I'm a therapist, parent educator, writer and speaker who specializes in supporting parents of anxious children and teens
#146: on irritability (a love affair) βοΈ
Published about 1 month agoΒ β’Β 3 min read
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The other evening I was with my women's group and they were talking about organizing a screaming event. (This was after we got to talking about Florence and the Machine.) I'm in the Poconos, which means there are lots of places a bunch of women could run around screaming their little hearts out and not disturb a soul so it will probably happen. One of the women said, "Women are taught to repress their anger!" and I agree although I am not one of them.
In my family being angry was FINE. Being sad or scared? Not so much. So it is no wonder that the first sign I have that I'm anxious is that I get annoyed.
Irritability is a super common form of anxiety expression. It's the fight in the fight, flight, or freeze but also if we are working very hard at managing our fear than our capacity to managing anything else is lessened, which will make us irritable. This is true for us and it's true for our kids.
Picture it: Your child is starting to keen about something that scares them and things get bad fast. An itchy tag in your clothes or a waistband that's a little tight? Suddenly it's WAY too itchy and WAY too tight! The dog whining by their food bowl? Can someone please shut the darn dog up!! Those bills waiting to get paid, the dinner waiting to get made -- do I have to do EVERYTHING around here?
It took me awhile to figure this out for myself but now whenever I start feeling any little niggling irritation tugging at me I look to see if I'm anxious. AND I've learned that if I don't have the time/space to be anxious (because I have clients or don't want to take it out on my family), then I don't do things that I know will upset me like listen to the news or scroll through Threads. I know myself. I know it will make me anxious. And I know that anxiety makes me irritable. Which is why for July in our first month of TELL ME IT WILL BE OK: The Practice, we'll be journaling on anger.
What about you? Are you an irritated anxious person?
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PODCAST
What's up on the podcast
Last week a solo episode of the TELL ME IT WILL BE OK podcast dropped where I talk about how good parent does NOT always feel good, which is where our avoidance often comes in, especially when dealing with our anxious kids.
This is most decidedly NOT a useful resource! No, this is the kind of "resource" I'd use back in the day when the internet was young and nimble and my children were underfoot. I'd pull up a site like Bongo.Cat and let the kids go to town while I made lunch. Just because kids are much more sophisticated these days doesn't mean that a simple site like this won't keep them busy. It's kinda like how yo-yos can still seem brand new when you first introduce them even though they're (I just checked) over two thousand years old. So maybe not useful but then again, if you need to buy yourself some time with a distraction, you could do a lot worse than Bongo.Cat!
Monthly Theme
Tell Me It Will Be OK: The Practice
Next month for our launch, we'll be exploring anger
Each month I choose a theme to organize our reflective journaling practice and this month -- our inaugural month! -- I chose anger because I think it is an unfairly maligned emotion. The way The Practice works is that I drop a new session every Monday and you listen to it in your podcast app. The annual subscription ($25/year for the rest of 2026) gets you 48 sessions. BUT if you sign up BEFORE I launch, you'll get an exclusive $15/year rate forever and ever. The Practice doesn't happen in order so you're never ahead or behind. Each session stands on its own. Check out a sample session by clicking the buttonbelow and you'll automatically get sent a link for the discounted rate when it opens! π§‘
therapist β’ parent educator β’ writer/speaker β βI've been supporting kids & families for more than 30 years. I have my masters in clinical mental health counseling and post-grad certification in infant/toddler mental health.
βOf course, I get angry. Of course, I get sad. I have a full range of emotions. I also have a whole smorgasbord of ways of dealing with my feelings."