Widows Quest » anger

Is it wrong to feel angry in grief?

Anna Farmery — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:27:33 +0000

Anger and grief was a topic I wrote about last weekend, and one comment that was left was “is it wrong to feel anger towards the one that left you…”

When I thought about it, I couldn’t make up my mind as I think the answer is both Yes and No!

Yes because anger means that you have felt love, yes because loss is emotional, yes because it hurts, yes because death seems unfair, yes because it allows you to cope with your grief.
No because anger doesn’t bring them back, no because anger is not a positive emotion, no because death is something that happens to us all, no because it is selfish, no because we should concentrate on what we have gained through their life not lost through their death.

Therefore I think the answer is …..it is OK to feel anger whilst coping with grief but don’t let the anger control you or your life.

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Post from: Widows Quest

Anger and Grief

Anna Farmery — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 18:35:57 +0000

Grief plays with our emotions. Cindy, one of our Widows Quest regular commenters, yesterday felt angry, felt depressed and I felt so sorry for her because I know that feeling. Anger rises when you feel out of control. I feel angry when I want to change what happened, when I think about what a great man he was and how death seems to take the good ones, when I don’t know how I will pay next months bills, when I want to feel happy and I just don’t…

So what do I do to cope with the anger

I allow myself to be angry. Anger is a sign of grief. It is a sign that I am going through the grief cycle.
I talk to friends who understand that grief and who understand that I need to be angry.
I then put on some music that makes me smile, I sing at the top of my voice and just the upbeat music lightens the mood.

Now step 3 won’t work for all but in essence I think we cope with grief if we accept the anger, allow the anger out and then find something that takes the anger away, something that makes us smile……Cindy hope you are feeling better today.

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Post from: Widows Quest

The Grief, Love, Anger Cycle

Anna Farmery — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:34:19 +0000

Sometimes I feel that I have developed a split personality since my bereavement. Why? Because one moment I feel so much love and such happiness that I have felt the most incredible love and then the next moment I am angry…angry to have lost that one special person in my life.

From love to anger and back again in 60 seconds.

In one sense I love it as after the death I thought I would never be able to feel again, that my whole emotional being had shut down so that I never had to hurt again….therefore the anger and the love, show me that underneath that protective layer I can still ..

I think in learning to cope it is not about getting rid of the emotions, it is about taking out the peaks and troughs of the emotion, it is about taking the emotions from an extreme like anger to a more liveable ’sad’

Death maybe the end in one sense, but death is only the start of finding more and more about yourself

Post from: Widows Quest

A Thought About Forgiveness

Anna Farmery — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:29:44 +0000

When we grieve we can become angry, we can hate what has happened to us and our loved ones. Anger is a normal reaction, however I am always reminded of a quote from Mahatma Ghandi

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

As widows and widowers we need to be strong and being able to forgive the death that has affected our lives so much is the first step to starting to rebuild our lives.

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Post from: Widows Quest