Has anyone successfully become less grumpy?

[BertieBotts]

I feel like I have a constant low-level default setting of grumpiness and defensiveness. It's really unhelpful and gets in the way of everything, especially family life.

I would like to change this but I don't really know where to start. I tried asking Chat GPT and said that I should try to identify triggers of grumpiness. I don't have any specific triggers, it is just there as a baseline all of the time.

I think it's particularly unhelpful when dealing with small DC because I'm constantly teetering on the edge of being irritated so if they do the slightest annoying thing (which they obviously do a lot, just due to age/immaturity) then I find my voice rising up and I'm snappy and not very patient. Been noticing this recently that DS2 (4yo) is doing the same thing! I thought it was just him. But I think he's learning it from me. I've GOT to get a handle on this. I can't expect him to change it if I don't fix myself first.

Help - what has worked for you?

I don't think it's perimenopause, I'm too young and it's not a recent change.

I don't think it's lack of sleep. My youngest is now sleeping through the night.

I don't think it's general stress - my life isn't very stressful - actually, when it's packed and I do have more to do I tend to feel better.

It could be clutter/environmental triggers. I could work on this.

It could be a vitamin deficiency - would a general multivitamin help, or should I go to the GP and ask for blood tests?

Do you work ?

Yes but in my case it changed a lot when I changed jobs - I don’t think I realised how bad my former work environment was until I left.

I have found in the past that my mood has been low when I’ve had low iron - more depressed/lethargic than grumpy - but taking iron pills has helped.

No I'm not working at the moment. I'm looking for a job but have a bit of a tricky childcare situation. Last time I worked full time was 2018.

Iron is something I've been pondering, I found some ferritin tablets left over from who knows when, so I've been taking those. I will get some iron and see if that helps. I've been pregnant and/or breastfeeding since the start of 2018 which is why I thought vitamins might be depleted.

Low grade depression?

You lean into where you are right now in life.

You enjoy the excuse to play again.

Have a big clear out at the weekend even if it's just the kitchen surfacers so making a coffee or sandwiches is a simpler task.

Put a music radio station on. Music tends to help.

Have a sit down with the kids whilst they Find Wally and you just breathe for 10 minutes. Or you read a book, it will be slow progress whilst they are reading.

Chase raindrops down windows when it rains.

Lying in the ground finding dinosaurs or ducks in clouds.

Do 10 star jumps together.

Embrace play basically.

I would look at ways you can get more breaks in your day

Soft play is hell but they run off steam so maybe more chilled when you get back

Can you buddy up with another mum and take turns to have an hours walk/exercise I.e one day you have all the kids in a park while she does something relaxing , next day it's your turn ??

I don't think I am depressed because I can feel joy/excitement/etc - it's just I'm very easily irritated.

For example after writing this post, I decided to listen to put a podcast on and clean up the kitchen. I felt quite happy and positive. As I was moving from one room to another, my thumb brushed my phone screen and changed the podcast to another one. I instantly felt this "AAAAAARGH" and made a kind of "Ugh!" noise and was annoyed at the phone for having such a stupid annoying design to be so easy to switch podcasts unintentionally. Then I noticed what I was doing and thought it's OK, it's not that big of a deal and changed it back to what I was listening to.

About thirty seconds later I went back into the kitchen and noticed that a fly that I'd previously chased out of the window had returned. I shouted at the fly and chased it out again. Again, the same kind of feeling "Why can't you just STAY out you stupid fly?!"

It's silly because obviously the fly came in because there was still food smells etc that I was in the process of cleaning up. And now I've finished cleaning if it comes back, it probably won't stay for very long.

But this is how I tend to be a lot of the time and I don't think it's very helpful.

The kids are at childcare I don't have to pick them up for another hour. That's what I mean, it's not lack of breaks or stress. It's probably even worse when I don't get any breaks but I don't think that the breaks are fixing it.

I wonder if you do have triggers but just can’t identify the pattern. I say this because I have definitely been in that situation, although my primary problem was anxiety not grumpiness (although the latter was also a factor). Counselling identified triggers and, for many of those, underlying reasons which is helpful.

A counsellor can get into this much better than it sounds like ChatGPT can at present.

That's a good point. Yeah, I don't think ChatGPT is any kind of substitute for counselling, I just thought I'd try it as a starting point.

Yes, I take Sertraline and now I am much much less irritable.

You sound very stressed and that your internal resources are very stretched at the minute. Just because you aren't working, it doesn't mean that life is any way 'easy' to manage. In fact having a job can be a stress reliever because you get a change of scene and something of your own to manage.
Life can be very very hard to manage even when it might seem to the casual observer that you don't have overly too much on your plate.
But think about things and events that have happened or are happening...

• having small children to mind all day. It's repetitive, tedious and boring for a lot of the time.
• not having a job or something that is 'yours' alone.
• having to share your personal space with people 24/7
• dealing with a stressed, unhappy or depressed or emotionally unavailable partner
• a family member being sick or passed away in the last couple of years
• finding it hard to be emotionally close with anyone
• issues with extended family
• worrying about money
• struggling with feelings of depression or worthlessness and trying to pretend you aren't
• any number of other events

As the other poster said, counselling could help and it would provide a space for just you where the other person in the room places no demands on you and is genuinely interested in hearing what you have to say.

My internal resources are always stretched because I have ADHD. I am taking medication for this but haven't found the right dose yet.

I don't really want to focus on this though because that is already being worked on, so I'm looking for other ways to approach the grumpiness so that I could try to take a multi-directional approach and see if that helps.

I am not really sure that I have any of the issues in your list except that I am still missing social interaction/connection post covid - this is a priority at the moment, trying to ensure I have some social meet ups/connection every week.

Also probably have some self esteem related issues - I might look into the counselling idea. I'm a bit jaded with counselling honestly, because I went to see about 4 different ones in my late teens/early 20s, and looking back they couldn't help me because what I was actually struggling with was the undiagnosed ADHD. One of the major effects of ADHD is that you can know exactly what you should do to fix something, but not actually be able to translate that into action at the appropriate time, so the counsellor would be all happy they had helped me work out a plan, and then I'd go away and not do any of the things.

I ended up getting "sacked" by all of them because they couldn't help me any more

From your examples it sounds like maybe you have a low level anger underneath, which flares up each time something goes wrong? What are your thought patterns when stuff like the fly and the podcast shift happens, beyond "AAARGH"? Anger is often a defense against something else, it would be useful to find out what.

ADHD and emotional regulation issues can be related. These symptoms can also sometimes be linked to childhood trauma or insecure attachment.

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