This Week: Being Safe With Your Anger
We always tell our kid to be safe with his anger. But that's easier said than done.
Dear friends and fam,
It’s been a week of highs and lows here at the Chaos Palace. We don’t tend to do things by halves here, and this week was no different. On Tuesday, my wife and I drove to Bloomfield, NJ, where we signed many papers and bought a house. I could drive right now to that house and walk in — no one would stop me. It’s mine.
That’s freaking exhilarating. I actually think I don’t believe it yet. Maybe I won’t believe it until I’m cleaning the house, or hanging something on the wall, or chasing my kids around the living room. Something real life, you know? Right now, it’s just a house. It’s up to us to breathe life and memories into it. I know we will. Hell, in a couple of months Baby will be crawling all over the floors of the Big House1 and Big Kid will be learning how to ride a bike in the backyard. Time goes so slow and so fast around here.
Speaking of time, I’m also deeply sad to be leaving Bed-Stuy, specifically this block, specifically this apartment, where I’ve made my home for so many years. I wish I had the time to grieve it properly, to make space for the sadness of leaving a place that has seen so much of me. Of us.
We lived here when we lost my mother-in-law, back in 2018. We sat on the floor of the room Big Kid is sleeping in and heard the very worst words. We left the apartment, rushed to Israel, and it waited for us to return, gifting us a cat and a safe place to hide until sunlight wasn’t unbearably offensive anymore.
This place saw my pregnancy, witnessed as I unraveled towards the end of the long months, held its stoic silence as I unraveled even more once our firstborn came home. Our backyard blooms each spring with daffodils, irises, and hyacinths I planted in my first trimester. I imagined whomever was growing in me would help me water them, say good morning to them, smell them.
He does.
This place has neighbors who know us. The kind we can run to for a cup of flour or an extra egg. The kind of people who went out of their way to help us look for our cat when she ran away. The people who have seen our family grow.
I want to be able to hold all of this even as I extend my arms to accept the blessings on their way to me now, with this new home. I know it’s time, that our family needs more space, particularly Big Kid, who needs access to swings and aids to help him regulate his sensory system. I love imagining us there, sipping coffee on the deck (there’s a deck!) or making dinner as the kids do their homework at the kitchen table. Highs and lows, man. It’s really real.
Speaking of lows, Big Kid was dysregulated as all get out this week, which meant a lot of extra big feelings and not a whole lot of bandwidth with which to manage them. His regular teacher was sick, which meant a substitute (who I’m sure is lovely). Problem is, new things (especially unexpected new things) are not easy for Big Kid.
Plus, Baby is growing a lot. Last night, she sat at the dinner table with us and smushed carrots all over her face and belly. She calls out for us and demands our focus. Basically, she’s no longer a sleepy smush all the time—she actually takes up some of our grown-up attention. Which means she is officially competition. And I have a feeling that’s creating a lot of conflicting feelings for Big Kid.
When Big Kid gets mad, he really gets mad. Hopping mad. Screaming-at-the-top-of-his-lungs-til-his-face-gets-red mad. Throwing things —heavy things, at times.
This can be kind of challenging for us.
For me, it comes with an extra layer of baggage. See, he gets his spicy emotional landscape directly from me. All that throwing heavy stuff? I invented that shit. Screaming your head off? Hah. I was doing that since before you were born. Literally.
One thing about being a ragey person and not knowing why is it comes with a lot of shame. After you’ve slammed the doors and screamed the profanities and flipped someone the bird and cut off that asshole in traffic, you’re left standing on the smoldering mess you’ve made. Making apologies. Sometimes cleaning up actual debris, sometimes cleaning up emotional debris.
Since my ADHD diagnosis I’ve learned that one hallmark symptom of the way my brain is wired is a consistent struggle with emotional regulation. Simply put, neurons in an ADHD brain don’t communicate as smoothly as they do in a neurotypical brain. I won’t go into why, it’s long and that’s not what this newsletter is about. But if you’re interested, drop me a comment!
That understanding has enabled me to take care of myself in a way that nips the whole thing in the bud. An ADHD brain is like a vintage car; it needs more tender love n’ care to get the motor purring. It is possible for the motor to purr, it just takes more doing.
I do not want my child to grow up with the shame I felt. I understand all the neurological stuff above because I’m a 37-year-old person who can read scientific journals2.Objectively, though, his outbursts are problematic and, yes, not always safe. He cannot throw books at his sister’s head and I will never let him hit me or anyone else. I feel for him in those moments; I know what it is to lose control over your limbs, to watch yourself doing things you know you’ll have to atone for later.
We have a few mantras we use on these occasions. “Hands are not for hurting,” is one, “We don’t hurt anyone, not me or you or anyone,” is another. A third one (we say this a lot) is “You’re not being safe with your anger.”
Note to all those concerned: we also give him practical actions to do when he feels this way, which we practice with him. These change over time as efficacy wanes or preferences shift.
I don’t know if this is the perfect, or even a good, framing. I’m trying to thread a needle here, to explain that anger is not a bad thing but that it’s powerful. Not that he’s inherently dangerous because he can get mad this way, but that we all have the capacity to be dangerous when we get mad so we need to be careful.
And yes, I do know he’s not yet four.
I look around the world and see so. many. people. who are not being safe with their anger. Not being safe with their fear. Not being safe. The man who shot a woman because she turned her car around in his driveway. The man who choked an unhoused subway rider to death on the F train for ranting about being hungry and thirsty and tired.
The whole world feels like a big, raw emotion and we are not being safe with it.
I think a lot about the biblical commandment to choose life. About how we’re not fulfilling that commandment, as a society. “I tell you today, I place before you the skies and the land, life and death, blessing and curse, and you shall choose life so that you and your offspring may live,” says Deuteronomy 30:193.
We have a choice, is what G-d is saying. And that is a helluva lot of power G-d is putting in our fallible human hands. I mean, if I was omniscient I sure wouldn’t make that choice. But this is where we are. Here’s the trick, to me. The word life, in Hebrew, is plural. So is the word for skies. You never have one sky, one life. We must choose to protect one another —everyone! even the folks who are not the same as us! — if we choose the blessing. As Marsha P. Johnson once said4, “No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”
It’s midnight, and I’m beyond tired.
This will go out in the morning, when I will still be tired.
Sending you love, and light, and a belief (still!) that the world will get better.
Shabbat Shalom,
Mikhal
What I’ve been writing
Also in the category of highs, several pieces I loved writing were published this week. As a writer who needs to make rent, not everything I write is a passion project. Like, I had a ton of fun writing about organizing your fridge to work with your ADHD, but it wasn’t the most imperative thing I’ve ever written.
Writing about this project that reimagines care for survivors of sexual violence and is trying to dismantle the patriarchy, however, was a very special and powerful experience. Likewise, speaking with artist Maya Ciarrocchi about her upcoming performance work that engages grief and communal, improvisational creativity left me in a daze of ideas for days.
What I’ve been reading
I’m too tired to tell you why all of these are lovely, and poignant, and the kinds of essays that elicit a joyous “YES!” or a mournful “oof,” so I’ll just list them here. You’ll have to trust me.
A Single Mom’s Manifesto for Mother’s Day by
forNotable Sandwiches #62: The Elvis by
forOn the Naked State of Madness, likewise by
forWhat I’ve been listening to
That’s what Big Kid has been calling it.
The free ones, anyway.
There are plenty of reasons to choose life, but I like this one because I happen to be a person of faith. If it doesn’t speak to you, I fully respect that.
I learned this quote this week during an interview for Dreams of Chaos. Stay tuned.
I loved this - and thank you so much for the mention!