Anger

Hi and welcome to the life of Jamie and more podcast. I'm doing this podcast as a dad about raising my son who has special needs. It has real life challenges for me and while I want to share mine, I really want to offer space to other dads to do the same. So let's get into one right now. Hi, welcome back to the second episode of life with Jamie and more. So I am really excited about this episode. It's been on my mind for or since I basically since I posted the first episode, but I've been toying with the ideas as to where I go with the second one. And I'm really excited to see where this one goes. But I want to thank everyone who's just been so supportive with the first episode. And I'd like to thank my wife, Johnco, because she was really happy and really thrilled. And she really loved it as well. And she also there were things in the in the episode that she didn't know about. And I think that was actually quite special because it was I think she thought she knew everything. And of course, you don't because she she was in she was in hospital. She was in the bed. She had had her the C section. I was outside talking to my dad. And he was just so much going on. So many balls to Joe and so many emotions to kind of process and get through that. You know, telling her that I was on the phone to my dad outside and you know, crying and telling him about it was not really high my list of things to be doing. So here we go. And so she yeah, she really enjoyed it. And I've just had great feedback from people from all around. Male and female, it's been fantastic, like husbands and wives and yeah, my parents as well. So it's been it's been fantastic. So thank you, everyone. And I'll keep doing this. You know, if I can, I'll keep doing this as long as I can do it. And I would like to have some guests on. I'd like to have guests down the line for people not just to hear my story, but I think it's so important that we hear stories of other guys, husbands, fathers, their story about how they get on in this world, how they travel through this world, their frustrations, their challenges. Those things are so important. And I think we need to give them space to so that so we can so they can hear them hear themselves say them as well, because that's really important. And also share if they can with that with others and help a few others along the way. So this episode is about anger. And I had been trying to work out what this episode was going to be about. And I was just I couldn't lock onto something. And I decided I think it was yesterday night or last night. And I was like, you know what? Now I've got to go with this. I need to go with the anger. And anger is it's such a like it's such a bad word. It's such a word that we never we don't have anything positive to relate to anger, right? When someone says their word, it's like just negative like negativity just fills the room. And I think that what I want to try and do is I want to talk about how I have dealt with that that whole anger. Now it's going to be difficult. I'm going to try my best on this. So bear with me. Okay, basically for a large amount of my life, I was never I never thought I was I never classed myself as an angry person. Okay, I think people who would know me would agree with that they never saw me kind of lose my shit and like just fly off the handle and you know, it was generally that wasn't me. That wasn't me. That was just not who I was. And I was pretty calm. Like, so what happened? Okay, well, hello, enter Jamie into the scene. And then also a couple years later, we have Joshua. So what happened? We know that I had the trauma from when Jamie was born. We know that I know that. And so that's that was simmering there simmering away under the surface. I piled on work on top of the trauma and the grief. And I never never really dealt never dealt with that. As we know, I talked I talked about that last lesson a little bit last lesson, last lesson to today. So I talked about that last time. And then I realized that I I had become someone who just got really angry. And I what it was it was such a strange feeling because I had never had these angry feelings before like this. I got frustrated with things I got first work and things like that before that that's that was pretty normal, right? But the anger and the anger was something that you know, would it was like this angry monster like this monster inside of me that would just come up and it would be there and it would it would raise itself in a way that I was unable to tame this monster. This monster just would almost rise up and I couldn't I couldn't control it. I couldn't control this monster. A lot of the time it would just be like there it was. And a lot of people never saw this. A lot of people never saw this because you know, I managed to kind of keep that monster away kind of locked away in its little cage. However, it did actually come out it did come out and it came out in a form that I didn't even realize that it came out with my wife and she actually she brought my attention to this. And she said, you, you are you are talking down to me. You are talking down to me and like, I don't like it. And it's really rude. And I was like, what are you talking about? And it was what it and she was so right. She was so right about this. I'm going to come back to that, but she was so right. And what I was doing is I was not I was not able to control my anger and my frustrations that I had going on. All that grief, all that trauma was all there pile on that the stress of running the business and no output, no output at all going on their time. So it was all going in. And and so I would let this let this kind of anger off at my wife and my in my work. And I just didn't realize until she actually brought it to my attention and she had to keep reminding me. She had to keep telling me and saying today you were so rude. I felt I felt like really I can't think the way she described and it alludes me now how she described it. But I felt like I really had like screwed up. I really had done something wrong because it was happening again and again. And it was just and I was I was disrespecting my wife, my lovely wife, who was helping me through and still helps me through everything. The person who, you know, was riding this going along this road, our journey with Jamie. She was on that road. And here I was just not respecting her. And and I think that was that was kind of like I would say like the entry into and knowing that I had this this kind of anger and this frustration inside