Post #2: The Power of Anger

This month is a weird month for me. It's become the "Dad" month for me. His birthday is on the 8th, and the 23rd is when he had his heart attack and spent the last week of the month in a medically induced coma, our family getting the news that his brain activity was too low for him to live a normal life if he woke up, and us feeling like the best choice for him would be to let him go.

All of that starts swirling around inside of me come February. The weather plays a factor, and just life does. Last year was the first anniversary of his death, and the pain was so fresh it felt like everything had just happened. But along with the pain last year, there was an agonizing amount of anger that consumed me. 

Hence the title of this post.

Grieving is a weird, super personal process. It is different for everyone. I still am not sure about how I grieve, because each instance that causes grief is different. It is a lifelong process. I am still figuring myself out, and still don't know how I will feel in the next hour, or the next day, or the next year. It is always changing. 

I do know that feeling anger was a part of my grieving process. A big part, even though I didn't welcome it or like it. 

About ten days before my Dad passed away, Paul was suddenly laid off his job. It was a huge blow to us in many ways. And then to have Dad die brought on so much pain I didn't know what to do. To say I was furious with Heavenly Father would be an understatement. 

I remember sitting on my bed one night, a few weeks after Dad passed. Lauren was whining about something and I told Paul I just needed a break. He didn't question and took over while I retreated to our room. As I sat, I remember "praying" to Heavenly Father. More like, I was yelling at him inside my head. I remember clenching my fists as hard as I could, feeling the anger course through me, but feeling like I couldn't express just how furious I really was with Him. 

"THIS ISN'T FAIR. ALL OF THIS IS RIDICULOUS. HOW COULD YOU DO BOTH OF THESE AT THE SAME TIME TO ME? HOW?" I screamed those questions at Him over and over again. I didn't feel any love from Him. I felt like He did those things without caring about my feelings. I remember wondering, "What does it matter if I have faith? You'll just do what you want. My feelings don't really matter, do they? Sure, someday you'll explain and it will make sense, but that's not now. Not here. I have to live with this darkness YOU threw on me hoping it would make me come to you. Well guess what, I don't want to. Not at all."

Some of you reading this might think I was being childish, and maybe I was. But I was really, deeply hurt. Grief is it's own animal, and I was suddenly thrown into the pit of grieving over two very huge life-changing experiences. At the same time. I didn't know what to do. The advice to turn to the Savior fell hollow on my ears. 

"It's His fault I'm in this mess." Is what I told myself over and over again, letting the anger run through me. "I'm not ready to feel any sort of peace about this. Peace means I accept it, and I'm OK with it. And I am definitely NOT OK with it."

I still went to church, I still did my callings, I still said prayers, though they were hollow and without feeling. I went through the motions because I was a walking zombie of pain. Looking back, I really don't remember much about the first six months after my Dad passed. I think I started to come out of the fog when Paul got a new job and we prepared to move. I started to breath a bit easier and feel a bit more like myself again. At least one giant burden was gone, but now I only had the one I really could do nothing about--processing Dad's death. 

Things were up and down after we moved, the first anniversary of his death coming and going and once again I felt stuck. The anger had ebbed some, I didn't feel so furious and felt like my relationship with Heavenly Father was healing a little bit, but I still had resentment. And I worried He resented me. I was weighed down, but I didn't know how to get through it.

This is where I started to see a counselor. 

Therapy did wonders for me, and I plan to get more into that in another post. What I want to focus on is what I learned about anger during those sessions.

We all have primary emotions. Joy, fear, and sadness are the most common primary emotions. Anger has also been included in those primary emotions, but there is conflicting research. Anger is usually a mask to one of the primary emotions. Anger is something we can funnel energy into. It can be a distraction from feeling the depth of another emotion. 

I latched on to anger because I didn't want to let myself feel the devastating sadness of my Dad's passing. To give you a visual picture, it looked like sadness was a never ending dark hole.

"You have to get to the bottom of an emotion before you can move on," my therapist said. "It's uncomfortable and can be draining, but it can be done. It's uncomfortable and that is why most people don't do it. That's why they latch onto anger, because they don't want to get to the bottom and really heal."

I was so tired of feeling anger. It was draining in it's own way. 

"But how can I really go down that dark hole by myself?" I remember asking her. 

"You won't be alone when you go down there," she said simply. "Someone already paid the price to be able to go with you. Someone who descended below them all."

It was the beginning of healing for me. I could actually sense the Savior was right there, ready to go down with me.

"I'm scared to go down there. It looks dark, and painful, and I don't see the bottom. Will you please go with me?" I pleaded in my prayers. 

As I started to let go of the anger and let myself feel all the feelings that come with grieving, I can testify that I was not alone in those deep, sometimes excruciating feelings. 

How amazing is that sort of love, that after over a year of me yelling and screaming and being mad, I never had those feelings returned? That the moment I asked Him to be with me, He was with me. Actually, I never even had to ask. He was always there.  

Though the anger is gone for me when I think about my Dad, the grieving is still ongoing, and as I go through all the emotions that come with it, I am better at letting them come. Some days I am extremely sad. Others, I am at peace and happy. But no matter what, I am not alone.

So here is what I want to end with today. If you are angry about something, and know it is consuming you, but are afraid to let go of it, go to the one person who can be there with you as you start to let go. It's scary to let go, because knowing that you could experience something that is so devastating that it could rip you apart is frightening. As you feel ripped apart and stretched beyond your limit, remember who the Master Healer is. He is the only one who can heal all wounds, all scars. All of it.