Aging Angry - Making Peace with Rage

Lisa [: 00:00:00

And today, I have a very special guest on the line, Amanda Barouch. Hi, Amanda.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:00:06

Hi, Lisa.

Lisa [: 00:00:07

How are you today?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:00:08

Oh, pretty good. How are you?

Lisa [: 00:00:10

I'm good. We were just, sharing before we got on, the official podcast here that we've both been struggling with colds. It's the cold season, isn't it? So you are are you in California? Where are you calling from?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:00:27

I'm calling from Salt Lake City.

Lisa [: 00:00:29

Oh, Salt Lake City. Okay. And Amanda comes from the academic world. You are a retired professor, and you were a professor of social work and gerontology. Did I get that right? Or I should say you are a professor of social work.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:00:46

Oh, who knows?

Lisa [: 00:00:47

Or oh, yeah. Exactly. Well, we know that social work and gerontology go in that sentence somewhere. Right?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:00:55

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:00:56

And you are an author. You have written or coauthored, up to six at least six books. And you recently published a new book called Aging Angry, Making Peace with Rage. When did that publish? In December?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:01:15

It came out in January of this year.

Lisa [: 00:01:18

Oh my gosh. Hot off the process. Oh, last year.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:01:22

January 24.

Lisa [: 00:01:23

Okay. Alright. Alright. So we're about a year old at this point. And, this is a very intriguing title, Aging Angry, Making Peace with Rage. What are you talking about, Amanda? What do people have to be angry about?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:01:43

Oh, I know. I know everybody thinks old age is such a calm, mellow, wise part of life.

Lisa [: 00:01:50

Yeah. The people that that haven't done it think that. Right?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:01:53

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Mhmm. Yeah. But the ones who are living it, the ones I talked to for this book, have definitely had their fair share of anger.

Lisa [: 00:02:02

Yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:02:03

Yep. Yep.

Lisa [: 00:02:04

So Yep. I will say, you know, every week, even we we weren't, we weren't recording for some time, but I get, people are always reaching out and wanting to be guest. And, you know, most of the topics I think are so dreadfully boring or they've been done a million times. But this one, I gotta admit, it resonated with me. And I am in senior care myself, so I have seen this. Anger is a thing.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:02:34

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:02:34

So you interviewed a bunch of people, and that's what brought you to this? Or, like, were were you doing research for the book or the research led you to the book?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:02:45

Oh, actually, my my personal life led me to the book.

Lisa [: 00:02:49

Oh, okay. Even better.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:02:51

Because I yeah. I was, I was a very happy professor for about thirty five years, and, oh, I got a new boss. And it turned out that the new boss, I think, had a mandate to get rid of the, old folks. Oh. And it's this is not unusual in in work settings.

Lisa [: 00:03:16

Right.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:03:17

You know, when people pass 60, the and often when they did it in a place for a long time, you know, they built up all this seniority and their wages have probably gone up a bit. Yeah. And I guess my boss figured he could trade me in for at least two brand new assistant professors.

Lisa [: 00:03:38

Uh-huh.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:03:39

And they they might be a little more compliant. So at least that's my theory. So he, made my life miserable. I had tenure. You know? They said unless you commit a crime, it's hard to get rid of you with tenure. But but in but in academic settings, people are figuring out that you make somebody miserable enough, they'll actually leave on their own.

Lisa [: 00:04:04

I think that's true in So

Amanda Barusch [: 00:04:05

that's what happened to me.

Lisa [: 00:04:06

In the private setting as well. Okay. Yeah. So Absolutely. You were a happy professor and then along came the new boss and started treating you like an old person.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:04:19

Yeah. I kinda like that. Okay. I was sitting there at his first faculty meeting. You know, we were all excited. We got a new boss. What's this gonna be like? Everybody's whispering. And he announced some new standards for our research.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:04:34

And then he said, but these won't apply to you, Amanda, because you're in the twilight of your career. And everybody looked at me.

Lisa [: 00:04:43

Oh, boy.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:04:44

I said I had yeah. I didn't realize I was in the twilight of

Lisa [: 00:04:49

my career. You didn't know it. You didn't know it. Yeah. He informed you. And it was news to you.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:04:56

It was a shot across the bow. And and I didn't know how to take it. Really, honestly, at the time, I thought, maybe he's kidding. Maybe it's just a dumb joke.

