Anger
Anger that my son has pain. Anger that my husband is away on
business. Anger that the caregiver
didn’t show up for my Mom. Anger that
the milk is sour in the fridge. Anger that the doctor smirked when I asked a
question. Anger that an old colleague’s
career is flying high. Anger that the
dog rolled in something awful. Anger that I have to do the night shift tonight
alone. Anger anger anger.
Anger is an emotion that all primary caregivers know too
well. Witnessing the unfairness of our
loved ones suffering, combined with a sense of unwanted labour forced upon us
sometimes swirls into a toxic stew of seething resentment.
Righteous anger that spurs us on to defend the interests of
our vulnerable loved one is energizing – it is a positive force. But bitterness is negative. It sucks the life out of our best selves and
it feeds on inertia. It’s hard to move
forward constructively when you feel consumed by resentment.
The primary caregiver may have a network of close family and
friends around her (or him), but there will be some days that the leadership
role takes its toll. An angry, resentful
attitude doesn’t attract friends.
Bitterness sends potentially helpful well-wishers scurrying back to the
safety of their peaceful homes. It
isolates.
So, what can be done with these feelings when they stalk us
through the day and night? For years, I
held my anger inside when I felt it, and I certainly don’t recommend that as a
strategy. Looking back, I wonder how I
got through many of the toughest times.
They say hindsight is 20/20 and I’ve combed through the memories of my
life to find strategies that worked sometimes for me, even though I may not
have realized it at the time.
In my book, The Four Walls of My Freedom, I wrote about how
I thought of our family life as a swim marathon across a large body of open
water. Jim was in the safety boat – he
needed to be there, because to survive, we couldn’t have everyone in the
water. During storms, I cried for him to
let me give up the marathon and let me into the boat, or to have him jump in with
me. But the lucid part of me knew that we
needed Jim’s salary and that personally, I needed to have one person in the
family who grounded us with a sense of order.
“Everything will be all right”, he said.
“You are a great mother.”
I’m no longer swimming the marathon. Nicholas is healthy and happy at the moment
and I have retired from nursing him.
Others do that now. My Mom is
doing OK and our entire family pitches in daily to ensure she feels safe and loved.
What did I learn about swimming a marathon of caregiving
through unsettled waters? I learned that
there is an end to the marathon, even though it is beyond the horizon – it
exists. Every caregiving experience has
a beginning, a middle, and an end. I
know that changing your swimming stroke
is a strategy that works for the long haul.
Floating on your back to rest and look at the stars means you stay in
the water, gathering energy to swim hard the next day. Getting through a long stretch means switching
from butterfly to side-stroke. It’s
old-fashioned, but it’s what our mothers taught us and it’s energy
efficient. I know that staying in the
water with lots of people on the boat passing snacks and throwing a life-belt
are the difference between drowning and mastery of the waters. And sometimes, in long stretches of calm
water, it’s essential to trade places with a strong swimmer on the boat. It was hard to trust that others could swim
or that they would stay the course if I looked away, but it was a necessary
lesson. I learned that it’s always
possible to jump back in and swim strongly after a rest and a change of
perspective, especially when swimming against the current.
The biggest lesson about anger a life of caregiving has
taught me is that resentful anger is not my friend. Treating it like a friend only hurt me more,
every time. Changing my stroke, changing
my perspective… those are the strategies that worked for me to banish
bitterness.
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