of me. So it was it came out this anger came out. But also that was that and then I had episodes with the kids. The kids would do something and I would get really angry. I get really frustrated. I would feel this monster come up. And it was very hard to control this monster. Oh, my God, it was like, it was like just it overtook everything. And I was I am not I am not a physical guy. Okay, I am so not a physical guy. I'm like, I remember talking to I'm talking to my therapist the other day. By the way, we'll come we'll come to therapy in a minute. Okay, that's also really important. Talking to my therapist the other day, telling her how I think I actually have a bit of trauma from when I was I think I was in high school, and I wasn't I wasn't like getting changed for PE. And this guy came over and he started punching me. And I had never been punched in my life. I'd never had a fight my life never never created a fight, never nothing. Right. And this guy came over and he started just punching me. And I don't to this day, I don't know why he did it. And all I did was I just defend I just defended myself. I just put my hand my kind of elbows up like this. Everyone just stood around watching him all the all the mates were just watching. And I still remember to this day. So that actually was actually quite traumatic for me to remember that episode many years on. And I don't even think my parents even I don't even know. I don't even tell my parents this. Classic kid just not telling parents everything. Sorry mom and dad. Anyway, I wasn't hurt. So I was okay. I think it was just it was a traumatic experience. And I and I've lived been living with that kind of trauma for years. Anyway, so getting back to the physical. So I've never been physical, right? I've never been a physical guy. And so my anger would more transcend into what I would say, and how I would talk to my kids. And it was just like, you know, I would catch the point where I'd catch myself and I'd be like what am I doing? And I'd have to like stop, you know. And it was there were moments that were really tough. Because there were moments when Jamie would, he would almost had go into a fit. I can kind of pick multiple moments of that he would, he would go into a fit, he would have a meltdown. Could be at home, could be at a restaurant, even there were loads of those. But anyway, well, he would, if the food was hot, now when I say pot, I mean, like temperature, he would, he would put it in his mouth and he would just go absolutely apeshit, he would just, if it wasn't like lukewarm, he couldn't deal with it. And he would, he wasn't able to the concept of blowing the food and cooling it off. Because he was so hungry, he would just get straight into it. So he would dive into the food, avoid any kind of, you know, attempted us to try and help him to stop, slow down, whatever, he'd dive in, he'd try and touch it to his lip or get in his mouth, and he would just lose control. He would just lose control. He'd melt down. And I would be, I would get so angry because, and I knew what was going, I knew what was going to happen as well. Because he would do a couple, one of two things, he would either just like clear the table, he would just use his hand, he would scream, he would scream, and then he would use one of his arms and he would just like almost like a baseball bat, he would just clear the table in front of him. He would just, that's what he would do. So me or my wife would have to like either be on our, have reactions, you know, have really quick reactions to grab his arm. And so you'd grab his arm, and then he would, as you would grab his arm to stop the food flying off the table, he would, he would then either get his head and he would bang his head straight down on the table. And I mean, I know it sounds really, it sounds really intense. And it is, and it was very, very intense. And I'm, I'm able to talk about it now, because it was things that it, I can, I can work through that. But I, this must, this, these episodes, I'm pretty sure happened for people out there. And it, it was almost like a, probably a weekly occurrence for us with, with Feeding Jamie. So I would, I would get, when these happened, he would, my, this, my lion would just, well, I'm quoting a lion now, it's gone from a monster to a lion. We're going to call it a lion. This lion would rise up and it would get there and I would just get so angry because that's like, you know, because we, I had told him we had helped him try and to cool his foot down and he just hadn't, he didn't want to know, didn't want to know. It was just hunger was overriding anything. And then anger overrode his one. And then anger overrode mine. So it was just really frustrating. It was very frustrating. And as you can imagine, if you're in a restaurant, in a family restaurant in Japan, and that happens, it, you know, it's, it's embarrassing. I'm not going to like deny it. It's embarrassing. It's people will look and hello, I'm a foreigner. And people, so people look even more. They look over and they're like, what's going on? What's the screaming for? And you just have to, you go into your world. Basically, we just went into a world and I wouldn't get, I wouldn't lose my shit in the restaurant. I wouldn't lose my shit. And it was like, it managed to kind of control my, that monster a bit more, but I would still get angry inside. We're like, oh, Jesus man, like how many times? But it was just embarrassing. It was like, you know, hello, here we are. Can't, can't we control our son? Because no, they don't know him, right? As far as they can see, just some, some kid just having a going ape shit and just, you know, flicking their food around the restaurant. Um, you know, so it was really hard. It was really hard. Um, it got better. He got better actually with that. And also, more importantly for me, um, because I got better. And I got better because, and I got better after I went to therapy, I started therapy. And I want to talk a little bit about this because, um, I won't go into the whole, uh, details of it. I think I'll save that for another spectrum, uh, of, uh, of where we go with this. But I, I got into therapy and I was, uh, able to talk about a lot of these things. And I was able to talk about Jamie and the trauma I had with him. Um, and it was very, it was, it was hard. It was really hard. I remember the first, um, the first therapist I had, um, is I kind of feel bad for him actually because I think he was very good. And I remember, uh, uh, getting, getting into it with