Lifted A Car & Saved My Family

Ok, it's not as dramatic as it sounds, but some parts are.

I've spoken about my rage issue in previous posts, and it was reaching the point where I didn't know what else to do to control it.

It's not just as simple as taking a breath, or checking my temper. It explodes without warning, at the slightest provocation, and I don't even know what's causing my temper to simmer all the time - but it does. And when someone does something small, it's like tossing a whole bottle of Eno into a boiling pot of water. Or Mentos in a Coke bottle - whatever the urban legend is that makes harmless things explode.

I was praying hard. I had already hurt myself several times in attempts to redirect the rage to inanimate things like the furniture. I was afraid someone else was eventually going to be seriously hurt. It had to stop.

Action 1:

The fire seemed to lower after I wrote my last blog post, because I realised I was trying to be EVERYTHING to the kids and the pressure was killing me. Especially the part about feeding them enough food, nutritiously. Once I worked out what was important to me, or what I wanted the kids to feel and think about me in the long run, I could refocus my energy on that and stop spreading it so thin across everything.

Still, the water was simmering and I was still losing my temper with the kids and everyone else. Had a major blowout with my loved ones too, which made things worse, and the kids got the brunt of it.

Action 2:

So I had made a decision to take a page from my FB moderation awsum-skillz book, and STOP ENGAGING in conflict with other adults - no matter how much they bait me or their words upset me. Engaging just upsets them, and me, and no one comes out the winner. I only needed to keep quiet, hold my tongue - be cool. Be cool, bitch. Be cool.

I had to consciously stop taking things personally, and let the words just roll off my back like water off a duck. It helped that I had set my Parenting Priorities in my previous post, and those were fresh in my mind and it helped to keep my actions in perspective.

But still, the water was still running hot and nowhere close to tepid.

Action 3:

I feel like the the turning point was when I ... * drum roll * ..... lifted the Honda City.

I was simmering with anger the whole morning while we were on a family outing, and the car got accidentally driven over this cement hump at the parking lot (not all the lots have it, but ours inexplicably did), the front wheels went over and KRUNK, the bottom of the car scraped the hump and chipped off a few bits of cement chunks.

We tried to reverse it back over the hump (so we didn't scrape more of the car's underbelly) but the car had no power to get back over it.

I was already at exploding point now, and stormed out of the car immediately, walked to the front, grabbed the bottom of the bumper just under the license plate .... and lifted the car. 

No. But it sure felt like this!

My first attempt failed. It didn't budge.

I used more strength and lifted it again, and pushed, while the driver reversed it ... and the car went up and over the cement hump without further fuss.

All this while, 2 terrified indian ladies in a nearby car were watching me with wide eyes. Hahah.

Later, I found I had sprained my wrist and pulled the slipped disc in my neck from the exertion, but I didn't feel it at the time. Too much adrenaline.

This is an illustration of just how violent and angry I was during this rage period - and how dangerous I was to the kids.

After this incident, all the anger seemed to have leaked out of me. It's like all the bad shit that was roiling around inside me, contained inside me, was released into the effort to do something superhuman like lift a car! I do remember feeling weak, but euphoric after I got back into the car.

I'm glad to say that things seemed to have calmed a lot and I feel a lot more like myself again, and even though the kids still do things that make me mad or make me yell at them, I no longer have the violent, uncontrollable rage that used to take control of my body.

Hope it's not just hormonal and temporary. I like being happy and in control of my life again.

My family is safe. And all it took, was for me to lift a car.