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Bitter/jealous/angry


Chai

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I know there is already a thread on anger...but I wanted to just, I don't know, throw a few negative emotions together in the basket. I myself am not someone who feels angry at the one I lost - my dad - but I am angry, for a second, with people I feel jealous of (then the anger becomes jealousy). The young people I know who still have both parents. To think, such a short time ago, I used to be one of them!

Also, I am finding myself bitter against cancer survivors. I know this is terrible and mean, and they did nothing to hurt me. But since my father did not survive cancer, and only lasted two months at that, I feel angry and bitter when I hear about cancer survivors.

A friend of mine today was talking about a fellow student of hers, and she mentioned how his mother "had cancer, and that's why her hair is so short now." A cancer survivor. And then you see all these celebrities fighting cancer. And a few years ago, one of my mom's friends had cancer. She lasted for a few months, at least.

Of course, maybe it's because of chemotherapy. My dad didn't do chemotherapy, it was against his beliefs about natural healing. I can understand his viewpoint, and I advocated it because I knew it would make him happier to 1) get in-home hospital care, which he did, and 2) not do chemo. I didn't want to see him waste away so very fast, and to know he'd be miserable with each hospital visit. I didn't want him to have to go through that.

And he didn't do chemo, so when I did see him, he looked okay, other than being even thinner than usual, and the scar on his neck from surgery. I am glad that he was in good spirits, and totally himself in mood and talking, etc.

But when I hear about the cancer survivors, this ugly bitterness wells up in me. It's terrible.

How do we grieving people deal with these negative emotions? Do we let them come up, try to change our perspective, or what?

(Sorry I've made so many threads, but I thought they were each separate issues).

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Boy! do I know what you mean. The Cancer Care of America ( I think that's what it is), really gets to me. I even called them, but our insurance wouldn't pay. They sent the information the had on pancreatic cancer and it seemed to be what our Dr.'s were doing but when the woman says she beat pancreatic cancer, I almost get physically sick.

And then there's Patrick Swayze. Did he just have more money and could get them to do things I couldn't? There was a procedure I wanted done on Tom that they said was for primary site liver cancer only and within 2 weeks of his death they OK'd it for metastatic liver cancer.

I get so resentful when I see peoples anniversaries in the paper - why won't I get to see my 50th? We were hoping for even more than that.

Then I feel bad because who am I to think that I am better than anybody else? Why should God choose their loved one instead of mine? That is when I take a deep breath and try to talk myself in to the fact that God chose him to do something better and that he didn't have to suffer. That he is happy all the time now. That he sees everything that goes on so he never misses our grandkids games,where I do sometimes.

We just have to accept that we loved these special people with all our hearts and a part of that is now gone and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it except to make them proud of us. There is a reason they are gone and we are still here and we have to figure out what that is.

So, I guess what I am saying is that your feelings are not unusual at all.

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Chai,

I am trying very hard to understand your bitterness, and in a way I do but I want to give you a couple things to think about. First my mother has been battling Cancer for over a year now, has been through hell and back and so have the rest of us in our family who have been there for her each and every moment and we have already lost 2 family members this year, my Step Grandmother and my Husband..... and for me 5 months before my husband was my best friend since kindergarten who died of a heart attack. At one point they said my Mom was cancer free but now it is back again and we are going through this all over again. Please, because people like my mother have elected to go the route of chemo as compared to not please do not have any bitterness towards them if they are hanging in there like my Mother or others who have survived it, they are or did go through hell. I understand you wish your father had beaten it too and so do I but please do not feel any bitterness to any of us who still have our loved ones who are battling cancer or to the ones who have beaten it.

Also I never knew my real father, please feel lucky that you at least knew yours. I grew up very jealous of the other kids in school who had both parents and I did not. I did have a great family who spoiled me rotten and I had a wonderful childhood but I was jealous of kids like you who had both of your parents, I am sorry that your time was cut short with your Dad but please remember that when you think you have had it bad, someone else has had it worse and may be jealous of you.

Love,

Wendy

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WendyJ, I am very sorry about your losses, and my prayers are with you and your mother who is battling cancer. Of course I want people to survive cancer, and it is an amazing miracle of today that now, people are surviving cancer, whereas years ago, no one was. I think it is hope for the future that people are battling it, and some people are winning the battle.