him. It was an online therapy session. And I remember getting into him and for about an hour and I was just, I got, I got emotional. I started crying. And then at the end of it, I, I felt like, okay, this is, this was really weird. This is not what I thought therapy was. And then for a couple of days, that day and a couple of days after is that I just, uh, felt like it was not what I, I believed therapy was. Um, and so I was kind of a bit, you know, I was, I was angry because I was like, that is, everyone talks about, you know, therapy helping and I don't feel like I've been helped. I feel the total opposite of being helped here. Um, because I felt like I just felt so drained for like two days. Um, and so I stopped. I didn't, I didn't do another episode. I didn't do another session with my therapist. Um, and, and I, you know, it was, I managed to move past this and I, thanks to, um, my family kind of saying to me, give it another go. I think, I think you need to don't give up on just this guy. Maybe you didn't connect with this guy. Try again, get into another one. Um, and so I did and now I am able to, I can feel that, that monster come up and even today, even today, today, uh, wonderful day actually. Um, but even today, I had, I was, I had the, the, I had that anger. I had that anger. Jamie was, um, he was gold actually. He was fantastic. Um, and then I, I think I was tired. I just got tired. I'm just self analyzing myself now. I was tired. I've been running around playing with the water guns. I was physically tired and so was he. Um, and I, when I, when I'm physically tired like that is that I find it difficult to, I find it really difficult to manage that, that emotional control. And so I was like that today. And I, you know, he wouldn't do what I wanted them to do in the timeframe that I was giving him. And, and it was, it was tough. And I, we, we got home and I was just like, I was just, oh, I just, I know, I just felt like, you know, I just felt pissed off. And I, I know that, you know, I can't, I can't be angry at him. He, he's tired, but like what I can do is I, again, I had to just focus on to me. I had to just come back to me and ensure that I was able to be in that headspace. And so I took 15 minutes away. I said to, I said to my wife, I said, I'm just going to go down 15 minutes. I'm just going to go lie down 15 minutes. And I just, and that's what I did. Just lie down on the bed. Um, and I came back and I was a bit better. Hey, I was, I was a bit more, I did a little bit of kind of breathing exercises and I came back and I was a little bit better. Um, and so it's, it's a challenge. Anger is a challenge, but, and of course that anger generally is, or my, my anger generally is orientated out to, to someone else. Right? My anger and frustration is with generally targeted outside of me, but what I need to, what I need to do is I need to work on what's going on inside of me. And that's actually so much more important than the other because that's how we can control. That's how I can control. That's how I can control my, myself and therapy has really happened helping me. It's really helping me. It's allowing me to give me a space where I can talk about issues that come up. It might be really small issues, but actually they're actually quite important issues and my therapist will listen and my therapist, she'll also challenge me. She'll kind of just throw me those questions back. She'll know when's the right time to kind of throw me a question. And I think it's really, really important to do. Um, I, I am in a, um, you know, I, I know that therapy is expensive and I'm, I'm very, I am very fortunate that I am in a position to, to do it. Um, and not everyone is in that position. So it's, it is something which I have to, um, make sure that I really do, uh, get into, um, and make it work because if I, for me to be the better person with all this around my family and for me to be able to tackle challenges with Jamie at work, all these challenges, mental challenges, I, for me to be the best I can be, I need to be doing, I need to keep doing this, this therapy. Um, uh, it grounds me and my anger I'm able to control so much more that lion. I'm so much, so much better controlling that lion and I, what I do is I actually, I, I think what I do, if I can kind of just self analyze what I do, I actually pull it back into myself. I actually, rather than looking at the person that's irritating me, I actually bring it back into me and I think about me and it's, it's actually a really hard thing to do because you've got to think how am I, I need to look after myself right now. I need to regulate, I've got to try and regulate my, my inner, my inner monster and it's really hard. It's so hard. Um, so there we go. I, uh, I hope that, um, this has worked. I actually, uh, have a little thing which I want to talk about because my, uh, a therapist of mine, uh, uh, told me about this, uh, Wheel of Emotions. If you Google it, bring up, it's a, uh, thing called Wheel of Emotions and if you have a look at it, it's really interesting because it has, it works. You start from the inside and you work out. Okay. So you find your emotion on the inside and then you work out and it gives you options as to how you really are because sometimes we don't actually, well a lot of the time, we actually don't know why we are angry, why we are, why we are happy, why we are sad, why we are, um, you know, all these emotions. We don't actually really quite know and I've used this and I actually used it today because I was like, why the hell am I angry? Why the hell am I angry? And what's the kind of, and it was actually frustration. I built it out to frustration. I was frustrated with Jamie and the frustration for me was cause I was physically tired. Um, so the Wheel of Names, uh, Wheel of Names, not the Wheel of Names, the Wheel of Emotions is where you want to be looking at. Um, yeah, go ahead and check it out. So that is it for today. Um, I hope that it's, it's, I felt so easy to talk about anger. I thought this was going to be really difficult to talk about. Uh, I've managed to actually do it and I've managed to hopefully get through what I want to say. Number two, done. Thank you everyone so much for listening. Uh, please share. We're on, uh, we're on YouTube as well. We can actually, I'll make, I'll make a, uh, a video of this. There you go. Um, waving to the video and so it can, you can actually see me. Um, and uh, yeah, thanks guys. Uh, we'll catch you later for the next one. Number three, take care. Bye.