Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello everyone,
TL;DR: I'm looking for advice on dealing with my mood swings and outbursts of anger.
I'm hoping for a bit of advice. I've had mood swings a lot throughout my life. I'm not sure if they are tied to my autism or not, but today I had a massive mood swing going from happy to angry and ended up snapping at my wife which, understandably, really upset her. It's been a very long time since I've done this, but several years ago, during a time which I now recognise as me being in burnout and struggling a lot, I had a lot of moments like this.
I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to manage these things. For context, I was trying to make hot chocolate for the family using a velvetiser thing from hotel Chocolat (as a side note I highly recommend these). They use flakes of grated chocolate, but a few weeks ago they were left on top of the air fryer and several of the sachets melted and clumped up. I tried breaking this up before use but some got stuck in the machine which causes the motor to make a horrible sound which makes me freak out because I feel like it's going to break the machine. I got distressed by this, but my wife just said it's fine and to keep it going but I ended up snapping at her and I upset her.
I fully appreciate that I am in the wrong here, but I would appreciate if anyone can suggest anything to help with managing situations like this where things are rapidly going wrong without me getting angry.
Thanks,
Phil
This is meltdown. Likely to have been stress building for a while and the chocolate machine was just the final straw. May even be due to other, unrelated stresses ir worries. The trick is to read the signs and de-stress in time. I don't always achieve this but I am getting better. Time alone is best, either a walk or lie down quietly and listen to music or a podcast works for me. Perhaps explain to your wife.