So Angry

[jenn13]

I didn't really realize until tonight, just now, just how mad I really am since my grandma died. I know and understand that death is just part of life.. the old saying that there's only two things that are sure in life.. you're gonna die, and you're gonna pay taxes.. very true. I feel in part that she "left" me before I was ready. I know she had no say in the matter.. she wanted so badly to LIVE.. she never really grasped just how sick she was. When asked if she wanted to be revived when the time comes, she glared at the doctor in shock.

I feel like I didn't get to say goodbye. I am sure that has much to do with the fact that I wasn't here when she passed.. Or for the funeral. I still have yet to see her resting place. I am almost afraid to go. Afraid to make it that "real". As if I don't already know that it is...

She left at such a bad time. I am already dealing with a few major losses... one death, and 2 people that just decided to up and leave without a word. The staples of my life are gone. I have so little left, not enough to grab onto. I still so badly want to fall into nothingness, where it doesn't hurt.. or find a way to be with her. She'd know the right things to say.

I have such a short fuse.. I am overly emotional and way overly sensitive. I take offense at everything. If you even LOOK at me wrong, I feel wronged somehow. Is this a normal part of grieving? Don't really know what normal is anymore.. I'm so tired of the constant hurt... I try and let it go, but how can you when it's all smack dab in front of you all day long? There's no avoiding it. I push it aside, and then on the weekends when I have way too much time to myself, I fall apart. Perhaps I need a 2nd job, on the weekends to keep myself (and my mind) busy. But then I worry I won't deal with it at all and will eventually break past the point of no return.

I am very confused...

[kellymarie]

Oh, I know that angry, angry, angry feeling! One night I was so PISSED about everything, that I sat down with a huge piece of thick paper and a black permanant marker and wrote down everything I was so angry, mad, and pissed about! Oh, and some of it was just so mean! Mad at Josh for dying, for leaving me alone. And the list went on! It was great!

As for your short fuse, KathyD started a discussion recently under "Behaviors in bereavement" titled "Pressure." It might help out.

But I think you should be as angry as you want to be right now! It's part of grief. Martha Hickman wrote

"As with other aspects of grief, we need to recognize anger and express it. We may need to be careful with relationships and friends. But we don't need to worry about God- we can let it fly.

My anger is legitimate, and will burn away sooner if I acknowledge and express it."

I know what you mean about having too much time to yourself on weekends. Thinking too much with too many hours can make you crazy. Sometimes I thought I could literally jump out of my skin I was feeling so trapped with grief. This is when I make myself get up and walk around the neighborhood. I've also tried to use this time to constructly deal with my grief. I've been reading lots of books on grief/loss, started a grief journal (I titled the journal "hope" hoping it would rub off on me... NOT QUITE! It's still my grief journal), started going to a support group, go eat lunch with Josh at our old hangouts (yeah, that means I'm alone eating), write here on this board, go visit Josh in the gardens(yeah, that means I'm walking around the gardens alone), etc. But I use those hours when I think I'm gonna lose it and try to channel my grief. I don't know?! Also I was trying to avoid grief during the week while busy with work. The problem with that is that it makes the weekends too overbearing. So I set aside time everyday to do my grief work, in the evenings on the weekdays and whenever on the weekends. Small doses are much better. But there's no escaping grief, can't go around it, over it, under it. You just gotta go straight through it. And it SUCKS!

[shell]

Jenn,

Kellymarie has some great ideas. Starting a journal, reading grief books, etc. It would all help, I think. It's been over a year since I lost my dad, and I still have days that I just get angry....at almost anything! It's normal to feel so angry, so don't beat yourself up over it or feel that you are losing it! Grief is such a long, hard journey. It's also exhausting and I think that helps add to all our feelings, including anger.

Hang in there,

Shell

[Maylissa]

Jenn,

As Therese A. Rando says in her book, "How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies",

"There are few things that can be said without qualification about the grief experience. However, one of them is that there is always some amount of anger and guilt after the death of someone you love."

Our anger can take many forms and be of any and all degrees, like irritability or a "short fuse", all the way to utter rage. There are many things to be angry about when someone dies, too. It's not uncommon to be ultra-sensitive to every little thing, so you could consider ALL your reactions, even those different from anger, to feel like they've increased to the power of 10! Many of our feelings thus feel overwhelming to us....and their constancy over time can make us that much more naturally 'on edge', which only increases our already-intense feelings. This is part of the reason why grief is so debilitating and exhausting. As well, since society doesn't like to acknowledge anger, especially, as an acceptable feeling to either have or display, this makes it one of the more difficult emotions to work through. But it's really just another feeling, no worse or better than any other. If you simply give yourself full permission to experience it, that takes a lot of the pressure on yourself off. We hope to not take it out on others if there's no compelling and justifiable reason to send it their way, but that, too, happens at times and as long as we forgive ourselves and apologize when necessary, it's often the best we can do.

