Our nine-year-old son came in through the carport in a hurry recently, exasperated and bordering on tears of frustration because the front brake on his bike had broken and he needed it fixed immediately. It seemed. (Well, we all have these crises arise in our lives, even as adults.)
His energy level immediately impacted mine, because I was busy focused on something I felt was important, so instantly I felt robbed. His need came at just the wrong time for me, though as we know as parents, this happens all the time.
I could see in the moment that my wife was even less able to help than I was. This too frustrated me, a person whose love language is helping and being helped.
Without even space to grasp at some perspective, I responded to my son’s need in a flash, but I was also triggered by the exasperation that, “Can’t everyone see what a massive inconvenience this is right now?” And everything in my behaviour made it clear I wasn’t a happy camper; that I’d turned from introspective to incensed in a flash.
I stomped back and forth looking for the one set of pliers that can do the repair, and when they couldn’t be found easily, my stomping and angry muttering got even more intense. I can only imagine the mix of fear and frustration and disappointment my son experienced because of how I was reacting.
I was so consumed by feelings of being incensed I lost complete awareness of what my being incensed was like for my son, let alone my wife.
It was literally 3-4 minutes of feeling triggered before I could see the little boy inside of me saying, “Hey, what on earth is going on here? Why are you panicking and causing fear in others? I feel scared of you right now.” But I didn’t respond to him, because I felt so justified in that moment that I could hardly hear his small and scared voice.
It was interesting to reflect on what was going on inside me at the time of my conniption.
For that 3–4-minute period, I was confused within as if I was operating on autopilot, but nobody was at the helm. This can be what being triggered is like. The psychological phenomenon is called amygdala hijack. There was also a part of me triggered because of the distress my son was experiencing—this rarely happens, but his desperation revealed a desolate little soul in that moment, and that just grieved my spirit. So part of my overreaction was a really poorly deployed response of compassion for him.
Fortunately as quick as I descended into my overreaction I saw the impact and inappropriateness of my behaviour and I promptly stopped, slowed the moment down, and requested my son’s presence. We sat on the bathroom floor together and I told him what just happened wasn’t his fault but MY fault. I said that feeling scared of my anger was understandable, and that I was really sorry. I promised to behave with more self-control from now on (and quite aptly, my wife and I noticed that night that our son deserved some praise for his self-control). I watched for the rest of the day how much eye contact my son would give me, because I find that’s the best test of true trust and intimacy—thankfully, he felt justly treated because, in his heart at least, he and I were back to normal. The way our family works, an apology to our son in this context is as good as an apology as my wife needs.
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Not long ago I asked my wife in a salient moment of mutual reflection why she puts up with me, and she said in her characteristic wise way, “Well, you know, when you’re good, you’re very good, and that’s mostly the case.” It was an important moment in our 15-year marriage. It shone a light on a few things, including my wife’s groundedness, lack of personal baggage, and capacity to forgive, not to mention how fortunate I am. It certainly invites me to forgive her when I need to.
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One thing I use in my counselling all the time is the time in my life where I literally believed I’d overcome my anger. That was for a two-year period when I was growing massively in the spiritual sense. The good thing about getting married was it wasn’t long before I had a lot of negative feelings to deal with [insert smile!].
Negative feelings are part of life, just as loss brings us to the door of grief. There’s a good purpose in these negative feelings simply for the fact that they can be overcome when we face them in humility. Negative things happen in our lives and none of us is perfect.
De-shamifying our anger heals it. We must discuss it. We must put it on the table. We must make it an objective part of us. We must see that being ashamed of losing control only makes things worse.
That’s precisely why I write this vulnerably. It’s here to give others license to be real about behaviour that intuits shame and guilt. We must have a way of reconciling these matters or we stand to repeat the behaviours in damaging violent ways.
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