Irritable and grouchy!! Anti-social

[mistiblue]

One thing that really bothers me is, how irritable and grouchy I am lately. I can't deal with chaos at all without getting so on edge. If, while I'm on edge, someone tries to speak to me I snap at them. Unfortunately, my children bear the brunt of it :( an example: the other night we got some pretty bad weather. My mom and I were out and when I stopped at a light I started to slide....well, while we are sliding, my son starts to ask me a question. I snapped on him because of the situation. I don't like being that way, but it just happens.
I am also very anti social these days. I used to be so outgoing and friendly. Now, I dread seeing people or even meeting new people. I don like talking on the phone and sometimes just want to be a hermit. I don't know how to change these things :(

[trinidiva]

I can totally relate. My family always seems to bear the brunt of it too. I'm really trying to not be so touchy and sensitive about things....but it truly is hard sometimes.

[janey]

I'm like that sometimes. It's easy to be irritable and grouchy when you feel off balance, anxious or even bad about yourself. When I'm like that, it's almost best to pause before you speak instead of replying right away. As cliche as it sounds, breathe deeply and just admit you're feeling kind of irritable to your loved ones. Tell them that it's not them making you mad, you're just feeling in a rut. It'll make you feel a little better to open up to them about it. Then I think they will be considerate around you.

[Lee Grant Irons]

Mistiblue, You have made a fantastic step in recognizing the problem and that you want to not be this way anymore, which is the goal. I have found in my own life that I tend to get upset when my expectations, whatever they may be at any given moment, are not met. Certainly expecting that your car would stop when you apply the brakes, but then the car starts sliding, is an attention grabbing unmet expectation. It is very understandable for anyone to snap under such a situation. The more sneaky expectations that catch us off guard are the normal daily happenings of life. We want some peace and quiet, but then our kids get home from school and are loud and full of energy. We did our best to keep the lights turned off and the air conditioner at a higher temperature, and yet our electric bill still comes in high. When faced with unmet expectations, I can so easily get upset, usually at myself, but then take it out on the people around me that I love. And then I get upset for not meeting my expectation of not taking it out on my family, and I get even more upset. Downward spiral.

So how do you accomplish a goal of changing how you respond to stress and solve this problem of being grouchy? I think first you have to accept the things that make you upset but that you can't change. Take some time when you truly are alone and can't be bothered, say after the kids go to bed, and brainstorm a list of these things you cannot change. One example that I would put on my list of things I can't change is that I can't change how my kids choose to act or respond in any given situation. I also can't change the amount that the electric company charges for each kilowatt hour. I can't change that it was so hot this summer that the air conditioner ran and ran even though I had it set to 78.

The next thing you can do is to acknowledge that you have a number of expectations that have enslaved you. Brainstorm this list to and write it down. Third, I would recommend you put out an effort to lower each expectation, one at a time. This will likely take months of effort, with frequent remissions into bouts of frustration and grouchiness. However, don't give up.

One tool you can use to lower your expectations is to consider the worst that could happen if a certain thing you expect does not come to pass. For example, my dauighter called me from college the other day, stressing over a chemistry test that she just finished taking. She was sure she blew it. I asked her why she felt she blew it. It turns out she was sure she missed 12 out of 100 points of problems, which would give her an 88. I could see that was not too bad, but she could not see it. So I asked her to come up with a worst case grade that she thinks she could get on this test. She said an 85. I said, "Let's reduce your expectation to an 80. What is the worst that could happen if you get an 80 on the test?" I helped her then calculate that she could end up with a final grade of B in the course. I then asked her what that would do to her overall GPA at college. We calculated together that if she continued to do as well in her other classes as she is currently doing, but receved an ocasional B in a course, she could end up with a GPA of 3.7, which is not bad at all for where she is attending. After I talked her through this, all of her stress and anxiety passed, and she was peaceful again. So she walked into her next class with an expectation of getting an 80. Her actual score was an 85 that was turned into a grade of 90 because the teacher gave a 5 point curve. She was very happy. Now, this example is probably child's play compared to some expectations you are having to manage. However, the process is the same. Lower you expectations to the worst that could happen and consider the consequences of this worst case, get at peace with it (this might be the hardest part), and then expect the worst. Over 90% of the time, the worst will not happen, and things will be much better than you expected. Suddenly, life is filled with icing on the cake, with a side of ice cream and a cherry on top.

Try to do similar methods of thinking with the expectations you have in your life. If you need any help with thinking through particular ones, post back and tell us about them. Maybe we can give you some thoughts.

Some expectations might turn out to be very challenging. You might have to separate these and work these as separate problems from the grouchiness problem, so that you can pay particular attention to them.

Hope this helps.