So, for reasons that don't really need to be gone into, I got really made this last evening. Really, really, really mad. I have not been so mad in a very long time. I was shaking with anger. And it was just one of those things that you have to let out or else you'll explode. So I engaged in some therapeutic throwing and hitting of inanimate object---the sort of stuff that makes a satisfying mess but in no way damages persons or property (and was intended to be as such---I was mad but I definitely didn't want to hurt anyone or anything like that).
Well, at first Zim was fine with this. In fact, he thought I wanted to play and I even took a couple of breaks from my rage to play with him. After all, none of this was his fault and I knew he didn't know what was going on, so I wanted to make sure nothing but good stuff was directed at him. And that worked great for the first couple of outbursts. The third one, though, that scared the hell out of him, I think because unlike the other two times he was within a couple of feet when I lashed out (not at him or even in his direction, just closer to him than I had been before). Well, that did it. I scared him horrible. Touching him made him stiff and nervous, licking his lips. His tail dropped and he wouldn't take any hamburger from me. Finally, after he'd spend some time holed up under a chair he came out and peed on the upstairs landing. I'm pretty sure it was because his bladder was just too full to be that scared.
I felt pretty horrible about it. We took him on a walk right afterward (immediately after we peed we decided we should have done that earlier), and that seemed to help---in fact after we got back he has even taken the time to thoroughly lick my hand when offered, but I still can't help but worry that he's still wary of me. Normally, I'm his safe place. I make things okay, or at least less scary. I'm scared that I've really damaged that. I probably haven't, really---after all, he seems to have mostly forgiven me already and it's only been a few hours (he's curled up at my feet in bed right now even), but I do worry that it's now lurking in his head that I can be unpredictable and that maybe I'm not so safe after all. Hopefully he'll quickly decide that I really am safe and go back to thinking as he always has---that I would really never hurt him---but I've never scared him like that before (he doesn't really scare easily) and where I feel like we are now is a long was from where we were this afternoon---him cuddled up close and using my back as a pillow.
Have I mentioned I feel really bad about the whole thing? Because I really do. I was trying not to scare him, to show him that even if I was mad, the only thing directed at him was going to be love, but obviously that didn't go terribly well.
The lesson from all of this? If I'm going to be that angry, I think I need to find somewhere I can be mad where I'm just not around the dog at all. It's just not worth it when the dog is around, even if I feel better. I never want to scare him like that again.
