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Original poster

I am so angry all the time

35 replies

MillyStar9 · 22/12/2023 19:51

Can anyone offer any insight into why I feel so angry all the time? I am divorced and have a 4 year old. I work part time. I have free time and hobbies. I put a lot of pressure on myself to look a certain way and I am very busy and find it almost impossible to relax. When I am around my mother especially I am so angry at her and my DD has commented on this today. As soon as I am in my mothers presence I feel such anger and hostility towards her. Today she has taken us out for a lovely day and the whole time I am rolling my eyes and snapping and raging internally. How on earth can I stop this?

OP posts:

Serene135 · 22/12/2023 20:06

Only you know why you are angry all the time; posters on here are not going to know. You mentioned you are always angry and snappy around your mum. Was she good to you growing up? Are you angry because you feel that she doesn’t help you enough? Are you also happy with your job and single status or are they making you angry? It might be worth thinking about why you feel the way you do and making positive changes so that in time you feel happier/calmer. Hope you have a lovely Christmas 💐

ChanelNo19EDT · 22/12/2023 20:23

You are angry around your mother specifically. Sometimes anger can protect us from more boundary violations. Or, if there was enmeshment, feeling angry at the enmeshment can protect your sense of yoursrlf. Any ideas yrslf?

Winterknights · 22/12/2023 20:25

Anger is often a masking emotion for other emotions which are too painful to feel.

If this is the case, you need to work out what those are.

EmmaEmerald · 22/12/2023 20:29

OP "I put a lot of pressure on myself to look a certain way and I am very busy and find it almost impossible to relax"

Do you keep that busy on purpose? Are you avoiding something in your head? What the pressure to look a certain way?

Are you annoyed at your mum because she's interfering with time you would otherwise use to do something else? I really struggled to fit in parents over the years.

also - any drugs, prescription or otherwise, that might cause this?

Original poster

MillyStar9 · 22/12/2023 20:29

Thank you for the replies, even typing out my OP got me thinking. There are areas of my life I am not happy with but growing up there was serious enmeshment with my mother and brother and me. I noticed recently my brother is also angry with my mum and I take on a protective superior role and vice versa. I don’t want to be like this and I don’t want my daughter to see this. I think perhaps I am angry with her as I feel she needs me and I don’t like it. I also get very angry at other people who are close to their families. Thanks everyone, lots to think about.

OP posts:

Mamette · 22/12/2023 20:34

My mother can really press my buttons too OP. I have seen a therapist to unpick things from my childhood and help understand myself and what the triggers are.

ReTrainTheBrain · 22/12/2023 20:34

Some questions -

Did this start recently or have you always been angry with her?
Are you angry at any other time?
Are you blaming her for something?
Why are you hurting?

EmmaEmerald · 22/12/2023 20:35

OP "I think perhaps I am angry with her as I feel she needs me and I don’t like it."

This is an awful feeling and I sympathise. I didn't have that with mum until dad died though. Is she one of those parents who bases her life around adult children?

Baircasolly · 22/12/2023 20:35

From the limited information we have here, I would guess that you are hungry and tired.

Eta - I didn't mean that to sound so snippy! I just literally meant that I have a very short fuse when I'm hungry and/or tired. Honestly, like a different person.

ChanelNo19EDT · 22/12/2023 20:42

Yeh with enmeshment it can seem to outsiders that nothing happened to cause upset but I know that my mother gives me the cold shoulder if I don't collude with her narrative. Her narrative is always different from mine but hers prevails. Hers is the blockbuster. My narrative is some unknown Belgian film ykwim. So if I challenge her narrative in any way I get the cold shoulder and I feel completely eroded, and yet, she feels outraged that I didn't reflect back her rosy view of herself. She sees my refusal to collude with her narrative as an act of aggression that she is a victim of.

So we both end up hurt, but onlookers would not see that anything had happened, and tbh, it's only been in the last 10 years that I've understood that something happened!!! Cos that something is just a dynamic.