It's also natural to feel our loved ones left before we felt 'ready'. But how can we EVER be ready to lose someone we love? No matter how prepared we think we are, when our loved ones really die, the reality hits us full-force and we realize we could never have been truly 'prepared' for this onslaught of raw emotion. And really....what time would ever be 'best' to lose someone?

As Kellymarie suggested so well, there are many different ways to channel our anger, or any other feeling, so that it doesn't end up eating us alive later on and any and all ideas can and probably should be considered to slowly chip away at it. It doesn't happen overnight, but with steady effort and knowledge that it's a natural part of grief, over time it will dissipate into something more manageable and where it's not such a constant with us.

You've got it just about right when you say that you can't avoid it. You can TRY to avoid it ( the whole grieving thing ), but it will always be there waiting for you to deal with in some way if you do. So overworking won't solve it for you, either...it will simply delay the work you need to do at some point. As they say, grief is patient. The way I usually thought about it was to tell myself that that time might as well be NOW, so as not to screw up my entire future with unresolved grief issues. And considering how long mourning can take, I figured it was better to start purging ASAP. Those little bursts, or planned grief-time, are a tried and true method that apparently work for a lot of people and can make it 'easier' to deal with all those emotions. One counselor I visited also suggested that I might want to sink as deeply as possible into the most painful thoughts and feelings ( at a planned time ). At the time, I couldn't last more than a few minutes, but I found it could actually be therapeutic, at least for me.

The biggest thing to keep in mind through this, or any other emotion is this: you have a right to those emotions and they just are. Our only real job is to find ways to appropriately direct them out of our systems so that we can look at them and ultimately use them to find some meaning in our lives again. Letting them all out here is a great way to use them to help yourself heal, I found, and we'll all support you in this personal purging, as we've been supported in kind.

Here's a quote about anger that I really like, especially when I'm feeling badly for being angry:

"Often anger is a sign of engagement with life. People who are angry are touched deeply by the events of their lives and feel strongly about them....Anger is just a demand for change, a passionate wish for things to be different...And, as it was for me, it may be the first expression of the will to live." -From Kitchen Table Wisdom

Edited July 17, 2006 by Maylissa

[jenn13]

Thank you Maylssa, shell, and kelly for your replies. I have to say they have got me thinking - and perhaps feeling like I'm not going insane and my feelings and reactions are normal.

I believe part of my problem to be I was never taught how to grieve - or to show any emotions at all for that matter. Sadness, grief, pain.. all these things were to be held inside. Not talked about, not acknowledged, there but ignored. Now that I am older, I tend to do that to myself. I don't need anyone to remind me to do it anymore, it's just part of who I am. My only release is writing and while it helps, it sometimes feels like it's just not enough.

I'm gonna buy a book or two as soon as I can. It's bad timing right now as my brother's wedding is next month and being a bridesmaid, it's expensive. (She picked out $500 dresses.. guess some people forget what it's like to NOT be rich!). Perhaps once the wedding is over (and expenses paid for, finally!) I can start spending some quality time and money on myself. Until then, thanks for listening.. it helps

[MartyT]

Hi Jenn,

Wonderful as books can be, please keep in mind that you don't have to spend money buying books in order to learn what is normal in grief. Just reading the messages posted in these forums is an education in itself, and our members' stories and experiences will help you see that you are not alone in your reactions -- that's one of the benefits of participating in forums such as these.

In addition, since you have access to the Internet, you have a wealth of information about grief and mourning available to you, right at your fingertips. See, for example, some of the articles I've listed on these pages of my Grief Healing Web site:

Articles by Marty Tousley

Articles by Other Authors

See also the links on my site's Death of a Parent page.

[jenn13]

Thanks Marty. I will check some of those links out today. I appreciate it

[kellymarie]

Grief support groups are free too!

[jenn13]

lol Kelly, so they are.. online ones are about all I could ever handle though. I don't do "emotions" in front of people. Sadly, just another ramification of my upbringing.. Perhaps one I will get over one day.. but that day isn't today.. lol

[shell]

jenn,

I have found this board to be a wonderful "support group". I understand having a hard time talking about your feelings in front of others. I was like that when I was younger, but luckily got over it as I aged. But coming to this board and reading all you can on grief (on the internet) is so helpful. Good luck.

Hugs,

Shell