Living with a person that has mental health issues you hear a lot about triggers. Triggers for those of you that don't understand, which I would assume most would. Are those events or sayings or any number of things that create an unwelcome emotion. For me that emotion is anger.
Lately I have been identifying a lot of my triggers. I never thought that I had an anger problem until about 10 years ago when my mom came to visit and I got mad over something completely mundane. I do not even remember what I was mad over but I got angry and showed my emotion.
Now my anger is not hitting something or breaking something or causing any type of harm to anyone else, its just that I get hot and sweaty and raise my voice to the people around me. Being from the east coast I can get pretty loud too.
My mom said "why are you always so unhappy."
At first I denied it then it sunk in. Years later I realize that I still have anger issues but I have learned to be better about it. I have also learned what triggers them and I try to avoid those situations.
Of course the simple ones, driving in traffic on the weekends. Sometimes that is inevitable but if I can avoid it I will. If I can't I have to convince myself that its necessary and that I have to leave early to get where I want to go on time. This does not always work with a family but I try.
I also try to avoid crowds, so I do my grocery shopping on Sunday morning. There are a few others that I have just come to realize I have to deal with and not get mad.
The one hardest thing for me though is money. I get mad when my wife goes to the store without me and buys a bunch of stuff we don't need. It's funny though since she does not buy anything extravagant. I'm talking a package of chocolate when she goes to buy grocery bags. Or a Starbucks coffee since they put them in all the super markets around here.
Things have been going so smoothly lately with money and work but sometimes I get so worried about the next day that I get angry when she buys something that we did not discuss. Its completely nitpicking but the emotions take over.
I have learned what my main trigger is, now I just need to learn to control it.
The biggest issue I have is that we do not have a sufficient savings. We are building it back up but it is not there yet, not even close. But I should feel comfortable that we are able to put money into it, for some reason I am not.
I do not know how to stop worry about that rainy day, maybe because it was raining for quite a while with us years ago and my mind still thinks back about it.
We went through financial ruin and years later my mind still thinks about the stress we went through.
We are no where near that now and have learned from our mistakes but it still lurks.
I do not want to live in fear of this and I hope that I learn to control it.
For now I just know that money triggers anger and I just have to breath a little more and relax my mind and know that things are better than they ever have been.
Lately I have been identifying a lot of my triggers. I never thought that I had an anger problem until about 10 years ago when my mom came to visit and I got mad over something completely mundane. I do not even remember what I was mad over but I got angry and showed my emotion.
Now my anger is not hitting something or breaking something or causing any type of harm to anyone else, its just that I get hot and sweaty and raise my voice to the people around me. Being from the east coast I can get pretty loud too.
My mom said "why are you always so unhappy."
At first I denied it then it sunk in. Years later I realize that I still have anger issues but I have learned to be better about it. I have also learned what triggers them and I try to avoid those situations.
Of course the simple ones, driving in traffic on the weekends. Sometimes that is inevitable but if I can avoid it I will. If I can't I have to convince myself that its necessary and that I have to leave early to get where I want to go on time. This does not always work with a family but I try.
I also try to avoid crowds, so I do my grocery shopping on Sunday morning. There are a few others that I have just come to realize I have to deal with and not get mad.
The one hardest thing for me though is money. I get mad when my wife goes to the store without me and buys a bunch of stuff we don't need. It's funny though since she does not buy anything extravagant. I'm talking a package of chocolate when she goes to buy grocery bags. Or a Starbucks coffee since they put them in all the super markets around here.
Things have been going so smoothly lately with money and work but sometimes I get so worried about the next day that I get angry when she buys something that we did not discuss. Its completely nitpicking but the emotions take over.
I have learned what my main trigger is, now I just need to learn to control it.
The biggest issue I have is that we do not have a sufficient savings. We are building it back up but it is not there yet, not even close. But I should feel comfortable that we are able to put money into it, for some reason I am not.
I do not know how to stop worry about that rainy day, maybe because it was raining for quite a while with us years ago and my mind still thinks back about it.
We went through financial ruin and years later my mind still thinks about the stress we went through.
We are no where near that now and have learned from our mistakes but it still lurks.
I do not want to live in fear of this and I hope that I learn to control it.
For now I just know that money triggers anger and I just have to breath a little more and relax my mind and know that things are better than they ever have been.
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