Back when Dad died, I wrote a lot of posts about grief. One of the things I talked about frequently, is that the Hospice chaplain told us that "Grief is Circular". And I said that it was circular, much like a frisbee, hitting you in the face.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross put it into a neat little chart. And I think there some assistance that the chart provides.
That said, I think that that the stages of grief are more like this graphic:
I made that myself. Your graphic may look different.
The biggest difference in my theory and Kubler-Ross' theory is that I think the anger isn't just a stage. I think it's an umbrella under which the entire process plays out.
But then, I have a lot of anger, just generally. Why? Well, I have a lot of big feelings of all kinds. Excessive joy, sorrow, fear... all of them. It's just that the anger is the one that tends to alienate people more than others. Especially because when women get angry, they're crazy or irrational. When a man gets angry, he's passionate or assertive.
And yes, I'm aware that I'm using a sweeping generalization, but that is often how it feels.
I hate feeling angry. And right after I've been angry, especially when it's outsized to what I'm reacting to, I feel terrible.
Here's an example.
While I was in Atlanta, and Mom was in hospice - I did not have my medications with me to be able to take them, because I was not planning to stay from Thanksgiving through Christmas. So I threw myself on the mercy of my insurance and got an override to have some sent to a local pharmacy. Keep that in mind if you ever find yourself in a pinch such as that.
Anyway, now that pharmacy keeps refilling my medications, rather than the pharmacy here in Nashville, which makes things kind of problematic. So I was kind of short with the pharmacy tech yesterday and said that since my mother had died, I didn't really need my medications in her hometown anymore.
Now, could I have handled it without invoking my dead mother? Sure, but as I said right after she died - what's the point of having a death in the family without capitalizing on it?
What I'm saying is, I'm seeing a trend similar to the one I was following when Dad died. Maybe not to the same degree, but I see a similar trajectory, and I want that to end.
So, I am going to work on it.
Somehow.
Dammit.
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