I am angry these days.  About a myriad of things.  Life choices that I voluntarily made that are blowing up in my face, mainly.

And a lot of things that are frankly, out of my control, secondarily.

I can not seem to shake it.  I may even be teetering on my worst bout of depression yet.

I have shut out friends, family, and activities in reaction to my anger.  Which only fuels loneliness, really, but somehow makes me feel better anyway.  I certainly do not want my friends being brought down by my mood and my negative attitude.  That would just add to my anxiety.

I could go into my reasoning and irrational thoughts that are fueling my anger but then this would be a 50 part series and all of your would run looking for a less whiny, more positive blog to read every day and then I would have one more thing to be angry with myself for!

Nobody wants that!

But since I know I can not be the only mother in America to experience a rough time and still have to be an upbeat, happy, Lori on the spot parent, I thought I would at least write about something I DO have control over but am seeming to fail at miserably during this emotional time for me.

Parenting through my anger.

Possibly the hardest thing I have done in my lifetime.  Trying to keep a smile on my face, a rational head on my shoulders, and a fair viewpoint when one of the things I am angry about is my lack of ability to parent my kids in the way I think I should be.

And still trying not to be too hard on myself, as well.

Hard.Hard.Hard.

Impossible!

And since I know that some of my anger is from sources not relevant to my children, I have an even harder time trying to separate the two and not take it out on them.

I am not crazy, I don’t abuse them in any way by any means…  if anything, as others have told me, I am not hard enough on them, but I think – personally – that my fuse is a lot shorter these days than it used to be.

Case in point.

We were headed home from an event over the weekend and Katie would not stop screaming in the car.  She was – at the top of her lungs-  yelling “NOO NOO NOO” in a mean, angry voice.  I told her time and time again to cool it.

She did not.

Feeling rage over yet another situation proving that my children never listen to me, I told her that if she did not stop it, I was pulling over on the side of the road – at 9:30pm, and leaving her there.

She did not stop.

My face was red, I know it was, my blood boiling, and my creative juices zapped as I slammed on my breaks and pulled into a parking lot!  I was alllll done!

I opened the door and reached to undo her car seat.  She was screaming. Clearly scared she was begging me not to leave her on the side of the road. Torn between rational thought and anger that was too over the top for that situation, in my opinion, it took my husband telling me that she got the message for me to stop trying to get her out of her seat.

I took a deep breath, retracketed and drove my family home.  With a very scared, shaken 4 year old in the back seat.

And I was very angry with myself.

She’s 4 and the fact that I put that fear in her because I could not rationally make adult decisions about parenting tore at my very soul.

So I ask…  how am I supposed to parent when something with me is not quite right?  If I am angry, lonely, sad, depressed, and despondent, how do I leave that part to the side and tackle parenting like a parent… instead of a tyrant instilling fear in innocent kids?

How do I control my knee jerk reaction to send someone to time out or their rooms or throw a toy in the trash instantly, instead of trying alternatives first?

And how can I expect them to respect me if I can not even respect myself?

Like I said… this is the hardest thing I have had to so to date…  parenting through anger.