Overwhelmed and at a loss in parenting littles. I’m venting and currently not in my best mindset.

I try my freaking hardest. I’m in the process of breaking the cycle of abusive behaviors my parents implemented on me as a child, while they manifest much differently for me, I catch myself slipping sometimes and I feel like an absolute piece of shit. I generally try to be really patient with my boys, especially my older son at the moment (3.5), giving choices (within reason), being firm where needed, asking what he needs when he is attention seeking, we do activities together, make anything i can a learning opportunity, redirect when misbehaviors come up, talk about choices/consequences, etc. but when he disobeys in a way that hurts me or could hurt or hurts his little brother (10mos) I lose my freaking marbles. The mama bear comes out and I hate myself for yelling at him so harshly when I’m trying SO hard to be loving and firm in how I guide him. He just pushes and pushes and pushes until I freaking lose it and yell at him. Then I feel horrible. It was at its beginning/worst after my second was born, and has gotten tremendously better since, but I still have moments and then feel so much worse for them. I’m overwhelmed with advice from my therapist who also specialized in child development and behavioral issues in children, parenting classes (I’ve done two), books on children’s brains, and feel like I still can’t figure out what works for my own son at times, and really for MYSELF in those moments, the ideas and scenarios are great but it seems like the worst case scenario always happens. It doesn’t help that I’m doing it all 100% alone and dealing with several major life stressors at once. I started this after yelling at him for playing peek a boo with his brother using my body as the barrier and bonking his brothers head after I asked him to play on the rug several times so he wouldn’t distract his brother who I was trying to put to bed(were currently all sleeping in the same room), in reality it’s a small thing and was actually really sweet, just the worst timing as his brother was trying to nurse and settle down, now post baby going down and a conversation with him he’s teaching me through a yoga flow. Seriously? I guess some of the good things are sticking. In our defense these behaviors are fairly rare now, but when they happen they are so so hard and I feel so bad!!!

Urgh I just need to know I’m not alone.