If you're the one throwing a tantrum...

[mston]

So I had a freak-out tonight: DD smashed a CFL lightbulb, the day after I read an article about the dangers of the mercury vapour if they're broken.
This was after a long day of tantrum after tantrum from dd, which is somewhat new, so I found myself pretty emotionally tapped out.
So after whisking her away from the bulb, I (have to admit) freaked out---started crying and feeling frightened. DH calmly walks into the room to begin cleaning, but I'm trying to tell him that you have to do it a certain way to prevent spreading the mercury. He doesn't think it's a big deal, but I do. He tells me he's not going to listen to me when I'm overreacting, which freaks me out even more. I end up yelling, he does listen, but resentfully.
Anyways, things were tense. After calming down I tried to bring it up with him, but didn't get very far before we were arguing, which means me crying . (can't seem to disagree with someone without choking up - so frustrating when I'm trying to reason something out!)

Anways, long story short:
Me: frightened, emotionally spent, trying to get the cleanup done properly but doing a really bad job of communicating clearly, and basically tantruming almost as bad as DD!
DH: reacting negatively to my strong emotions, but helping anyways

Anyways, now that I'm getting past my knot of fear, I'm feeling embarrassed at how I acted, and I'm wondering how to move on. How do you get past your own not-so-ideal behaviour and how do you make amends?

[Kivgaen]

Originally Posted by mston

Anyways, now that I'm getting past my knot of fear, I'm feeling embarrassed at how I acted, and I'm wondering how to move on. How do you get past your own not-so-ideal behaviour and how do you make amends?

I completely sympathize -- I "freak out" a lot these days... I freaked out to a complete stranger yesterday because he had to cancel at the last minute because of the death of a close family friend... (long story)... I feel pretty silly about my behavior this morning, now that I have a clear rational head.

I know that for me, when I am fearful or upset about something, it's very difficult for me to stay in my calm, rational place. I usually try to explain my reasons for behaving that way and end up making things worse because my explanations come out as being manipulative, aggressive or angry. When in reality, I'm usually just scared, upset or insecure.

For me, what works is to wait until I have calmed down... completely. Usually a few hours after the "incident", I am a bit more rational, but my emotions are still raw. I might try a conversation at that point, but there is still the underlying tone in my voice that maybe I should have waited a bit longer to talk, because while I might feel more rational, I am still not in control of my emotions.

When I am back to a calm state, I start with an explanation. "I over-reacted because I had JUST read an article about the dangers of breaking these... I wasn't in control of myself and in that state, I wasn't fully able to articulate the severity of the situation. I felt ignored and dismissed, and while I understand your reasons for doing so (my irratic behaviour), I still felt as though my opinions on the dangers of this substance wasn't being heard".