Wife got hospitalized, why am i so angry?

[Pyropyro]

Context:

This happened a few weeks ago. Shes ok now.

Anyways, my wife was a bit sick for a night so i did the housework and then check on her to see if shes ok. In the morning after she continued to worsen so i cancelled going to work and got her to the hospital.

So i told the doctor every medical data that i could, held my wife as she shook from the injected medicine & the cold and gave her warm milk & pound cake for breakfast. She gained a bit of her strength and we went home. I forbade her to go to work per doctors orders and stayed with her all day.

What i felt:

I felt kinda tired and angry after the hospital trip. Kinda pointless if your med knowledge wont help your wife getting better. If anything, i hoped that i can get the pain off her and transfer it to myself. I felt like i drop the ball and should get shitty husband of the year award. She did say that i was cute in my work clothes, that was the best pound cake ever and shouldnt be angry and stuff (God, im really a lucky bastard marrying a woman like that).

Any ideas what i am feeling and how to handle it in the future?

 

[redbaron]

how long was she sick for?

just sounds like she had a cold or something, nothing to get upset at yourself for

also can you make me some pound cake?

 

[Haim]

When my dog for hurt my mom got angry(many years ago)
This is a natural response to stress.

 

[Pyropyro]

how long was she sick for?

just sounds like she had a cold or something, nothing to get upset at yourself for

also can you make me some pound cake?

About 3-4 days.

Elevated neutrophil levels mean her systems were being attacked by something and her other symptoms show allergic reaction. I think it is both an infection and an allergic reaction at the same time.

It was bought from the hospital canteen but yeah I think baking you one sounds fun

 

[Pyropyro]

When my dog for hurt my mom got angry(many years ago)
This is a natural response to stress.

Yeah, maybe I'm just a bit too stressed. If this is normal then there exist methods that will help me avoid being too upset like rb said.

 

[Hadoblado]

Helplessness?

It can be difficult to sit by and watch someone you care about be beaten down by life. You probably feel like you should be able to take care of her, but that in this instance you were unable to do much?

If that's the case, I'd try and set up clear expectations for yourself given that situation. What can you do to help her vs. what do you need to leave to other people? It sounds like you did well to me, but maybe some part of you has an unrealistic expectation that you could do better?

Dealing with restlessness aka hospital environment instilled fury is also difficult. There's nothing to keep your mind going except for worry, and if you do do other things you can feel guilty for not spending that time in a caring role. This is really common. If you can come to terms with how much you can meaningfully do for your sick loved ones, perhaps you can exercise the discipline (yes discipline) to let your mind do other things - resulting in you being less exhausted/anxious, and consequently possibly more available.

I feel awkward extrapolating from your incomplete account... normally there's no shortage of volunteers to do that for me, but for whatever reason I have to do the leg work myself... So yeah, grain of salt and all that.

 

[Pyropyro]

@Hadoblado

Hmm. I felt kinda like Kratos (minus the god bod and manly voice) here:

 

[Minuend]

Some people respond to worry, fear or anxiety with annoyance or anger. They become angry because something made them feel worried/ scared and they dislike feeling that, or they become irritable because they are experiencing stress. It tends to be a reaction one learns from their parents as one or two of them reacts the same way. It's not the best way of processing worry and fear, but when it's learned from parents it tends to stick and become more difficult to change. Trying to force it away is typically not effective, accepting you feel that way and trying to process it from there might help a bit. Feeling something doesn't mean you have to act out. Accept you feel bad at that moment, that it's a natural response to the situation, that you can still be there and support your partner, realizing that the doctors around you are probably trying their best and want her to get better as well, that sometimes things happen outside out control and there's not much we can to other than being there etc

If you have asperger (read other thread) you might be more vulnerable to stress and your brain might react more easily to it where you feel this type of irritation or worse. In which case trying to take a time out if possible might help, to get away fro the stimuli so you reduce stress to a manageable level, because in that case it's not just the situation and the feelings that makes you overwhelmed, it can also be a combination of stuff like sensory stimuli, unpredictability etc. It doesn't sound like it built up that high from how you describe it, though. Would depend a bit on how prone you are to meltdowns, I guess.

 

[kora]

I find anger is a negative aggressive feeling usually directed at a perceived intention of attack. But we falsely attribute intention to things. So like, ur brain is looking for somthing responsible for stress/pain to attack but it's wrong.

This was my evo psych moment, thanks for reading. I've had no sleep.

 

[Pyropyro]

@Minuend

Yep, I'm prone to meltdowns in really stressful situations. Come to think of it, I'm glad that I didn't act up during the hospital visit. Things could've been worse. Maybe the whole trip to the hospital canteen calmed me down a bit.

So I was being subjected to normal "angry" response and aspie disruption of normalcy. Ok, I need to watch out for two things.

 

[Pyropyro]

I find anger is a negative aggressive feeling usually directed at a perceived intention of attack. But we falsely attribute intention to things. So like, ur brain is looking for somthing responsible for stress/pain to attack but it's wrong.

This was my evo psych moment, thanks for reading. I've had no sleep.

Honestly, I was looking for something to punch but I find that punching a disease is impossible and punching myself would be stupid.

Have a good sleep higs.

 

[Pyropyro]

@redbaron

So I went along with your idea and baked a pound cake with the wife. We used honey instead of sugar and messed up the cake. It was crusty and rather bland but seeing her eyes sparkling while baking (she's stopped baking for a while) and me enjoying a bit of mad science (baking is just a chemical reaction with heat after all) made yesterday evening pretty fun and relaxing.

I can't send you the cake virtually since we posted it on FB but I can tell you that the whole experience was nice. Thanks for the idea

 

[Polaris]

Don't feel bad, I'm kinda the same. Not the greatest at being sympathetic and supportive when it matters, instead I get irritable and impatient. I tend to default to being ultra-practical to save myself from the sympathy spectacle that I just cannot do if I haven't prepared for it.

I'd rather be the surgeon than the nurse, to put it that way. Give the patient to me unconscious and I can focus on doing good my way.

 

[Pyropyro]

Thanks Polaris

 

[Juice&lemon]

I think you're just not warmed up because of the cold weather you expect me to say. It's because of the turmoil inside you that you couldn't reach out to your wife's wellbeing. She's a daycare to you and most of the men don't do that. I think you're particularly competitive to your wife's distraught figurine of a body.. Do not worry.