Why so much anger?

Thanks for clearing that up for me NY.

As I was feeding my mother lunch, I was struck by how sad this whole condition is and I'm mad at the disease. My sadness manifests as anger because I can't control it. This type of anger is more inward and is not directed at the dementia victim. It sometimes comes with a flood of tears. I'm sad and ticked off.

Jerrvon,
How wonderful that you are happy caring for your husband. Hopefully he is calm and happy in his confusion. There are some of us that live with demanding, screaming, narcissistic parents that are a handful and try our love and patience daily.

It also sounds like you're in love with your spouse. I'm sure that makes it much easier. Some of us have not had the best parents or spouses, so there probably isn't the same level of love in caring for them as you have for your dear husband. The fact that we are caregivers at all shows we have some level of love for those we take care of. That's all some of us can muster.

Maybe you couldn't think of doing anything else because your husband needs you. I'll assume you and your husband are fairly close in age. But some of us are much younger than the loved ones we care for and have dreams of doing active things. Our plans are interrupted to stay home and, in some cases, we literally break our backs caring for loved ones. We are taken out of society to exist in a very limited life. This can NOT be compared to what our mothers did for us! It is completely different and I get ticked every time someone says that. Our parents wanted children. Our moms stayed home raising us with the dreams that we would grow and thrive as adults, capable of taking care of ourselves, have a family and the cycle goes on. For caregivers, we know that Alzheimer's (dementias) are a progressive disease downward. No way a 94 year old with stage 6 Alzheimer's can be compared to a 2 year old. A child can be taught and will learn to become more independent (fairly fast actually). With dementia, you know your work will only get harder as time goes on. This causes more stress on top of the physical work.

Then, no one is prepared to be screamed at as you are helping them. It doesn't 'compute' in our brains. We're 'hard wired' for a lot of responses, so you could say our frustration or anger is not our fault either.
I would venture to say there are more caregivers that are frustrated and angry than view it as a blessing.
You're an angel in a sea of little devils. 👹👹😇👹👹

I have had a lot of anger taking care of my mother. You see, she was not a good mother to me. Since I got her into Assisted Living, much of the anger has dissipated. I am now able to feel compassion, if not love, while helping her. If I were caring for my dear, sweet husband,I suspect my feelings would be very different. Many of us caregiving are doing so for people who did not treat us well...out of a sense of duty.

There's also the issue of interrupting one's life to provide caregiving, and that sometimes means that a person can't continue his/her career because of the demands of caregiving. Anger can easily result.

Giving up a good career is a real challenge, and a significant compromise. Instead of interacting with peers, interaction changes to medical people, and a range of care related people. It's more challenging in part b/c caregivers aren't on equal standing - not b/c of competency, but b/c we need things from the medical profession.

It's not like working with co-workers who have the same goal for the company.

And if you read the family dysfunction thread, you'll get insight into dynamics that challenge all involved. It's not easy to be cheerful about caregiving when you're the only one in the family willing to do it and are inundated with caregiving obligations.

Based on what I have seen, the anger at the loved one with dementia is often a result of the difficulty family members have to adjust their expectations. I wonder if we could actually see the brain damage on a screen, we could better envision how things in their mind are not working properly. Maybe, that way we could understand why the person is hostile, rude, mean, or violent. It seems that no matter what, the family member just can't process that this person is not the same. They are not capable of acting right. I'm not sure there is anyway for some people to accept it. They may always take it personally. It's such a shame to take that burden, when it's not their doing at all.

It wasn't a question, tired. It was a statement that to my ears had a lot of FOG in it.

I'm glad you have the chance to help your husband and have such a good attitude toward him. I thought your question was going to be why does your husband have so much anger, but after reading your statement I think you are asking why are the caretakers so angry? For me, as I have stated in my 2 questions to this forum, which didn't get much response, I've done a lot for my mother and she treats me like she doesn't even know who I am except the person she blames for everything. While I'm trying to learn more about the disease, it's still difficult to see the hate in my mothers eyes when she's screaming at me about something that didn't even happen and I'm exhausted because I've run around day after day doing things for her. My mother was always difficult but I loved her any way, I hoped our old age would be me helping her and her appreciating me while we talked about the good old days and loved each other unconditionally, instead I dread seeing my mother. I fear what nasty things she will say to me next. That's just part of the anger for me and why this horrible disease exists. I hate it for my mother because she was so bright and independent and proud of her intelligence and hard work all her life, now she's an angry, smelly old woman with 4 cats running around and not a clue that she has this disease. So sad.

Oh wow. I'm so sorry to hear you are having a tough time. You are right that it is unfair to be angry at your loved one, because they would not have put you in this position if they were healthy. It is the disease that you want to be angry at.