Breakthrough Realization for Me Today

 I had the strangest experience today. In the hundreds of thousands of hours I've spent mulling over foster-adoptive relationships for the past two years, this was a novel thought that had never occurred to me before.

We were in the car driving home after I'd picked up the three littlest ones from school. James did something small that did not annoy me one iota today, but which I distinctly remember made me extremely angry a few months ago. Like, lose-my-shit kind of angry. The kind of anger that, even in the moment, you're thinking: whoa, what the hell is THIS? 

I remember yelling. I remember his face. I remember feeling terrible. The worst self-loathing that boils in my gut for hours. I also remember that it was one of the last time I got that angry. I can see now, reflecting on the changes over the past few months, that I was finally starting to come out of wherever I've been for the past two years.

Why? Why was I so irrationally angry about a tiny typical little kid behavior back then? Why didn't it bother me the tiniest bit today? 

Here was the thought that popped into my head: Control.

Today I am in control of our world. Even with everything going on out in the world, my family and my home and my job are under control. No big stressors or changes or looming problems on the horizon. No meddling social workers. No meaningless bureaucracy controlling our home life. No new behaviors cropping up with the kids that I don't know how to address. No new relationships with birth family that I need to figure out. 

In sum: everything is now under control. 

For two years everything was a whirlwind. Constant stressors from something new that I needed to try to understand and figure out how to cope with. 

So, when life is calm, then I am under control. I have my emotions under control. They aren't right there under the surface, raw from repeated emotional abrasions, too tender, without a thick skin to cope with the minor annoyances always a part of every parent's day. 

When life is under control and my emotions are under control, conversely, I no longer have the need to control my children. Before I'd get furiously angry if any of them put a toe out of line. It was bizarre. Even I could see I was being ridiculous. My best feature as a parent, prior to foster care, was my relaxed mood and good sense of humor. My kids could jump on the furniture and build blanket forts in the living room and make their own PB&J sandwiches whenever they wanted and I didn't care. So long as they were polite and reasonable--it genuinely didn't bother me. 

Then, I flip upside down into this crazy lady whose kids can barely shift in their car seat and I'm going nuts. Lack of control over my own life led to a need to hyper-control my kids. 

And haven't I seen this so many times? The worst parents are the ones yelling at their kid in public, ranting about a tiny infraction, all out of proportion to the event. And aren't those yelling parents also often poor and uneducated and generally struggling with all of life? Their life is out of control so all they can do is control the smallest, most vulnerable one, in their grasp. 

I was that out-of-control parent. I'm going to straight up blame the foster care system for this. They brought all of the stress and none of the resources. It took me two years of constant reflection, and reading innumerable books, and never being satisfied with my own bad behavior, before I had this epiphany today (after the healing has already begun, by the way). I'm guessing a good therapist could've pointed this out within a few sessions with me. But we didn't have a good therapist. We had a shitty one the kids' crappy state insurance paid for who was only one more source of stress for me so that I ditched her the minute the adoption was finalized.

So, today I figured it out. Just having the word, the language, really helps. Identifying the WHY of the behavior is critical to me. I can't fix something unless I know WHY it's broken. 

I was broken. My response to stress was deeply flawed. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know why. Now, just simply being able to label the whole issue gives me the tools I need to continue to monitor my reactions. Lack of control led to the need for hyper control which led to a perpetual anger cycle because no kid could meet those ridiculous standards I set. Feeling calm and in control leads to forgiveness of all the minor failings every kid experiences on a daily basis as they learn about the world, and hence, love for and enjoyment of my children. 

That simple. But so profound. I feel truly hopeful for the first time in a long time.