Caregiver Anger & Resentment, What Is The Root Cause?

A year ago, I was so angry and resentful

I remember it was a struggle.  He was getting chemotherapy and I was wrapping my head around his stem cell transplant.  And, celebrating the holidays was a complete blur but I do remember how angry I was.

 
I was angry and resentful about cancer.   I was angry at the stress it was causing.  I was angry that I had to go through this stuff again.   

 
It took me weeks to let go of the anger and embrace all my feelings.  It was ok to be angry BUT I couldn’t stay there since it was sucking all the energy out of me.  

What’s the difference between anger and resentment?

Feelings of anger and resentment often occur together, and though similar, they’re actually two different things.

Anger is defined as a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. Often, it’s a split-second reaction that occurs due to an irritating or frustrating event or situation. 

Resentment is more complex in that it occurs over time and incorporates several emotions like sadness, anger, and fear. Instead of being a reaction to a single event or situation, it’s a culmination of painful or disappointing feelings from the past, that make it difficult to remain present.  

As a caregiver, it’s easy to fluctuate between these two emotions. For example, you might feel angry if a loved one has an accident after you spent time and energy helping them to the bathroom. At the same time, you might feel resentful because every waking moment revolves around their care.   

Anger and resentment are common emotions, but when they infiltrate your personal relationships it can feel like the world is crumbling. 

Iceberg Model
Anger is called the secondary emotion.  We tend to resort to anger because we are covering up the real feelings which may sometimes vulnerable.  Under the water the iceberg is usually bigger.   Some emotions beneath anger may be difficult to identify, admit or discuss.    But when we really look under the water at the anger iceberg, we can uncover and mange our anger.  Anger has many triggers, such as people, places or situations.

When you take a step back and ask yourself questions to explore, you can really find out why you’re angry and why the resentment is so strong.  Ask yourself these questions: 

• What is the root cause of the anger?
• What triggers your anger?
• What happens when you get angry?
• Is my anger healthy?  
• What's on the bottom of the iceberg?  

Then..  how can you cope with the root cause(s)?  

I went right back to the basics of what I have done over and over again:  focusing on gratitude, walking each day, talking to my community and finding joy in the little things.   

This caregiver journey is not easy but when you have figured out YOUR shifts and plans to implement in those challenging times, you CAN make it through with JOY.   It’s all about being the best caregiver you can be.  

