Here recently it seems like everything just gets under my skin so quickly and easily. It’s not that I get mad and take it out on others, it’s just the fact that I’m constantly annoyed and stressed. Something as simple as the dogs tracking some mud through the house will just ruin my mood. I know some people who would just laugh it off and clean it up. Meanwhile I’ll get pissed that I didn’t wipe their feet and be mad the entire time I’m cleaning it up. This has nothing to do with the dogs, it just an example. Any number of seemingly insignificant things can trigger me like that. Like forgetting something at the store and having to go back. I would love to be able to go, “well that sucks” and just get over it.
Everything that Salman said.
This sounds exactly like me and my partner: a small thing can ruin his day and it ruins my day because then I have to put up with his bad mood. What’s helped him was some intense solution-based therapy to address his shitty childhood as well as an awareness that several ‘bad’ things in a row is just a coincidence and not the world (his family) out to get him.
With our kids, I’m making sure to say ‘oh well’ and not fix it immediately everytime a mild frustration happens. They see their dad getting upset and have started to copy his behaviours so we’re trying to encourage them to just brush things off before they get stuck in the mindset.