TheCurtainQueen · 22/12/2023 20:44

Perimenopause? (And mother that presses your buttons)

Original poster

MillyStar9 · 22/12/2023 20:52

Thank you so much these replies are so helpful & making me realise so many things. She doesn’t base her life around us and she is constantly very vocal about her hobby and bores us all to tears with it but she doesn’t have any close people in her life, lots of acquaintances. I think I am angry because I am ending up just like her and I don’t want it and I am getting really upset now thinking about it! I don’t want the life she has, but I am blindly copying it. I feel like she needs me close and around. I am also absolutely knackered which I agree has fundamentally changed me as a person. I noticed this when for a brief period my daughter stopped getting up at 5am and I felt like a new women. And I agree with the hunger. It’s all absolutely exhausting, being tired and angry.

OP posts:

EmmaEmerald · 22/12/2023 20:55

OP you're up at 5am and constantly hungry?

that will be a big part of the answer.

Original poster

MillyStar9 · 22/12/2023 21:03

My daughter gets up anytime from 5am but no later than 6am everyday. I will be asleep by 9.30pm every night. But I’m sure you’re right and part of my anger is I feel my mother doesn’t understand how hard it is for me and also offers very minimal practical support. She has told me that things were ‘much harder for her’ I have a ‘lovely house’ I only work part time, I have ‘no right to be unhappy’ my parents divorced when I was 14 and we had a childhood of them arguing and a young adulthood of trying to make mum happy which she never was. Even 25 years later they still see each other every day and then say unkind things about each other to me.

OP posts:

Original poster

MillyStar9 · 22/12/2023 21:04

Wow sorry that was a lot!

OP posts:

RogersOrganismicProcess · 22/12/2023 21:06

It is not a child/teens job to try and make mum happy. What a responsibility. No wonder you feel angry at sending she needs you now!

Atethehalloweenchocs · 22/12/2023 21:21

You are carrying the entire mental and physical load of having a child and managing a career and house by yourself.
You set very very high standards for yourself and dont give yourself any slack if you cant meet them.
Your mother has invalidated your feelings in the past when her poor behaviour affected you and continues to denigrate you but telling you her life was harder than yours.

Seems like a lot to be angry about! Some therapy to learn how to be kinder to yourself would be good, and perhaps having a chance to talk about some strategies to manage your mother.

Thelnebriati · 22/12/2023 21:26

Your mother minimises the struggles you are coping with and redirect all the attention back on to herself. Its as if she doesn't feel you deserve anything, not even acknowledgement.
As a child did you ever feel ''its as if I don't really exist''?

Original poster

MillyStar9 · 22/12/2023 21:32

As a child I felt I had to always be ‘good’ to try and make my parents happy. I was a chronic overachiever and even now most of my choices have been to try and keep them happy and proud of me. My mother would be upset if she knew that, she would say I should do what makes me happy. But her actions are different.

It was most definitely unacceptable to have any problems or feelings that caused any bother in the household. My father is a functioning addict, abusive to his wife and we all protect him and act like we don’t see it. None of my siblings live locally.

I am so terrified of ending up alone and my daughter feeling like this about our relationship.

OP posts:

MerryMidwinter · 22/12/2023 21:36

Wow OP I really sympathise, very similar situation in fact I had to re-read your last post to check it wasn’t mine 😳

NoCloudsAllowed · 22/12/2023 21:36

Therapist. 3-4 sessions and you'll have wept this one out and have much more perspective on it.

I suspect the upshot would be you wanting to reframe your relationship with your mum and voice some things to her.

Value yourself enough to invest in sorting it out.

Thelnebriati · 22/12/2023 21:37

It sounds like you have a good understanding of your childhood family, would you consider therapy? You shouldn't have to be afraid of messing up, especially when it sounds like you do so well.

Original poster

MillyStar9 · 22/12/2023 21:43

You’re all so kind it’s making me cry. I have had therapy about 6 years ago and learnt a lot about myself. I could only talk about my mother a little as it felt like such a betrayal and I would feel dreadful for weeks afterwards for talking about her. I can’t afford therapy again although I know I desperately need it to work through all of these issues and my divorce then a further relationship breakdown. I have aged so much in the last year it’s really taken it out of me and I feel very stuck. I did manage to get a new job but even that feels pathetic to me even though I have a very good graduate career. I feel nothing I have done has value or matters.

OP posts:

Original poster

MillyStar9 · 22/12/2023 21:43

I’m sorry you’ve also had a hard time. How do you cope with it?

OP posts:

HolyZarquonsSingingSeals · 22/12/2023 22:03

Write a letter to your mother. You might be surprised at what comes out once you start writing. It's a really useful way to process your emotions. You don't have to send the letter, obviously.

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