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hello there, and welcome to another episode of the Caregiver Cup podcast. Okay, I'm gonna do this podcast today, and I have my fingers crossed because I have a very uh barky dog. I don't know if that's the word to call it, but she is barking at everything today. And so I'm gonna try to do this with the hopes that she doesn't distract us too much, as well as I have this dry hacking cough like everybody else has, pretty much across the United States for sure. So I'm gonna hopefully do this without coughing too much. But my friend, I am here for you today, and I want to talk today about the topic of anger and resentment. It's come up again in our caregiver cup circle. It's come up again with many of my clients. And anger and resentment is a normal thing that we experience as caregivers. And I want to really bring it up again. I know I've done it in previous episodes, but this is a little bit different of a twist today. I want to talk about the difference between anger and resentment, and then why we get angry when there's usually underlying feelings and emotions that bubble up. So I'm gonna take a sip of my drink here and keep my fingers crossed today. So again, welcome to episode 139. A year ago, I was so angry and resentful. I started rehashing the past year when Dennis, my husband, and I did had an opportunity to be guests on an upcoming podcast for Kathy's house. And I'll let you know when that podcast episode airs so you can hear my husband share a story. You could hear a little bit about the amazing place that we stayed. But last year at this time, we were making plans and getting ready for Dennis's stem cell transplant happening at the beginning of 2022. And we were scheduled for January. It got pushed back a little bit, a couple weeks, but we he started his process, um, his pre-planning process in the fall and winter or November and December, actually, of 2021. And when I was reflecting back on it, I remember how flipping angry I was, especially a few specific times. I remember it was a struggle. He was getting chemotherapy, and I was trying to wrap my head around his stem cell transplant, his chemotherapy, I think for the fourth time, and hoping that this whole stem cell transplant process would cure his Hodgkin's lymphoma, knowing that his non-Hodgkins will never be cured. It's just something that he has to keep up and up and going. And it was it was the time of the year where you're supposed to be celebrating the holidays, but it was a complete blur. And actually, it was just a busy chore for me. And I do remember how angry I was. I was so angry and resentful. I was mad at every situation, especially about the damn cancer that came back again. I was angry at the stress that was it was causing. I couldn't focus on the holidays or I had to do both. And it was just it was just overwhelming. I was angry that I had to go through this stuff again. I felt like I was swimming in quicksand while my spouse was fighting for his cancer again. It took me weeks to go, to let go of the angry, angry, anger, and embrace all of the feelings that I was feeling. The good feelings, the bad feelings, the ugly feelings, the really negative feelings. And I had to tell myself it was okay to be angry, but I couldn't stay there since it was sucking all of the energy out of me. And it was really just wearing me down. All I wanted to do about a year ago was just sleep. And I was snapping at everybody. I just I could look outside and go, ah, growling. One of the days that I remember the worst was when he had to go in for a consultation. I think it was set his second round of chemo. And we had we usually have to go in for lab work, and that was at 7 a.m. Flipping, 7 a.m. in the morning, and then we have to go up and we have to be at the doctor's. Um, and it's like the first floor is labs, and then you have to go up to the next floor, and that's where you go in for your lab results consultation with the doctors, and they're okay to go ahead and do chemotherapy. I've done it dozens and dozens and dozens of times. And so I know the protocol. We sit, we wait for his labs, we go into the doctor's office, we sit in the doctor's office and wait for them to come in, which feels like forever. I'm just being the angry person I was. And then once he says, yeah, it's okay, then we go back down to chemotherapy, find a chair, we sit and wait for the orders to go through the pharmacy, and then it's hours and hours of chemotherapy. I remember being so snappy and crabby and frustrated. I was mad at everything and everyone. No matter how nice people were, I was a B-I-T-C-H. I just was. I was quiet, but then when I said something, it was snappy, and everything was through a negative lens. And I knew it, and I almost felt like a teenager and going through hormones or something at that time. So, what's the difference though between anger and resentment? Feel feelings of anger and resentment often come together and they occur together. And through similar situations, they're actually, if you look at them, they're actually two different things. Anger, if the if you looked in the uh the dictionary for anger, it's it defines anger as a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. Often it is a split-second reaction that occurs due to an irritating or a frustrating event or situation. Yeah, I get angry. I think of car rage for some reason in my head. I don't know why that comes to my head, but but resentment is more complex because it occurs over time and is incorporated with other emotions like sadness and anger or fear, instead of being in re reaction just to a single event or a situation, it's a culmination of painful or disappointing feelings from the past that make it difficult to remain in the present. And so when you think about it, if your anger becomes resentment, it's just because it's happening over time. And there's usually several emotions involved in that. As caregivers, it's easy to fluctuate between two emotions. For example, you might feel angry if a loved one has an accident after you spent time and energy helping them in the bathroom. Um, at the same time, you might feel resentful because every waking moment revolves around their care. So anger and resentment are common emotions, but when they infiltrate your personal relationships, it can feel like the word is the world is crumbling. It it feels like it's just crumbling down. And if you do any research regarding anger, you'll probably see an iceberg model. You think about an iceberg in the water. I think about Titanic right away. And when they saw iceberg. But when you see an iceberg in water, you see the water, and then you just see the little bit of the iceberg above the water. Usually the iceberg is huge underneath the water, but not very big above it. Anger is the iceberg. Think about that. That's a piece above the water. Anger is your secondary emotion. We tend to resort to anger because we are covering up the real feeling, which may sometimes be, you know, multiple things. Under the water, the iceberg, like I said, is usually bigger. And some of our emotions beneath anger may be difficult to identify, difficult to admit, or difficult to even talk about. But when we really look under the water at the anger iceberg, we can uncover and really manage our anger. Anger has many triggers. If you think about it, it you it could be a person, it could be a place, it could be a situation. For me that day, the anger was the chemotherapy treatment again. And if you think about um, for me, I I felt like, okay, I just went um, you know, at in beginning of 2017, it was my dad having chemotherapy. It was Dennis now for the fourth time having chemotherapy. It was the place again, having to be there again, knowing that it's hours and hours of that. Um, and then the situation, it was right during the holidays. It was the scare, scariness of what is this stem cell transplant going to be? So it can cause past emotions like stress and frustrations. But when