Grief Stages

Anger

When we have quit denying our loss, we move into the next stage; anger. Our anger may be reasonable or unreasonable. We may be justified in venting our wrath, or we may irrationally vent our fury on anything and anyone. We may blame ourselves, God, and everyone around us for what we have lost.

This is why setting someone straight, showing someone the light, or confronting a serious problem often does not turn out like we expect. If we are denying a situation, we won't move directly into acceptance of reality--we'll move into anger. That is why we need to be careful about major confrontations.
-Codependent No More

I have a friend who is currently experiencing a terrible loss. Right now she is very angry at God. She feels He's turned his back on her and ignored her desperate cries for help. I've had a few bad things happen to me in my life, but it's not in my nature to be angry with God. I don't have much problem however, being angry with people or situations.

In the introduction to this series I mentioned that in addition to feeling depressed, I keep feeling pissed off and I didn't know why. Writing this blog is always enlightening, and now I believe I know exactly why. In my journal entry "Can't Everything Just Slow Down A Minute" dated August 24, I made mention of a situation that has me very upset. I still can't discuss it, but I can say that it qualifies as a loss in my life. A big one. And if I'm going through the grief stages, which I believe I am, I'm currently full blown in the Anger stage. Maybe I'm being selfish in my feelings, I don't care. I don't want this to happen. I can't stop it and I'm mad as hell that this "thing" is looming out there waiting to eff up something extremely important to me.

I'm trying very hard not to let this stage get the best of me. I've already smarted off a couple of times and probably made some inappropriate comments. I don't want to say something I may regret later and damage a relationship, but it's very hard for me to hold my tongue when what I really want to do is run down the street screaming for this "thing" not to happen!

Feeling this way is getting to me physically. I've had a sharp pain running down the back, left side of my head for two days, and now the top of my scalp is tingling. I'm quite sure this is migraine, it's exactly what I experienced a few months ago when things at work were so bad, but the prescription migraine medicine doesn't even phase it. I've simply got to get a grip.

I hope the Anger stage passes soon. I think any of the other four stages have to be better than this one.