A bite-sized episode: 5 minutes on Grief (are you angry at the person who died?)

Hi, and welcome to the Storied Human. I wanted to talk today briefly, just a little bit more about grief, because it's so intense for people and we all lose people. So we all go through it. And I just feel like maybe it's still not understood enough or talked about enough, and people are left sort of on their own, to figure out how to get through it. I lost my mother 21 years ago, very suddenly, and I did not handle it well. And I fell into a depression on top of my grief. It's called complicated grief. And I would love to be able to save somebody from that. There were several things I did that made it worse. As I look back, I realized, I isolated myself, my husband respected that wish, he would take the kids and go do stuff. I felt like I needed to be by myself. And I am the kind of person that likes to be my myself. So I think that instinct was very natural. But let me tell you don't do it. When you're grieving. Don't do it. Force yourself to be with others, even if it feels awkward. Even if you feel like you don't want to be, you shouldn't be on your own. It goes nowhere good. Grief is not meant to be alone. When you're not alone. You're not meant to be alone with your grief, it can go nowhere good. All it did was make me sort of think too much about my sadness, become more depressed. I mean, I know it's just me, might not be you. But I think in general, being alone when you're grieving is just not a good idea, even if you feel like you want to. So that's one thing I would do differently. Also, there's a part of grief that people don't talk about that much. You can be really angry when someone leaves you like that. You can be really angry with the person that died. And it makes no sense and you feel guilty on top of your grief, you're guilty. Why am I angry at this person, they didn't mean to leave me it makes no sense. But it's very natural. And there's a lot of good resources out there if you google them about grief, that talk about that as a part of your process. And yet I don't hear regular people talking about it. I remember I wrote a letter to my mom, like a letter poem, where I just like, like, was really pissed at her. And some of my friends, I let some of my friends read it. They're like, whoa. But that's just, that's really natural. Because the person left you, you feel abandoned, you're pissed off. Often people are angry at God, too. That's like a normal thing. So some kind of anger is normal. And I read a really great article that said, it's almost like a bridge to getting better. Because in anger, there's strength. So embrace your anger, let it out. And what I did, I wrote the poem slash letter is really healthy. It turns out, you should explore your feelings. Talk about your feelings, write down your feelings. Don't deny your anger. It's part of the grief pathway. And you may or may not feel a lot of it, I felt a lot of it was very intense, I think because the way I lost my mom, because I just lost my dad six months ago. And he was at eight years old. And he was starting to have really bad dementia. And it was much easier to let him go. I miss him very much. But I'm not angry at him. So it just depends, you know, I just wanted to make sure I talked about that one thing because I did do two episodes of the podcast and I never mentioned the anger. And something reminded me of it the other day, and I remember vividly how pissed off I was at my mom. It's just not proud to say it. It's just part of the process. So I really wanted to let you guys know, I'm very sorry, I I still have a bad cold in my actually have COVID but it's really like a bad cold and my throat. My voice is terrible. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna say goodbye. And hopefully I'll be back to normal next week. But please remember, if you're grieving someone, it's okay to be angry at them. It's natural. You love them, and you're angry that they left. It's okay to be angry at God too. But just don't stay angry. Work through it, write it down, talk to a friend or counselor, and take good care of yourself. And I'll talk to you soon. Thank you