Lisa [: 00:05:05

Yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:05:06

But but he kept he kept repeating it over and over. And and then he did other things, you know, took away support staff, revised my assignments. And I've learned in researching this book that it's it's a standard playbook for employers who wanna get rid of older adults. Mhmm. And, yeah. In my case, it was brutal. It was brutal. I lost you know what I lost was my confidence.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:05:31

I just, I I I started to think maybe I was a little demanded because I saw things so differently. Things I saw as victories, he saw as failures, and and things I saw as appropriate solutions, he saw as ridiculous, quite publicly. And so, in time, it wore me down. It took a couple years, but it wore me down, and I started getting angry.

Lisa [: 00:05:57

Mhmm.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:05:58

And here's the thing. I I had thought I had actually started thinking about a book on successful aging because that's what you do. Right? When you're a gerontologist, you when you retire, so many of my colleagues are interested in writing about successful aging, and it's kinda what we plan for ourselves. But then, after I decided not to do the university, I concluded that I was not successfully aging. I was aging angry. So that's where the title of the book came. That's the main title of the

Lisa [: 00:06:29

book.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:06:30

And I

Lisa [: 00:06:30

Well I

Amanda Barusch [: 00:06:31

thought, well, I gotta write a book about it. What the heck?

Lisa [: 00:06:34

Appreciate the honesty. It goes a long way. And and I will tell you that, you know, I named this podcast Aging in Full Bloom. Right? And it's this idea of aging successfully. But there have been many times I've thought to change it. But, you know, because I'm like, I don't know if this tells the the real story or not because it's not always happy and fun. But

Amanda Barusch [: 00:06:59

Well

Lisa [: 00:07:00

to your point, it's

Amanda Barusch [: 00:07:01

Who am I? I think it's a lovely name.

Lisa [: 00:07:03

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but it's it's real. I mean, aging is real and, it involves all kinds of emotions, not just the happy ones. It's not just the seniors at the farmers market that we see on the commercials, right, for Medicare. It's a little different than that.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:07:23

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:07:24

And so, I really appreciate though you sharing this story because obviously, I've interviewed a lot of people who have had the same experience and were laughing about it. But actually, it it isn't that funny.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:07:36

Oh, no. It's brutal. Yeah. It's it can be lethal. After It can kill you.

Lisa [: 00:07:41

35 of doing what you did, and and and and somebody came in and was able to shatter your confidence.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:07:51

Within it. Yeah. It didn't take it very long at all. And it did take a long time to build it back up. I gotta tell you.

Lisa [: 00:07:58

Okay. And so what do you do with this anger? Like, how do you channel it? How do you turn it into something productive? Or do you?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:08:09

Oh, you do. Oh, you can. Or you can become a mass murderer. Okay. You know?

Lisa [: 00:08:15

Well, I don't think that option's on the table.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:08:19

No. No. There's a chapter in my book on older adults who actually did become mass murderers.

Lisa [: 00:08:25

Oh my gosh. But

Amanda Barusch [: 00:08:27

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some do. I'm not recommending it by any means. Yeah. I'm not justifying it either. Oh.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:08:35

But but it's it's a threat. I think, yeah. But but the the closing chapter of the book is on the people who did per channel their anger into productive social and personal change. Mhmm. And that, I think, is our challenge these days, especially, you know, with social media, it doesn't help because key to channeling our anger is pausing. You know? The minute our adrenaline starts pumping, our body's saying, get them. Go get them. Mhmm.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:09:12

And and what we need at exactly that moment is a pause to let the adrenaline flow through and let our little old cerebral cortex take over Mhmm. And do a little bit of problem solving about how best to respond to the situation that's making us angry. So, I mean so I think that's key. If we can manage to create a pause, a peaceful moment for ourselves when we're just shaking with rage, we can find our way to the answer. And the answer might be no response required. Yeah. But but the answer needs to be the one that we can live with, you know, not the one that we're, we're we're choosing because we're afraid of what we really need to do. Mhmm.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:10:01

So so yeah. That's that's my thinking.

Lisa [: 00:10:04

So sometimes you you need to learn to I mean, if no response required is the answer. But what you're saying is, but you have to be okay with that. You have to

Amanda Barusch [: 00:10:15

be You have to.

Lisa [: 00:10:16

Yeah. You have to learn to be okay with not fighting every fight, not attending every fight you're invited to. Right?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:10:25

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:10:26

And letting the silence do its thing. So

Amanda Barusch [: 00:10:30

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:10:31

Besides discrimination in the workplace, which is, I mean, besides that little thing, what other things do you think people are angry about that are connected to aging?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:10:44

Yeah. You know, that's a really good question. I what I did in addition to interviewing people, I did an Internet survey with a nationally represented statistics sample, and I asked people what they were angry about. And the number one thing actually, I it wasn't COVID. You know, this was during the pandemic. It wasn't COVID.

