Updated October 01, 2014.

 The movie Philadelphia is dated not to mention inaccurate in many ways. Contrary to the point of the film, homophobic straight people were not the heros of the early years of the AIDS epidemic. What the film gets right; however, is the tone of many of the interactions between the character of Andrew Beckett (played by Tom Hanks) and his partner and caregiver, Miguel Alvarez (played by Antonio Banderas), especially as their as Becket gets sicker and it is clear that their time together is limited.

In one scene where Becket is brought to the emergency room, the doctor wants to do a colonoscopy to "check that the KS hasn't spread to the colon" Alvarez says "you're going to do that invasive procedure without trying other things first?! What are you thinking."

The doctor gets miffed by the threat to his authority and threatens to make Alvarez leave to which Becket says "No, he's just upset, he's sorry" and Alvarez corrects "no I'm not, I'm not sorry"

In a later scene, Becket is busy with preparation for her legal case against the law firm that fired him when they found out he had AIDS. Alvarez is trying to set up an IV access but can't do it and suggests they call the visiting nurse. Becket waves him off, saying "I'm busy can't we do it tomorrow" and Alvarez yells "don't you realize what's important, this is saving your life."

Although we haven't all had to deal with our loved one choosing to work on a legal case rather than making treatment a priority or specifically telling a health care provider that we aren't angry when we are, we've all had the experience of overwhelming anger in the face of overwhelming caregiver stress.

When I worked in maternal child health, we started early with the phrase "anger is part of the parent-child relationship." Because it is, and ignoring this, or pretending like everything is butterflies and roses all the time, doesn't actually make things any easier. While it's true that it's important to find ways to think about stressful events in our lives that doesn't make the stress worse, it's important to deal with anger instead of just sweeping it under the rug.

Anger Tip #1 Consider Safety First

We often counsel our new parents that when they are at the absolute end of their rope, that if they can safely put the baby in the crib and walk away for even a few minutes, it's important that they do just that. Although your loved one is likely more aware of their situation and it would be neither kind nor prudent to put them in bed and walk away, you can still use a virtual timeout.

Say to your loved one "Please I need a moment to not interact. Just a moment." And then if you can safely do so, leave them and go to another room; you are probably least likely to be interrupted in the bathroom. Scream into a towel, you might even want to find that you keep towels in the bathroom for just this reason.

Anger Tip #2 Work on Believing Anger Is Both Normal and Healthy

As mentioned earlier, it's quite reasonable to believe that anger is a part of almost every caregiver experience as well as the experience of someone who is receiving care as well. Give yourself a break, don't berate yourself. Your feelings aren't wrong or bad. You can engage in healthy or unhealthy behaviors to manage the anger, but the feeling itself is never wrong.