident. Major concussion. It sucked. I got out of the car then (didn’t realize how bad my symptoms were yet) and saw that I had been hit by a brand new driver. She was in tears and the fear in her face just melted my mama heart. Any anger I could have felt disappeared.
My brand new car that I bought all by myself post divorce, a car that represented my new start, was destroyed and yet I didn’t feel an ounce of anger at that moment.
Instead, I focused my energy on soothing this young teenager.
“I am okay.” I promised her. “Your parents will be happy you are okay.” I reassured her. “Listen, everyone has a first accident. You are lucky it was your parents car and not your own and now you have it out of the way!” I said, trying to make her smile.
She just kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.”
I just kept saying, “It’s okay, you’re okay, I’m okay, it’s going to be okay!” Maybe I was in shock.
Maybe I truly felt more empathy than anger at that point. Or maybe I was just in full on Orange Rhino mode and knew that yelling wasn’t worth it. (Maybe, it was all three.) Honestly, what good would yelling have achieved?
Would it have made my car new again? No.
Would it have made my neck stop aching? No.
Would it have made her feel any better? No.
Would it have made her feel a heck of a lot worse and therefore an even more nervous driver for months to come and therefore more prone for accidents? Yes.
Would it have made me physically feel worse? Yes.
Yelling would have done me no good. I am glad that I didn’t yell then. Absolutely no upside.
Back to the present day. Ever since that concussion back in 2017, the mildest thing can set my head off, even not getting into a car accident. Sunday night I was driving my boys to dinner. I was going down a very small hill, totally going the speed limit, when a car at the bottom was clearly not yielding. I had the right of way. We were about to slam into each other. It was either going to be a head-on collision or I was going to be nailed right in the driver’s side door. Full speed.
When I say fear consumed me at that moment, that second, it is an understatement. Saying I saw my life flash before my eyes is an overstatement and yet, feels really close to the best statement. Holy sh*t.
I slammed on my brakes so freakin’ hard and they screeched and jerked (along with my entire body and especially my neck) as my minivan violently but quickly came to a halt inches, centimeters (?) from the other driver’s car. My left arm immediately went up and pointed to the yield sign and I mouthed the words “Yield! You have a yield.”
My right arm remained where it always goes – in front of my front seat passenger. My right arm had gone out to protect my son just as fast as my foot went to slam on the breaks. As I began to drive forward, the driver rolled down his window and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”
Somehow, despite being completely freaking scared and triggered, I calmly replied, “I am just glad no one got hurt.” I then drove on and well, promptly burst into tears.
One son asked why I was crying. I said, “Well, that was just really scary and I am just so relieved and happy we are okay. I really meant that.”
Another son asked, “Why didn’t you yell at him? Tell him what a jerk driver he was?”
My response? “Well, what good would that have done? What would it have achieved? It wouldn’t have made things better? In fact it could have made things worse? What if my yelling really pissed him off and he got angry instead of apologetic and started a fight? Nobody got hurt. We are all okay. We are safe. Yelling wasn’t going to achieve anything. And besides, how can I yell at a car that looks like Rudolph?”
I meant what I said to him. What good would yelling have done? We all know fundamentally yelling doesn’t do any good. But I often remind myself of that when I can remember too 😉
When I am starting to get agitated – especially with teenagers – I ask myself, “What am I trying to achieve?”
And then when I find myself getting cranky or even yelling…
“Is yelling helping me get what I want/need?”
“Is yelling worth it?”
And then when I find myself even more annoyed with the situation…
“Am I making the situation better or worse by yelling?”
These questions do help ground me and either prevent me from yelling or using a nasty tone or help reel me back in.
Do I remember them all the time?! No. Of course not. BUT with practice, they become more natural. Or with repetition. The more I remind myself that yelling isn’t worth it, the more I remember to find a better, more productive path.
So while I didn’t yell at the gentleman who almost slammed into my family 🙁 I did yell at my family Monday night. All day Monday my body hurt, my head throbbed and everything was freakin’ blurry. I felt like crap. I assumed it was my new medication. I was so moody with my boys. I apologized but still. I was not fun to be around. I put myself to bed early.
Yesterday was better but still symptoms. No yelling though. Why? It dawned on me as I fell asleep holding my head Monday night that I probably had a mild concussion from the whip lash of slamming on the breaks so hard. Understanding of what is going on in our minds and bodies – of our triggers – can do wonders. It doesn’t excuse them, but it explains them which oddly enough helps calm them a little.
Here’s to a Wednesday of gently reminding ourselves that yelling doesn’t really work and that finding our triggers and understanding them does really work!
xoxo, Sheila
🧡 The Orange Rhino
