Work In Progress: Yelling

Dear Orange Rhinos,

Tonight I share with you a brave guest post by Melody, a fellow Orange Rhino. I have been saving it for the right time and tonight is that night! Sweet #4 (my seizure prone little one) is rocking a 104 fever along with bouts of coughing and wheezing. I so very much want to write about the anxiety I felt earlier at the doctors, then dinnertime, and then bedtime. I so very much want to write about how it (the ugly stress monster) tried so very hard to trigger me to yell. But alas, tonight has been spent in and out of his room checking on him so no writing. Let’s hope tomorrow night?!

I will share with you though that I won tonight; that I didn’t let my trigger get all trigger-happy! Take that anxiety and stress; this Orange Rhino knows how to talk herself out of yelling now. But it wasn’t always that way. Oh, no, it most certainly wasn’t. Melody recently sent me this link to one of her posts about her journey to yell less and love more. As I read it, I found myself thinking, yep, yup, oh yeah, I have been there, I have sooo been there. Tonight, I was practically there again. The intensity of all the crying and the chaos and the worry had me wanting to tear my hair out, maybe even tear my necklace off.

I think we have all been there. I took great comfort re-reading this post tonight, realizing I am not alone. So tonight, in lieu of writing, I share this piece from Melody that I bet many of us can all relate to in hopes that we all feel less alone on this journey.

All my best and thanks Melody,
The Orange Rhino

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Wednesday WIP: Yelling
By Melody W.
March 13, 2013

I am prone to bouts of yelling. I’m just not perfect. I don’t recall there being any yelling in my home growing up. My parents had/have three kids so they did have to yell to get our attention at times. But I can’t recall excessive yelling. I have all good thoughts and feelings about my upbringing.

So where did it happen? When? Somewhere along the line after I moved out of the nest I started to yell. Violently. I just raged. I don’t know why it started if it wasn’t in my nature. Since I’ve left the nest I haven’t always been in the ideal of situations. Perhaps the anxiety of uncertainty pushed me to anger, which pushed me to rage. Anything would set me off.

In January, maybe it was the fifth? We went to look at a house. The house we are working so hard for. We are so close to closing it hurts. Anyhow. We were on our way there. We had had a pretty good morning. We were all excited to see the house. I was feeling anxious. What if we couldn’t afford it? What if it was a waste of time? What if the boys misbehave while we are there and we have to leave…or Felix has a blow out diaper? Just my typical “its all in my head” crap that brings me down. My amazing husband said something…and he looked at me. And I lost it. I grunted and scream and growled and hollered. I yanked the necklace that was around the rearview mirror down…no I ripped it off. The owl pendant that I love flying through the car.

I stomped my feet.

I almost cried.

It was nuts.

My boys were quiet. They were scared. Stephen was angry in response and I sent him into a foul mood. I apologized, I told Maddox I was sorry and it wasn’t okay. But you can’t undo words. Apologies are formalities and you cannot undo what has been done and what has been said and there are things you just can’t say or do to people you love. And I did. I do it all the damn time. This is just one example.

Well I’m proud to say that today is day one of my no yelling challenge.

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Melody is still working on her Orange Rhino Challenge to yell less and love more. She was proud of herself for starting back in March; I am proud of her for still trying every single day, especially while pregnant which I know 3x over, makes not yelling not easy! Thanks Melody (http://melodymarie85.wordpress.com) for sharing so bravely and for helping me out tonight!