Mairead has been seeing lots of emails coming in to mairead@todayfm.com from listeners asking for advice, and while some are put out to the listeners, sometimes we get one that might need a professional eye thrown on them. Today we put one of these emails to psychologist Niamh Fitzpatrick, and it was an issue that will resonate with a lot of us.
The listener wrote:
Over the last two months, my wife and I and our 2 kids have been at home 24/7. We’re both working from home and keeping the kids entertained. It’s not bad, actually. We’ve been making it work and we’re both lucky to still have our jobs. But for the last few weeks I’ve been really angry. Angry at everything. But I’ve nothing to be angry about, if you know what I mean? I’m snapping at my wife. At my kids. At things on the TV. Most things just really annoy me now and I can’t seem to control it. What’s that all about? I’ve never had a short fuse before.
Niamh's advice was incredibly useful not just for anyone who might be feeling the same way as the listener, but also anyone who is struggling with any kind of emotions during these times. She said it's important not to pathologise the emotions we're feeling right now. While this person may never have had a short fuse before, they have also never lived through a global pandemic before either and they are dealing with a lot right now. She quoted Viktor Frankl who said "An abnormal response to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour”.
Niamh said that anger is usually the emotion on the top and underneath it lays the real culprit – fear, frustration or pain of some sort, and she gave some very valuable advice on how to identify the source of this fear, frustration or pain. She went on to remind us that things won't always be this way, and that we just need to survive it.
Mairead and Niamh were also supposed to be together this week in Mayo as part of the launch of Niamh's book 'Tell Me the Truth About Loss' which was supposed to have been released on 1st May, but now has been pushed to later this year. The book is Niamh's own story of loss, grief and finding hope from a personal perspective, but with a psychologist's overview. You can pre-order the book from Dubray Books or from Eason now.
You can hear the chat in full by pressing the play button on screen.
