How not to snap?

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

The thing I want to work on is not snapping. I am sure there is a proper term for what I mean. However, I don't know what the right word is. I will try to explain.

The other day at breakfast my wife (diagnossed BPD) was talking about all the raking of leaves she did before spreading grass seed. The fact is she didn't rake worth a darn. I didn't call her on it last spring when it occurred. Therefore, it is not fair for me to call her on it now. However, I did. Which in of itself wouldn't be all that bad. What was so bad was the harsh way I told her she was so full of crap. I didn't feel the anger rising. I just snapped. One second I am talking calmly the next I am nearly shouting.

This will happen from time to time. I am surprised some times how I am suddenly past my limit/tipping point. I feel like I regulate myself pretty well in tense situations --when I see it coming.

Is there a proper name for this?

[Bair]

The thing I want to work on is not snapping. I am sure there is a proper term for what I mean. However, I don't know what the right word is. I will try to explain.

The other day at breakfast my wife (diagnossed BPD) was talking about all the raking of leaves she did before spreading grass seed. The fact is she didn't rake worth a darn. I didn't call her on it last spring when it occurred. Therefore, it is not fair for me to call her on it now. However, I did. Which in of itself wouldn't be all that bad. What was so bad was the harsh way I told her she was so full of crap. I didn't feel the anger rising. I just snapped. One second I am talking calmly the next I am nearly shouting.

This will happen from time to time. I am surprised some times how I am suddenly past my limit/tipping point. I feel like I regulate myself pretty well in tense situations --when I see it coming.

Is there a proper name for this?

[vortex of confusion]

I think snapping is a good term. Some people might refer to it as being triggered.

I have snapped a few times. I think it comes from trying to suppress too much stuff. Even if I don't share my feelings with my spouse, it helps to acknowledge my feelings and share them with somebody safe rather than continually stuffing it all down.

When I was a kid, I talked to a counselor about this very thing. I remember her making the analogy of it being kind of like filling up a trash can. You put all of this stuff in the can. As it gets more and more full, you keep pressing it down until one day, the can overflows and you end up with trash everywhere.

Taking better care of myself helps too. It is a lot easier to NOT snap when I have had a chance to recharge my batteries.

[Turkish]

I agree with vortex that it sounds like you're letting loose built up resentment. My T often said to me that I didn't need to pathologize everything (he was also referring to me). He also offered that he thought that a lot of my anger stemmed from not accepting my Ex for who she was. R. A.

It sounds like your wife is incapable of raking leaves properly. I can't imagine that she hasn't reversed this on you for other things, even passive-aggressively. What do you do to cope otherwise?  

[fromheeltoheal]

I have snapped a few times. I think it comes from trying to suppress too much stuff. Even if I don't share my feelings with my spouse, it helps to acknowledge my feelings and share them with somebody safe rather than continually stuffing it all down.

It is a lot easier to NOT snap when I have had a chance to recharge my batteries.

Hey Bair-

I agree with vortex; we can get in a mode where we're moving forward, just blowing and going, and when something unpleasant shows up, we react by moving faster to outrun it, but that doesn't resolve anything, so if we stop or get thrown off balance by something, all the unresolved stuff comes flying out and gets all over everything, messy, and we can easily do something we regret in that mode.

So the solution, the antidote, is to slow down.  Sit down, relax, chill out, breathe deeply and slowly, do a whole lot of nothing, and the unresolved stuff will bubble up and out, just watch it, and we might learn a thing or two from it as it passes.  And if we do that all the time, daily at least, clean ourselves out, nothing gets suppressed, we feel lighter, and when life stuff shows up like crappy raking, there's no pressure waiting to pop, so we can just leaf it all alone.

[Sunfl0wer]

You can probably teach yourself to feel this coming as well.

It just sounds like it is happening instantly, however, there is usually a split second moment in time that you experience a physiological reaction and then open your mouth. (so to speak...   )

Can you identify a body response that happens immediately before the "snap?"

It could be a tightening of an area such as neck, chest or stomach.

Rapid heart rate

sweaty palms

heat in the head

... .etc.

Once you tap into that... .

Then think to yourself... in the moment.

"Here it is!"

Have a plan prepared... .

Such as ... .jump up from the table as if you need to go pee really badly NOW.  breathe through the sensations... .decide calmly if you want to respond... .and how.

[Suzn]

I've snapped with my mother. I can totally relate.

My T often said to me that I didn't need to pathologize everything (he was also referring to me). He also offered that he thought that a lot of my snger stemmed from not accepting my Ex for who she was. R. A.

I think Turk has a good point and radical acceptance is what I looked at myself to turn things around. Accepting someone for who they are. It's a hard concept but it works. It's hard because we can hear the words "accept them for who they are" but we have to internalize this to change our reactions. It's self discipline and it takes practice, literally.

What I found is I have to take breaks from communication from my mother. This isn't likely something you can do for long periods since you are referring to your wife here, does this extend to other people? Like at work? What you can do to take breaks is take time for you for the day such as go fishing or spend a day hiking. Something along those lines where you have a break. 

Putting this in perspective, raking leaves improperly isn't a BPD trait, our obsessing about it is more of a perfectionist issue. Do you need things done a certain way to feel comfortable? Will you feel uncomfortable with grass growing in in a spotty way?

