Aftershocks

To my wife,
Please don't take it so hard.  When I interrupt you twenty times during your favorite show, and you miss the good part.  When we wake up late and we don't have everything packed for the trip, when the stove won't cooperate and the food won't finish cooking, when the footstools are placed explicitly for the purpose of tripping you.
I understand that it feels like everything is working against you.  I know that you feel like I'm not paying attention, and absorbed in my own world.  But my world is connected to yours, and when yours is shaken mine begins to crumble too.  Please don't yell, because it hurts me, even when you're not yelling at me. It hurts me that you are so controlled by immediate emotions that you can't see their consequences.
This time the plan messed up; this time the vase slipped out of your hand and shattered; this time I burned the food so it's pizza for dinner. But there will be more times.  We can buy toothbrushes to replace the ones I forgot to pack.  The mess from the broken vase can be cleaned up.  There will be plenty more dinners to enjoy.  I am your partner and I love you, and I hate to see you so upset by such small things.

To Mommy and Daddy,
Oh Daddy, I'm sorry. I didn't know that's what would happen. I probably should have, but I don't know the world like you do. I don't know how easily cereal boxes spill and how much it distracts you when I make the dog bark.  I thought it was funny.  I didn't think that those new words I heard you say would make you angry when I said them.
I know you've asked me to clean up my messes a hundred times, Mommy, and you think I ignore you. There's just so much going on that I get distracted. But it scares me when you yell. It makes me want to hide. And then you apologize and are soft and sweet, and I don't know what to think.
Which one is you? Which face should I trust? If I make a mistake, will you yell at me again? How can I learn if I can't tell you things without fear? The world is big and strange, and I don't know my way around. I need you to be a safe place for me.

To my co-worker,
You think it's over quickly and you move on. And maybe your outbursts don't affect the rest of your day. But I feel it. Your secretary feels it. Your boss feels it. We walk on eggshells around you, and we worry what you'll think of us. Are we just "one more thing", adding to your frustration?
I need your help with this project, but I don't want to make your day harder. I'm sure the customer that you're dealing with is terribly aggravating--we've all been there. But when you yell, even if it's not at anyone in particular, you make all of us who hear feel like we're the cause of your frustration.  Your assistant doesn't believe that you'll listen to his ideas, because he hears your comments to yourself about "those idiots trying to change what already works". The manager hesitates to bring you in on the upcoming conference, because he doesn't think you can handle that too.
Maybe it's normal for you.  Maybe all your life people have erupted, then recovered, so to you it is a reasonable reaction to provocation. But at best, it's distracting, and at worst, it hurts our trust in you.
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What makes you yell? When you erupt, is it intended, or does it slip out? What do you do to try and control it?