Lisa [: 00:11:09

Okay.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:11:10

And it wasn't the politics. It was interactions with their family members. Mhmm. So so the thing that makes most older adults the most angry, is is problems in the family. And it's not something we tend to think of, but it's often is problems related to caregiving, for example. Mhmm. Resentments over somebody expecting you to do more than you are able, or or feeling disregarded, by people who no longer are very interested in what you have to say. Mhmm.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:11:53

But it but it's family members who we tend to get most angry with.

Lisa [: 00:11:58

Isn't that interesting? And and I I happen to, I looked at, your thesis, which had to do with caregiving for older adults. Right?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:12:11

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:12:12

And and I was intrigued by that. I thought, really, Amanda, what I wanna do is just come out there and have tea with you for a day and let's just let's just chat it up. But it's interesting a book. Yeah. It would. But but these findings go right back to kind of where you started.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:12:32

Oh, you know what? I had to find that connection. That's really neat.

Lisa [: 00:12:35

Mhmm. With the family. Yeah. So if you're getting angry about what's going on with the family and you're fortunate enough to have a family to make you angry because we do know that a lot of times older adults outlive their families and that's a sad place to be. But that's home. Right? So it's it's the home environment that is upsetting, and then you have to find a way to talk about that. Bring that to the table, and that's difficult, isn't it?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:13:10

It can be impossible. Mhmm. I mean, I again, there's I I really think people do need to give themselves the choice of letting go. And it's a choice, but there are some times when rather than, you know, retriggering the family dynamic that's making you angry, you might need to just let it go. But yeah. But but, certainly, a an adaptive, a really helpful strategy is learning to talk about anger. Like, they're just little things. One of the things my husband and I we we've always had a volatile relationship.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:13:49

And one of the things I've learned is saying to him, because I've always I'm somebody who I get upset. I get angry about things. And then I go home and I still got the vibe, you know, of of what made me angry. And my husband would think that I because, of course, he's the most important person in my life, that I was angry at him. Mhmm. And so I had to learn. I really had to learn to say, I'm angry now, but I'm not angry.

Lisa [: 00:14:14

Yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:14:15

And, yeah. And for me, as a young married person, learning that I could be angry and still love someone, that that's really key.

Lisa [: 00:14:26

Yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:14:28

A lot I learned a lot of the people I talked to believed that anger was incompatible with love. Absolutely incompatible. So if somebody makes me angry, I can't possibly love them. Or if somebody gets angry at me, they can't possibly love me, which is a really destructive belief. Mhmm. And I think it destroys relationships. And and

Lisa [: 00:14:52

And it I I would agree with. And a lot of times, the anger is you wouldn't be angry if you didn't love the person. It wouldn't matter.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:15:00

Right? Exactly. Exactly.

Lisa [: 00:15:02

But since you do love them, it does matter and you are going to get you're emotionally involved in this thing. And sometimes

Amanda Barusch [: 00:15:10

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:15:11

The emotion is anger. So making peace with rage. Rage is an interesting word. It's a powerful word. Why did you choose rage?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:15:22

Well, that's a good question. What I wanted to make clear with the subtitle was that even in its most extreme manifestations, anger can make the world better. And and that that our cultural we have all these cultural norms that tell certain people, particularly women, particularly older adults, that they're not allowed to be angry. And I think it comes from a place of fear, fear that their anger will become so destructive. But it's also a form of oppression, really. So I wanted to give that's why I used the word rage so that because often if someone is enraged, they well, like, think about how we talk about it. We say things like he's he lost it. He really lost it Yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:16:18

In that meeting. And and we we sanctioned them really heavily when I think as a culture and as individuals, what we really need to do is listen to them. Mhmm. Listen carefully. Give people respect even when they don't sound rational to us. Even when we disagree, if we can give them time, compassion, and respect, partly, it'll calm them down. But, also, probably, if somebody's that angry, something is something wrong is going on. Yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:16:51

Because because that's usually what makes us mad. Yeah. And and I people feel like oh, go ahead.

Lisa [: 00:16:58

I will just say, Amanda, on that note, so yeah. Sometimes I get out of control and my boss, god love him, he'll say, well, you're just passionate. And I'm like, that's true. Thank you for framing that for me. I am passionate. But if you think about it, that that emotion, that's that's what brings about change.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:17:24

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:17:24

The good change.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:17:25

The energy. Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:17:26

Yeah. Right. That's the energy. Like, if you're not passionate, if you're not wrapped up in it, if you're not out of control, then just sit down. It doesn't mean enough to you.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:17:38

You got it.

