My sympathies. One thing that always works for me is to divert my DS's attention and distract him when the intensity gets too much for me. I am pretty creative in distracting and can totally throw my DS offtrack to the extent that his mind latches on to a different topic. I resort to this when I get to the point where I become short tempered and tell myself that I do not want to lose my temper with my child. I also drop what we are doing and read a book to my DS when I need to get a break from DS. That calms him down considerably.
I also try to say positive things more often to DS. And try to curb my own negativity as I become more and more aware these days that I am his source of support and encouragement and I need to stay that way. I also feel that I did not sign up for this when I became a parent - it is a hard feeling to deal with and does not sound maternal at all - I verbalized it to someone in my life and they told me that I need to change my outlook and think that if I did not do this job as my DS's parent, then no one else would. That thought provides me a lot of comfort on the days when I feel frustrated.
Try to spend more time on self care - exercise, drinking a lot of water, listening to music, meditation, gardening etc. These things help tremendously in improving our outlook. Good luck.
