“What? You’re saying because I’m anxious, I’m abusive?” “Are you kidding?” Cindy asked me, curling a tissue in her hand. “You’re blaming me for being anxious when my kids are terrible?”
Of course, I didn’t actually say anything. These are just the thoughts going through my head sometimes as I hear stories like this one:
Cindy had had it up to HERE with the noise in the house. She was trying to balance the checkbook and the app wasn’t working. She’d checked her numbers again and again. She was staring at the screen, wondering how she would make the college tuition payment for Marty when the screaming started again from the yard.
Finally, she leaned out the window and hollered at the kids to stop – but they didn’t hear her. She was even more upset, and quaking, she rushed down the stairs to tell them in no undertain way to be quiet. The neighborhood kids stopped immediately, looking at her with unreadable stares. They slinked off, home while Kelsey, their 10 year old, ran into the house humiliated and crying.
Or this one:
Driving home, Max thought about his misstep at work. He was so nervous about the presentation that he literally pulled the wrong folder from it’s place in his drawer and when he got to the conference room up on the 34th floor, it was too late to go back for the right one. Either he’d look like a fool keeping 12 people waiting, or he’d look like a fool winging the presentation. He chose the latter and looked worse than a fool.
Coming home, he barked at his daughter, Meryl, who was sitting amidst a bunch of dirty pots, having just prepared dinner for the family. As she stamped out of the kitchen, his wife, Jen, came home and he roared at her for having such a disrespectful daughter.
Here you are, the mistreated one, and somehow that translates into
*jumping to conclusions about others
*over-reacting
*passing the buck just to feel better
*and feeling worse, anyway
What can you do about it and what can those around you do about it? Find out tomorrow night at 9 PM Eastern time why anxiety is nearly synonymous with abuse and what to do about it.