Dealing with the rage

[Sc39]

It has been almost 5 weeks. I move between deep sadness and rage. The sadness comes when i think of all my family has lost and will continue to lose. The rage comes from two things....at my husband for dying and leaving me in this chaos...and at life for throwing this heap of mud my way. 

I look at his parents and i am amazed. Their son died suddenly in front of them and they did not shed a tear. Weeks later i have yet to see them cry. They are almost jolly. It is mind boggling. I am angry at them also, because they seem to have escaped the pain monster. 

I am stuck here with the weight of my loss, missing my soulmate and dying slowly inside. Every day i get up, and i continue breathing. It's as much as i can manage. 

[Laney]

I understand the rage for sure.  I'm a little over 2 months since losing the love of my life and best friend.  It was weeks 3 and 4 that I really felt angry.  The anger has subsided quite a bit and been replaced with sadness, but I just keep trying to put one foot in front of the other.  Grief is very hard work... 

I'm going to a grief share group and it's been good for me, doesn't make the pain go away, but touches on many different subjects that we all deal with and makes you think differently about some things .... take care...

[Michelene]

Sc39: I understand completely--early on I raged and raged at my husband until I almost threw up and lost my voice. I was so angry at him for leaving me. But also rage at his family, who put so much stress on him with their dysfunctional lives--even while he was in the hospital they were texting him with their issues...I wouldn't even sit in the same pew as them at the memorial service. But my rage at my husband subsided, partly because that was not how I wanted to relate to him, I didn't feel that would strengthen our bond, so I worked to "gentle" myself, break my rage. My rage terrified me, I had never been that full of rage. His family, especially my mother in law, tries to keep me enmeshed but I am learning to "drop the rope" as the counselors say...but the anger and resentment is there towards them still...My counselor says rage and guilt keep you from feeling the grief and sadness...maybe so, I know periodically I had to take a break from my grief, in whatever fashion, I would even say out loud to my husband (yes, I talk out loud to him) "I am weary tonight, I am just going to read a book..." and I would. After a while I could take breaks like this, because I knew the grief would still be waiting for me in the morning, or at 3 am, or whenever.

Getting up and breathing is a good start...I pared my life down to the bare minimum--get up feed the cat go to work. On weekends I didn't even shower or change clothes.  All the paperwork did and continues to exhaust me. 

You are not alone. Sometimes I would and continue to come here--sometimes I post, but mostly to read the posts of others, so that I know there are others like me under the same sheltering sky. It gives me some comfort. 

[KayC]

It's hard for me to believe someone can lose a son and not cry.  I know different people handle their grief differently, perhaps they are private people that show their emotion only when alone?  Who knows.  But their loss is also different from your loss and as much as a parent loves their child, you have lost someone who was in your everyday life and it affects every aspect of it.  We really can't compare losses though as it invalidates one or the other...I've heard it said that the greatest loss is one's own and that is true for everyone.

You are experiencing so much emotion, it's no wonder you're feeling rage.  You have much to feel rage about!  

Michelene, it sounds like you are getting help from the grief counseling, and I'm so glad you're going for it!  It's so important to do what we can for ourselves to help us through this.

[Spengler]

I can certainly understand rage, and sympathize. The only reason I'm not filled with rage over my own loss is that I spent my entire childhood overflowing with rage and I finally came to terms with it. Rage is a justifiable emotion, but it's not a helpful one. It's only a stage toward healing.

 

Look, people, life at its core is deeply and darkly tragic. As some or other German poet said, "Wir sind alle Todes eigen." All of us belong to Death. We will all die some day. So will all our loved ones, and their loved ones. But, that is exactly what makes life so poignant and beautiful. And meaningful.

[BetsyD]

On 8/29/2018 at 2:26 AM, Michelene said:

I was so angry at him for leaving me.

I felt this way until someone said - "do you really think he WANTED to leave you?????"  I know he didn't. I yell at him now when I am at a loss as to what to do or how to fix something, but I find I am screaming at the situation more than at him. At MY situation, more than at him. So yes, the rage is part of it, but I find it better to scream at life, at circumstances,because of a broken tile or having to deal with an aging dog alone than at him. I know this wasn't what he wanted. I know it wasn't his fault. So I try really hard not to yell at him now. I don't know if this helps or puts things into a different perspective, but it has helped me a little with the rage aspect of my loss and grief. 

 

[KayC]

Even if they wanted out of the pain and suffering, that doesn't mean they wanted to leave us!  When I last saw my husband, he was in the throes of a horrendous heart attack, his eyes were huge and his pain clearly etched on his face, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't bear it!  But that doesn't mean that because he succumbed to death he chose to leave me.  He would never willingly choose to leave me!  

Spengler is right:
 

2 hours ago, Spengler said:

Rage is a justifiable emotion, but it's not a helpful one. It's only a stage toward healing.

And the five stages of grief book was written for medical conditions not death, I'd like to clarify...we can experience all or none of the "stages", at the same time or bouncing back and forth between them, they aren't necessarily a road map of what we go through in grief.