How to cope with grouchy patients: don’t take it personally!

It feels like my Mom was the hardest patient I took care of although my Dad and other family members had much more serious illnesses that actually required more time and attention. I believe it was because she could be so difficult and grouchy. Funny how that works. The emotional challenges feel so much more exhausting and troublesome than the actual responsibilities we take on. When someone’s mean or grouchy it’s so hard not to take it personally. 

I dreaded doing certain things with her because I knew she would give me a hard time and “let me have it” as we would say. She was always demanding and bothersome when I was growing up so when we experienced our role reversal, all bets were off. She became even angrier and testier. Both of us became so uncomfortable when I became her carer. 

Our history and years of bickering and meanness finally had to stop. So knowing I had to change because I couldn’t expect her to, I set about finding ways to cope with her unpleasantness and not take it so personally. After all, we were in this together, and it wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. I will never tell you it was easy but I will tell you, in the end, our relationship got so much better because I got better at being more objective and feeling less victimized. Here are two things to consider if you have a grouch in your Caregiving life. 

1. How am I doing?

I always found that if I was more rested, wasn’t hungry or eating lots of crappy food, and was in touch with other people that cared about and supported me, my Mom didn’t get to me as much. It was easier for me to laugh it off or at least ignore her. How I was feeling and doing had so much to do with my ability to be more understanding and not take her grouchiness so personally. Self-care became not a luxury but a critical necessity. When I felt stronger physically and mentally her nastiness was nothing more than her just being grouchy rather than an attack on me personally. Don’t get me wrong, she still directed her insults and anger at me, but if I was feeling rested and good about myself she only put a ding in my armor. Me taking care of me was like putting on swat gear around her!

2. How is she doing?

One of the most important things that happen for me was catching her in a really painful moment when her Dementia caused her to be so lost and confused and she was just standing there so bewildered and scared. My heart broke. Empathy rushed in. She became this lost soul who needed comfort and love and my world shifted. I started speaking and acting so soft and loving with her from that point on. Which made her soften. I was able to see that it was the anxiety she suffered from her entire life making her mean and demanding, not something I was or wasn’t doing. The clarity of that took the blame off me. A weight lifted off my shoulders. I no longer felt the need all the time to be so defensive or reactionary. She wasn’t ok and probably hadn’t been for so long. Now it was time for me to have empathy for who she was and what she was going through. I wasn’t always perfect in my dealings or exchanges with her and she still managed to push my buttons on occasion. But I started to chalk it up to a process that I was going through and even if it wasn’t perfect it sure was a heck of lot better for both of us. 

Grouchy mean people are never ever pleasant to be around and of course, there is no excuse for being mean and grouchy no matter what the circumstances are. Quite often this behavior is passed down from generation to generation as a means to express anger, fear or pain and only when we work really hard to break that chain and find better tools for expression can we all feel better about our relationships and ourselves. By trying to understand that people who are nasty are just being nasty and it has nothing to do with us we can better serve them and ourselves. No one wants to be in the receiving end of the nastiness, but it really has nothing to do with us and we don’t have to meet it in kind or defend ourselves or feel bad about ourselves. By taking care of us as we care for them and then seeing the grouch as sick and suffering we can avoid engaging in the nastiness and being upset. 

On my Mom’s death bed, unprompted, she told me I had always been there for her and always took wonderful care of her and I was such a good girl. It was such an amazing moment for me. I had really wanted to hear this all my life and feel blessed that I had worked so hard to find a way to communicate without the stress of unpleasantness. I’ll never know what prompted her to say that to me but it was music to my ears. Finally, the grouch had disappeared and my Mother had replaced her.