you take a step back and ask yourself questions to explore, you can really find out why you're angry and why the resentment is so very strong. You know, think about this. You want to ask yourself questions. If you're feeling anger and resentment, and and it's resentment is becoming really, really heavy. What is the root cause of your anger? What is the root cause of it? For me that day, the root cause was the unknowns of the chemo of the stem cell transplant, but it also was the holiday season and all the pressures and stress. And then thinking back to my dad and his last chemotherapy there. What triggers your anger? What is the triggers? So you want to ask yourself, what's the root cause? What's the triggers? What happens when you get angry? Oh my gosh. I can identify when my anger is the worst, and when I get really angry and it turns into resentment, and I find myself doing specific things or shutting down. So what happens when you get angry? Is and then ask yourself, is your anger healthy or is it unhealthy? It sucks every piece of energy out of me when I'm really, really in the unhealthy anger world. Because that's the only thing that I focus in on, and I'm not even looking at the whole picture. What on the what's, you know, think about what's on the bottom of your iceberg? What's causing uh what are all the other emotions that may be causing the anger? And how can I deal with these emotions? Maybe the bottom of your iceberg has sadness or disappointment or depression or loneliness or you're embarrassed or hurt, or maybe you're in pain, or maybe you're frustrated. And we talked about a lot of these in our caregiver cup circle this week. Anxiety or guilt, maybe it's shame, or you're jealous because of the other ones. Here we go. Lucy's gonna bark for us. Helpless, tired, or more. Maybe you're just totally fatigued and you can't do it. You feel like you can't do it anymore, and now the anger is surfacing. So then how do you cope with this, the root cause? When you try to figure out your root cause and what's underneath your iceberg, you know, think about some of the things that are going to be your go-tos. Maybe you journal out your anger, you think how it shows up in your body because anger can be so unhealthy that are in resentment that it resorts to you having health issues. You also might want to track your anger. You know, who gets you, who triggers your anger? What triggers your anger? Where do you go that triggers your anger? Um, I think about dealing with my spouse when he's going through chemotherapy. If he was in crowds and he could he had no patience, that triggered his anger. You know, so I wanted to be able to take that away from him if at all possible. You might be the same way. When makes you angry? Is it when you're really tired? Is it when you have to do a specific task? You want to get to those root causes so you eventually can make shifts or tweaks or or shift your mindset. Um, you might want to talk to somebody that can go ahead and help you. If it, if your anger and resentment get to the point where it's becoming really unhealthy, maybe you need to go to a professional and talk through it. Or maybe it's listening to music that'll help you release that anger. For me, I went back to the basics, my basics that have worked for me over and over and over again. And once I figured out what the root causes were and got through the holidays, and I started focusing on gratitude. I focused on the all of the good things, all of the things that were going to make my husband healthy. I went back to walking each day so I could go ahead and get that get that mindset and and train my brain and release the stresses when I walk. And I walk each morning, if at all possible, with my dogs, anywhere from two to three miles. I talked to my caregiver cup community about it and just got it off my chest. And what's nice about it, we can ask each other questions. Why do you think you're angry? What's causing your anger? Where were you when you felt angry? We asked ourselves questions and I worked on filling, finding joy in the little things, filling my cup each and every day. So when I think about my anger and resentment, and you think about your anger and resentment, what are the stressors? For me, it was the holidays. What were the causes of your anger? For me, it was seeing my spouse in a chemotherapy chair again, knowing that he's gonna get sick and having those days after, seeing my dad in the chemotherapy chair, seeing him sick. And the solution that I made for myself is I went back to the basics. I journaled about it a lot, I tracked it a lot, but another decision I chose to do was I went to the labs, I went to the consultations, I sat there until Dennis got his chemotherapy, but then I left for a while. He had a person there, a nurse supporting him through the whole thing. And then I came at the end of his chemotherapy and picked him up. I didn't stay there because my anger was brewing all day. For me, during those holiday times, it gave me time to shop, it came gave me time to take care of myself, it gave me a place to get away because that was my trigger. That was making me so, I didn't even like myself. So um, just kind of food for thought there. So, this caregiver journey is not easy. I know I say this all the time, but it's not not easy. But when you figure out what the root causes are, the triggers are, and what you can do to shift and plan to implement in these challenging times, you can make it through and then eventually find that joy again. It's all about what you can do to be the best caregiver that you can be. Because I think I go back to thinking about a mom raising a toddler again. You know, when a mom is having a bad day with her child and her child's having temper tantrums and she is just angry because she can't figure it out. But if you see that mom weeks and weeks of taking care of that child and still not be, she's starting to become resentful, she needs to go back and do the same thing. We as caregivers need to go back and take a step back and assess that emotion and then look at what's under the iceberg because usually the secondary emotion is the top of the iceberg, the anger. And below it are all of the other pieces of the emotions that we're feeling. And when we what you can even draw an iceberg on a piece of paper and put anger at the top, color it red or whatever color you want it to be, but then right on the bottom of the iceberg, what are all the other emotions and feelings and thoughts and frustrations and whatever? What are all of the others? And then what you can do is you can start prioritizing them. Which one is the most struggle? What's the most one you're struggling with the most? And what is that one? And for me, it was it was it was holiday and fatigue and memories and frustrations, and so it really wasn't the anger, the anger was the negative behavior that I was I was doing as a result of that. And so you want to figure out what that is. So that's what I have today. It's a rather short one for me, but I think this one will be powerful for you. So when you're feeling angry, and remember that's an immediate emotion that you're feeling. That could be you just you you got mad about something and you resorted to anger. That's fine. But when it's over time and that anger and resentment are there together, then the iceberg effect needs to be thought through. And when you can think through that, that's the first step. Then you can look at ways to go ahead and choose a different uh decision, make some shifts and changes, or learn how to release and reduce it. You have a good rest of the day, and we will talk to you again next Tuesday. But as always, don't forget, it's so important as a caregiver to go ahead and fill your cup each and every day. Fill it each and every day by putting yourself first and doing those things that are going to help you with your energy and and and being the best caregiver that you can be. So you have a good rest of the week and we'll talk to you soon. Bye for now.