I might be angry forever

It's normal to be furious when you lose someone you love. But anger doesn’t fit neatly into the narratives we create for the bereaved.

You expect to feel sad when someone you loves dies. Inconsolable wailing at a graveside, sure. Depression that leaves you bed-ridden for weeks, sign me up. But no one warned me I would feel so furious.

We don’t tend to see this part in films or read about it in books. I guess that’s because anger is less cinematically tragic. As an emotion, it doesn’t fit neatly into the narratives we create for the bereaved. It’s harder to dish out sympathy and understanding for someone who is irritable, argumentative, ready to bite your head off for one wrong word.

Despite being well-recorded as one of the official 'stages' of grief, in reality there is very little space granted for anger. Tears, we can just about handle. Isolation and withdrawal, that makes sense. But rage? There's no place to put that. When someone is crying it’s easy to politely look away, but anger explodes outwards, requiring attention, demanding a reaction.

The truth is I am angry. Some days, I am incandescent with a rage that is entirely unbecoming, unpalatable, unspeakable.

My anger is often directed towards other people's parents or grandparents. Random old people on the tube. Particularly if they happen to look anything like my mum or dad, or what they would have looked like if they had made it past 60. I glare at them, seething silently at their audacious aliveness.

Why do they get to be here when my people are gone? I have mentally swapped the souls of strangers for my parents' souls with a frequency that will most certainly damn me to hell if souls are, in fact, a thing.

When my friends ask me how I am, I tend not to tell them that I fantasised about pushing an old man down an escalator that morning. I have made progress in sharing my sadness, I’m getting better at opening up about things like apathy and depression, but my anger still feels taboo – even with those closest to me.

It can feel easier to lean into the anger than to be dragged down into the sad. Anger, at least, provides some semblance of control.

This isn't to say that people who are grieving should be encouraged to sink entirely into these feelings. I'm aware that the rage I sometimes feel isn’t a healthy mental space to occupy long-term. But there is value in it. It provides an outlet for the pent-up injustice I feel about the cards the universe has dealt me. I can’t yell at the universe, so finding somewhere else – somewhere outside of myself – to put those feelings provides some relief.

Recognition would be helpful

What grievers need is the acknowledgement that anger after loss is normal. We need compassion, understanding, space to feel, even when our response to death isn’t neat and tidy or convenient for other people. Even if our anger is all-consuming, even if it makes us difficult to be around, it is a valid response to death.

I try to remember this. But I still struggle with the guilt.

The anger I feel isn’t typically extreme. Usually, it’s small. It bursts out in fits of irritation, impatience and overwhelm. I snap at those closest to me, my tone is short on work emails. My threshold for things annoying me is the lowest it’s ever been. It often takes me a while to connect these little outbursts with grief. It might not be until someone calls me out that I take a step back and think – wow, why am I being such a bitch today?

Sometimes, my anger affects those around me. Sadness does this too, but in a less direct way. I don’t love this. I struggle with seeing my grief ripple outwards in ways I can’t always control. But, I try to remind myself, we do not exist in emotional vacuums. The beauty of human relationships is that our experiences of life overlap, intersect and impact on each other – both the good and the bad. This is the deal.

Just beneath the anger is an ocean of sad. It’s always there, crashing into my bloodstream, threatening to drown me from the inside. Sometimes it’s easier to lean into the anger than to be dragged down into the sad. Anger, at least, provides some semblance of control, of action. I feel less passive, less helpless, on my angry days.

I might be angry forever. Not in a murderous escalator-pushing way, but in a small way that flinches whenever someone casually shares a sweet picture of their mum on Instagram, or rolls their eyes while on the phone to their dad. I am angry that they don't know what they have, even though I know it is impossible to know until you know.