The grass isn't the point, our inner dialog is. What are you telling yourself about the results of not raking leaves properly? Becoming conscious of our inner dialog is key to self awareness of our own issues. Once we start noticing what we are telling ourselves we can stop those thoughts in their tracks and offer ourselves alternatives. This helps when resentments start to arise, it helps to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. What alternative thoughts could you have offered yourself in this conversation with your wife?

[vortex of confusion]

Putting this in perspective, raking leaves improperly isn't a BPD trait, our obsessing about it is more of a perfectionist issue. Do you need things done a certain way to feel comfortable? Will you feel uncomfortable with grass growing in in a spotty way?

The grass isn't the point, our inner dialog is. What are you telling yourself about the results of not raking leaves properly? Becoming conscious of our inner dialog is key to self awareness of our own issues. Once we start noticing what we are telling ourselves we can stop those thoughts in their tracks and offer ourselves alternatives. This helps when resentments start to arise, it helps to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. What alternative thoughts could you have offered yourself in this conversation with your wife?

I want to add to this and ask what else was going on. I know how my husband does things. It rarely meets my standards. I have to learn to accept that. He has been like this for all 17 years of our marriage. What in the world makes me think that anything is going to be different? I ask what else was going on because I know that there are times when I will ask my husband for quite a few things and he will botch them all in small ways. For example, I ask him to mop and he lives a big glop of something on the floor. In the same day, I ask him to help with the laundry and he forgets. So, I send him to the store and he misses a bunch of stuff that I have on the list. I ask him for help because I am feeling overwhelmed. Instead of getting the help that I want, I find myself frustrated.

I have to watch my thoughts because I know that it is too easy for me to think, "Man, can he do anything right?" When I find myself thinking those sorts of things, I have to take a step back and actively look for things that he does right. If I don't try to counteract the negative with something positive, that increases the likelihood of me snapping.

[Mom_on_Eggshells]

I'm dealing with a teen, and I find I snap/trigger less often when I make time to take care of me. 

All that eat, sleep, drink water, get some exercise yada yada yada advice really works.

[Bair]

Thanks everyone for responding.  It is helping me to work this out.  I had written a long post and learned a few things along the way.  Lucky for you all, I lost the post when my sign in timed out.  I say lucky in that you don't have to read through it all.  Let me try to summarize.

I agree with vortex that it sounds like you're letting loose built up resentment.

I am sure some of it is repressed anger on my part.  The quest is to identify it and develop better ways to deal with it.

I agree with Suzn that the leaves aren't the issue.  However, it is not "... .more of a perfectionist issue... ." While I may have some perfectionist tendencies, that doesn't seem to fit here.  I am not that vested in the grass to care that much.  The raking/leaves/grass thing was really just what we were talking about at the time.

In the broader perspective I am dealing with a person whose version of what she did or didn't do does not match reality.  It is difficult for me to navigate her reaction when she is faced with the physical evidence.  Usually it is a combination of anger and a fictional excuse.  (I could be wrong but I get the feeling her sense of self is not very robust and finds not being perfect very threatening.  That has to be a terrible burden.)

For example, recently she got upset with me after I flushed the toliet one morning while we were getting ready to go to work.  She took it as a personal affront because she "had already flushed".  The water in the bowl had been bright orange (from the med she was taking for an UTI).  When I saw it, I, almost instinctively, flushed. (Being heavily introverted, I was more focused on thinking about the day to come at work.) I tried not to get drawn into a did or didn't argument. I just stuck to "the water was orange so I flushed."  After a bit she invented an excuse about the toliet not working and went back to applying her make up.  It wasn't worth it to me at the time to point out that the toliet had been working fine for years so I went to shower.

It wasn't worth it to me last spring to point out that no leaves fell over night or that the grass seed was visible on top of the leaves.  I didn't want to get into an argument.  The few bucks worth of grass seed wasn't important enough to risk an argument. The ER visit was different.  I took her to the hospital ER a little after midnight.  Turns out that she had an infection.  Remember the UTI? Well, in response to her asking why she got sick, I suggested the UTI from two weeks ago came back.  She didn't think so because she had taken all of the prescribed antibiotics.  And as it turns out she brought the bottle with her to the hospital.  There were three day's worth of pills in the bottle.  Her fictional excuse was they gave her more pills than she needed.  Nope, two a day for 10 days makes 20 which is what the bottle says.  I've been paying for that for awhile.  Her health and my sleep is important enough not to let the fiction slide. 

Not to over complicate things but there are a number of things I could easily come to resent. Getting blindsided with arguments for doing reasonably normal things is one.  Another is having to hear again and again about her issue du jur and not being able to talk about what I want to talk about.  How much was my snapping was my poor handling of the stress that comes with my decision to make the marriage work? How much was a poor night's sleep? Was some of it that I went downstairs before my adderall kicked in?  Gee, if I was keeping up with my exercise would I have done better?  How much of what I "know" to do, did I fail to do?       

[workinprogress]

This is a very good topic, and one that I have trouble with.  My wife and I have not been intimate in years.  I haven't seen her naked in probably 15 years.  All of this frustration builds up for me.

Then, I will see her wearing a low cut top with her cleavage showing and I just want to touch her.  I know that it is not an option.  All of the resentment builds.  Then, I find myself getting upset about something later in the day.

It is so tough to go through life without getting my needs met, yet I struggle on.

It is depressing and angering at the same time.

I have found the best way to deal with it is to visualize my frustration and then watch it fly away.

[Svarl1]

Mental tiredness.

Sometimes i'll begin to feel really drained during a conversation.

Then I should warn myself that I'm about to say something without thinking how it'll come across.