It does not make me feel good to have this bitterness in me. It is an ugly feeling, and I do not condone it in myself, to have this negative feeling directed towards others. My father would disapprove very much of my bitterness. He would tell me, to take shelter of love, and not allow the dark feelings to get a hold on me. And my dad's emotional therapist, a woman named Diana, she described these feelings of guilt, etc. as "slime." This bitterness I am feeling is more slime that will only distract from my grieving process, and distract from the more healing thoughts I could be having.

But the question is, how? Like you said, I shall try to put myself in the shoes of those who are battling cancer or know someone who is, like your mother and you. That way, I can obtain a more sympathetic perspective, and the bitterness can sink away. That is one way to evict the bitterness.

And of course, only a few months ago, I was a daughter whose father was battling cancer, and the hope and fear mixed inside me was a very scary feeling. I am sure you are experiencing it and have experienced it. I am sorry if I have offended or upset you, WendyJ.

It is hard. That is all I can say. It is hard, because I am so sad, and I wish so much that my dad had survived, or was still battling it. The time snapped past me in the blink of an eye, and I wish I could have just a little back; just a few months, even; the doctors promised a year.

mlg, it is good to know that I am not alone in my feelings. You have an excellent point, that we are not better than anybody else. And the solution to the bitterness is some sort of positive feeling, like love, or focusing on what can be and on what can still be shared with our loved ones, even though they are not physically with us anymore.

Their purposes in life have been completed, and ours have not. We have to figure out how we can still complete our purposes, and like some grief books I've been perusing have said: the love we had, we don't know where to place it now. Healing means, finding new places to put that love, to "spread the love around" or something.

So, I dunno...focus on the positive? But that is hard, and wouldn't that be denying the grief process, to try to force ourselves to be positive when all this sadness and negative stuff is in us? Then again, we don't want to grieve forever....aah, it's all very confusing stuff.

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I want to gently remind all of us that whatever we feel in grief is not always rational, logical, or fair. We cannot always control what we feel; we only have control over what we do with what we feel. We have stated repeatedly on this site that feelings are neither right or wrong, good or bad ~ they just are. Let us remember that this is one of the few places where we all are free to share whatever it is that we feel, no matter how ugly or unseemly those feelings may be, without being judged or criticized.

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Chai,

Oh no, you neither upset me or offended me, this is a rough road that we are both on and I think we would both agree that we wouldn't wish it on anyone. So many different emotions are running through us and surfacing, I just hated to see you having such bitterness and was hoping to show you that you are not alone and there are people that will never know some of the happiness you did have with your Dad, although too short. Cherish every moment you did have with your father that is something that I never got to experience. I still had a wonderful childhood, but will never know some of the joys you have experienced having your Dad in your life even if it was not as long as it should have been for you. But I know there are people out there who may not have had their Mom as long as I have so for that I will always be grateful. We have to all stick together here and give eachother our support, that is why this site was originated.

Love,

Wendy

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WendyJ, thank you for your reponse, and Marty, thank you for those reminders.

I agree, Wendy, we all have different experiences, and some of us have opportunities that others don't have and wish they had. We each experience different things in our lives and it is important to remember to be grateful. One quality that a man at my dad's memorial spoke about was gratefulness, and how my dad had it. And it's something I noticed again in his recording for me, his gratefulness. And thank you, too, for the remember. I am very happy to have had the time I had with my dad; even with separated parents, I got to spend a lot of time with him, and a year never went by where I did not see him.

Support, and sticking together, are definitely important. Thank you for your support, even in our different perspectives, we are able to support each other. And this site has so many different types of people, and everyone supports everyone. It's wonderful. :)

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I think it's normal to feel jealous and even bitter about what you have lost and others have not. I get upset when I hear of someone getting a transplant (my ex husband died on the liver transplant list). I saw a story on TV once where a woman survived 5 years on the transplant list and then got the liver -- my ex died after only 19 months.