Lisa [: 00:17:39

So yeah. And I'm sure my mother, who I call mommy, will listen to this podcast when it publishes, and she's gonna be feeling so validated to hear what you are saying because I know that, she is enraged by things she sees on the news almost every day.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:18:00

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:18:01

And we live together. And and so she'll come into my office or wherever I am and start telling me what she's angry about. And sometimes, what you just said, like, I have learned to be respectful and just practice the pause, whatever I'm doing at the moment, give her a moment to be heard. Whether I am interested in what she's enraged about at the moment or not, or if I feel like there's really nothing I can do about it and I don't wanna talk about it, I just wanna move on. But it's that passion that moves us towards positive change. If nobody was moved by anything, we'd be still living in the dark ages where women didn't weren't allowed to vote and speak and so forth and so on.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:18:46

So I see.

Lisa [: 00:18:47

It

Amanda Barusch [: 00:18:48

Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:18:49

Not a not a bad thing to be enraged. And that's Absolutely not. That's why you say making peace. Right? Yeah. So what I

Amanda Barusch [: 00:18:58

And I think, oh, the peace comes from my understanding of justice is is I think people who get angry are often angry at what they feel as an injustice. Mhmm. And so, yeah, to the extent that we can address these injustices, we we make peace for ourselves and for our country.

Lisa [: 00:19:21

So a few takeaways, and I want you to tell me more. But one thing that I hear you saying, you said early on, practice the pause. Like, learn how to just stop, take a moment, feel everything that you're feeling, give yourself permission to feel it, but don't necessarily write the email at that moment. Right? Don't necessarily respond in that moment. And then and then the other thing is, listen. Like, give other people space to be heard. Give them a voice. Be respectful because you wanna be heard when you wanna be heard.

Lisa [: 00:19:57

What else? What else? What are some other tricks to deal with aging angry?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:20:05

Oh, thank you. That's a good question too. Let's see. One trick there are a couple of things k. That I learned from people I talk to. One, I, I was about to go give a lecture on anger, and I I decided I had to go, get my face fixed. So I I went to a department store to get some stuff. And the young woman the young woman who helped me asked what I was doing.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:20:34

And and she said to me when I said I was writing a book on anger, she said, I was angry for three years after my dad died. I just couldn't stand it. And and she almost destroyed her marriage. And finally, her husband just gave her an ultramatum. He said, you have to deal with this anger. I don't know how you're gonna do it, but you have to. And and she started hiking. Interestingly enough, she I mean, she's a city girl, you know.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:21:01

She when I look at her, you know, high heels and the whole shebang. Uh-huh. But she decided to go climb mountains. And she said every time she the higher she got, the closer she felt to her dad. And the exercise thing, the exercise involved

Lisa [: 00:21:19

Oh, yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:21:19

Was hugely beneficial. And she wasn't the only one who told me she used exercise to manage her anger. Mhmm. So I think I mean, it's great for anger. It's also great for depression, by the way, which I think is closely related to stifled anger. But yeah. So I would put exercise high on my list of ways of coping with anger. There's, go for a walk.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:21:43

When you're really can't stand it anymore, go for a walk.

Lisa [: 00:21:47

Yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:21:47

That's one one thing I can think of. And then, let's see, another thing would be to have well, one of the things that a lot of my respondents talked about was they kind of treated their anger as if it were a person, and they had a relationship with their anger. So I think this is a this is a tactic that people use in narrative therapy. Get the problem so it's not inside you, but externalize it. So so for example, I had a, an interviewee who was from Israel, and she was very passionate. I love it. I love the way your boss puts that. I I'll borrow it if I can.

Lisa [: 00:22:33

Yes.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:22:33

Yes. She was very passionate and very flamboyant, and, she had a hard time adjusting to America's sort of buttoned down culture. And she was the one who said to me, I have a relationship with my anger, and I need to keep that healthy. And so so that's who I think of when I think of this is that if we can get our anger to be a little bit separate from our souls or ourselves, then we can deal with it. I think in ways that are more productive. And then, you know, finally, I the problem we have is that there's this whole cottage industry in this country of anger management programs, and some of them are just terrible. And some of them are just counterproductive. Absolutely.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:23:23

But if you can find a good program, and I talk about that a little bit in the book too, or a good a a good professional to work with, you know, it's it's not there's no shame in that.

Lisa [: 00:23:34

Yeah.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:23:35

So those are some options I'd throw on the table.

