Anger - Stages of Grief Series)
“This isn’t fair!”
“Why did this have to happen to her?”
“Why is this happening to me?”
“Why does everyone else get to go on like normal?”
If you’re going through the Anger stage of grief, it’s no doubt that these statements have gone through your mind or even come out of your mouth. I know they’ve come out of mine, and still do, honestly.
But where do these feelings come from, and what can we do about them? That’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Let’s focus on the second stage of grief – Anger. After experiencing a devastating loss, anger is a normal and natural reaction. This is especially true if the death was unexpected or traumatic, as in the case of my daughter, who died in a car accident.
In my last post, I talked about how the stages of grief don’t necessarily go in order – it’s perfectly normal to bounce back and forth between them. During many of the stages, our brains are trying to protect us from what we can handle at the time.
Anger, in reality, is our mind’s response to a loss of control and sense of helplessness. Our mind realizes we can’t change or fix our problem, and so we get angry about it, because at least we can control that.
We might feel angry about the death, or the things we didn’t get to do with the person we loved, or that our lives have to change because of our loss.
This defense mechanism of the brain might leave us feeling irritable, frustrated, full of resentment, and cynical or pessimistic. I can definitely relate to this.
I find that I’m still much more bitter than I used to be. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of being annoyed that people are complaining about everyday problems.
Like, You had a bad day? Oh, I’m sorry, my 10 year-old daughter died.
Normal problems seem trivial and irritating to someone who is going through this stage of grief.
What’s important to remember is that this anger is completely normal, and healthy. Again, these feelings are your body’s way of processing the grief.
However, it’s important to remember that becoming temporarily bitter, pessimistic or short-tempered is one thing, but if a grieving person exhibits certain behaviors it’s time to look for additional help.
If you, or someone you care about, is becoming overly aggressive – either physically or verbally, or there are indications of self-harm or unhealthy substance abuse – these are extreme reactions to grief that need the support of a professional.
So we’ve covered Denial and Anger, but we still have a few stages to go. Next up is Bargaining.