I even had this really bad moment when my father was diagnosed with cancer. My parents were very cold about my grief about my ex-husband. They couldn't understand why I cared. Then my mother was so upset that she was losing my father, and I caught myself thinking, Why should she complain, she had 58 years with him! Of course I didn't say it. And of course I was unhappy that my dad was ill, and I mourned him when he died, and I know it is very hard for my mother to deal with the loss after all those years. But I was jealous because they had all those years together. My dad died at 78. My ex died at 50, and although we were divorced I lost my best friend. It's just not fair.

I think that is the problem. It's never fair, and that's why we are so angry and bitter. Like any other emotion, it's best to let yourself feel it and acknowledge it. Eventually, the feelings do pass. Although I can still have moments when I feel so upset when I see an elderly couple hand in hand, or see an "inspirational" news story where someone survived liver disease.

Ann

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Chai

Am I really feeling your pain right now. I didn't want to and at the same time had to watch the Barbara Walters special tonight. All I could do was wonder why he got a year and is still going and we only got 4 1/2 months. Listening brought back a lot of horrifying moments. I taped it so I could watch it is spurts because I think I would have vomited if I had watched it all at once. Now I am having a big anxiety attack. Shaking like crazy inside. It's probably good I'm here by myself because I feel like I could lose it at any time. The tears haven't seemed to make it better. Now I just have to see if I wake in the morning to know that another day will pass.

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Chai,

I identify with what you're saying. I feel angry and jealous when I see people my age with their fathers...even people more than double my age with their fathers. Why do they get so many years with their dads? Seriously, my love for my dad is so much that I would gladly have taken a bullet for him, gladly have taken his illness. My mother has a friend whose husband has smoked for 40 years; he is given a clean bill of health at his checkups, which seems remarkably unfair to me. I don't have advice, but I can say I think it's normal to feel anger and bitterness. I just let myself feel them. I feel really torn because I've always been a positive and nice person. I did all the nice things to strangers. I helped out. Yet God took my dad from me, and I'm now having bitter and angry thoughts I didn't have before. I don't know what to do with them, either. I am resigned to them now, I guess.

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Chai:

I don't know if what you are feeling is anger or jealousy. When my husband first died I thought that I was the only one in the WORLD that this happened to. Of course that cannot be true. Especially when I see my friends and family with their spouses or significant others.

A friend of mine, who lost her husband 13 years ago, told me that was the feeling she had when her husband passed. It took this site to make me realize that I was not alone. I wish that there were not as many of us that have to come here to talk about this, but that is how it is. Now I know there are many in the world that have lost love ones, I just don't know them. I think what we want is to be surrounded by people that have lost loves ones. The anger that I feel is that I am left all alone in one split second.

Jeanne

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Dear Jeanne,

Your post strikes me very poignantly. I think the anger and bitterness and jealousy is all something that we somehow manage to mix up in our time of grief, because we are so confused.

I am glad to know that you are reassured that you are not alone in these feelings, nor are you alone in having lost a loved one. I think you have a good point, about the anger in the moment our loved one is gone from us. It only takes one second. Life is so fragile.

I like that your post acknowledges these negative feelings, and the sadness, but ultimately you end your post with a group feeling, that as long as we are together - and we are, because in our losses, we share each other - we can overcome these negative feelings churning within us.

It is good to know I'm not alone, and I hope that we can overcome these feelings, and become lighter.

hugs,

Chai

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  • 2 years later...

I get so angry when I see my dad's hospital on TV talking about all their special stories of how they've healed so many patients.. yet, refused to help my dad or try.. thanks a lot.. he even worked at that hospital, nice pay back huh?

and cancer center of america, after instilling so much hope into me from their commercials, my 30 second phone call w/them shot me back down.. only out patients.. hello? don't ppl w/no hope come to this facility??!

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I can very much relate to the anger/jealousy/bitterness. I can't stand to watch those American Cancer Society commercials about "more birthdays." I hate them. My mom didn't get another birthday. She went through hell with chemo and radiation (which I think is ultimately what got her) and for what? She died anyway.

I can't stand seeing women with their moms, especially if they're older than my mom was. I also get angry seeing elderly couples together because it makes me feel bad for my dad.

It's only been 5.5 months, so I'm hoping these feelings subside eventually.

Erin

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