Lisa [: 00:23:37

And you know what I wrote down? Tell me how you feel about this when you were talking about, you know, treating the anger as separate from who you are. Anger is not an identity.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:23:49

Mhmm.

Lisa [: 00:23:49

Right? It it's not Right. Even if you're mad for three years, it isn't who you are. It's not your identity. It's where you are. It's a place. Right? It's an emotion. And we can manage this thing. It doesn't have to run us.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:24:06

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So Even though it sometimes feels otherwise.

Lisa [: 00:24:11

Yeah. Yeah. So the programs that you speak of, like the good ones, can you give us, examples?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:24:19

Oh, gosh. Let's see. I I spoke with one man who ran a program that they use groups to to process anger. And one of the problems is a lot of these programs are just super didactic. They just tell people what to do. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:24:40

Boom. And that doesn't get anybody anywhere, really. But but these kind of interactive groups where people listen to each other tell stories of their anger Mhmm. Talk about how they responded, talk about whether they regretted how they responded and what they could have done differently, can be quite productive.

Lisa [: 00:25:02

That that makes sense. And so Yeah. You kinda wanna steer clear of those generic programs, like the seven steps to anger management.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:25:11

Maybe not. I think so. I mean, everybody everything works for somebody, but Mhmm. Probably not for the the average person. Yeah. It's more productive to be heard and to come up with your own solutions because everybody's different. Everybody's relationship. Everybody's anger is different.

Lisa [: 00:25:29

Right. It's it's personal. It's personal.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:25:32

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:25:33

Okay. So we haven't said the word, but the word that's the elephant in the room, I'm gonna go ahead and say it, ageism. That that's that's kinda what we're talking about here. Absolutely. Define it. Professor, define ageism for me, please.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:25:51

Well, age that's interesting. Ageism is when people have assumptions about people based on their age. And you can use ageism with young people too. People are using it more and more in sort of a generic way to talk about overemphasizing age and underemphasizing the humanity of another person. Yes. And That's there there are probably there are much better, more sophisticated answers to that, but I have to look it up. So, so, yeah, that's what I think. And we see ageism.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:26:25

It's really interesting as an older woman. I'm turning 70 this year, and it was probably I would say my early sixties. I started going gray, and I just started turning invisible. And a lot of women talk about this.

Lisa [: 00:26:39

Yes. I've heard it many times.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:26:42

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. That is that is one I mean, it's like the intersection of sexism and ageism is a position of invisibility that can be inflicted on you. And, yeah. And we are just we're swimming in an ageist culture. We all are. And, actually, that's one of the things when we talk about professionals.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:27:03

It's possible I mean, some people just should not work with older adults. And I I worry when I recommend that people seek professional support that they might run into one of these people. So so in in interviewing a therapist or a group leader or an educator, we really need to ask them about their we need to tease out their attitudes toward aging by asking them how how they work with older adults. Yeah. Because yeah. Well the doctor.

Lisa [: 00:27:32

The the I mean, as I said, we could go on forever, but we can't. We gotta we gotta put a cap on this. This is a great conversation, though. So, anger is real. You can it can be productive. It can be a pathway to productivity. We just have to embrace it. Right? Manage it.

Lisa [: 00:27:53

Understand it.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:27:54

Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:27:55

All these things count. And, if you don't believe ageism is real, stick around.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:28:02

Just try to be normal. Yeah.

Lisa [: 00:28:03

You can

Amanda Barusch [: 00:28:03

try walking, driving well old, walking well old, standing in line well old.

Lisa [: 00:28:09

Amanda, how would someone go about getting your book? Is it available on Amazon in all the places we buy books?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:28:17

It is, but I would, I should let people know that there's a 30% discount available on my website. Okay. They can lower the price a little bit. There's it's just a code that you can pick up on my website.

Lisa [: 00:28:30

And what's the website address?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:28:32

Oh, good point. It's, www@amandabarush.com.

Lisa [: 00:28:38

And the last name is spelled b a r u s c h.

Amanda Barusch [: 00:28:43

Yep. Okay. And you can just Google that and it'll probably come up.

Lisa [: 00:28:48

Great. Great conversation. And we these are the things we need to talk about. We need to talk we always say we're gonna discuss all things aging. No topic is taboo. And we have made our point today. I have loved my time with you. Maybe you'll come back again sometime soon?

Amanda Barusch [: 00:29:05

Oh, I'd love that.

Lisa [: 00:29:06

Alright. Thank you, Amanda. Hope you have a wonderful day and listeners, thank you for joining us. Till next time. May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be forever at your back.