I flinch when my daughter closes a cupboard too hard
Dear Delyara, My father announced anger through noise. Cupboards slammed. Plates hit counters. Doors shut hard enough to shake frames. We learned to measure danger by volume. I left home thirty years ago. My daughter is fifteen and closes everything too hard because she is fifteen. Every time a cupboard bangs, my shoulders jump before I know why. Last week, she slammed her bedroom door during an argument, and I shouted, “Do not threaten me.” She stared at me and said, “I closed a door.” She was right. She had not threatened me. She was angry about screen time. I saw my father in the movement and punished her for an inheritance she does not know she carries in my nervous system. Later, I apologized and explained some of it. She said, “So loud noises make you scared?” I said sometimes. Yesterday, she closed a cupboard gently, then looked at me. That almost made me cry because I do not want my child reorganizing normal teenage anger around wounds she did not create.