Experts say the frustration you feel watching a parent struggle with technology isn't really impatience - it's grief disguised as irritation, and most people never recognize the difference - Silicon Canals

"Here's the thing: most of us are walking around with a grief response we've filed under "frustration" because that's the easier label. Frustration is clean. Frustration has an obvious target - the slow phone, the confusing interface, the parent who "just won't learn." Grief is messy. Grief doesn't have a fix. And grief about someone who's still alive and still standing right in front of you? That feels almost forbidden."

"And when I finally talked about it in therapy, what my therapist said rearranged something in my brain. She said: "That's not impatience. That's grief. You're watching your parent become someone who needs help with things they used to master. And you're not ready for that." I haven't been the same about it since."

An adult describes intense irritation while helping an aging parent with a phone and later realizes the feeling was grief over the parent's diminishing abilities. Many people mislabel anticipatory grief as frustration because frustration feels cleaner and has an obvious target, while grief is messy and lacks a fix. Anticipatory grief and ambiguous loss describe the disorientation when someone remains physically present but changes psychologically or functionally. Recognizing the feeling as grief can shift perspective and enable more compassionate responses toward the person who is changing.

Read at Silicon Canals