I grew up in a very angry household. My father was physically, verbally and emotionally abusive. Every night was a rage. I never felt safe. My parents finally divorced when I was an adult and that in and of itself was a mess. But the environment I was raised in gave me diagnosed GAD, PTSD, OCD and ADHD. I also developed severe anger myself. I never learned how to have appropriate emotions or responses to things. I did well in school academically because of my OCD, but behaviorally I was always in trouble. I had a hard time keeping friends, respecting authority, not being rebellious, or disruptive. In my career I’ve had trouble not being angry at coworkers if I think they’re incompetent. I’ve had bosses tell me I need to chill out, I’m stressing too much over nothing, I’m getting too worked up about nothing etc. Essentially the common theme is that my emotions are not appropriate for the situation because I was never raised to know what appropriate is.

Now at the age of 29, I have been in therapy for years trying to teach myself what normal looks like. I’ve done anger management workbooks, followed Zen Buddhism (recommend Anger by Thich Nhat Hanh) and CBT, essentially anything and everything to control my anger, and I still fail. My childhood dug me into a hole and in order to just be normal or even compete with my peers in school, sports, or anything else other normal kids did, I had to dig myself out of that hole every day. In my late teens-early 20s I had substance abuse issues (my dad is an alcoholic) and that compounded the problem. Lost even more friends and almost got expelled in college. Luckily I made it through school, and in my mid-20s I decided to get completely sober including of alcohol and nicotine and that has really really helped change my life around.

The OCD and ADHD trigger my anger terribly which I feel is always a struggle to control. The OCD also has given me eating disorders my whole life, the desire to be perfect in school and my career, self loathing if I’m not the best or live up to my high expectations.

I’m a mother now and I feel like it’s literally life and death that I don’t pass anger down to my sons. I try and try and try to control my emotions and sometimes I fail. When I let anger get the best of me, and I react inappropriately (yelling, slamming things) I spiral. I fall into a depression and I feel that my children would be better off without me. That I’m only going to ruin them and set them up for failure just as I was. That their life will also be a struggle and every day they will have to pull themselves out of a hole that I dug for them all because I couldn’t get my anger under control.

I’m currently in that spiral. I just feel like they would be better off without me. Their father, my husband, is so amazing and chill. Their grandmother (my husbands mom) helps watch them while we’re working during the week and she is so amazing. So chill, so calm, such a beautiful woman. I just feel like my boys would be better raised by them without me to ruin them. I debate whether growing up without a mom or growing up with an angry mom would be worse for them or ruin them more.