Grief hidden inside anger

Sadly it can be harder to feel compassion for an angry person, at least for some, without an awareness of how someone has suffered in their life or what they have gone through we cannot fully understand why they act as they do and some of us have had so much frustration, thwarting and loss that anger is all that remains in response to all the things that occurred to us that we were truly powerless over. This thought came to mind today after listening to discussion about the play A Cat On A Hot Tin roof where they were discussing the grief and loss underneath the anger of the central female character. It really got me to thinking about the way I have lashed out in the past and why I have tended to alienate people at times. But frustration and anger are powerful responses to being repressed, invalidated, unsupported or not seen and taken seriously, being given the sense that we have value and count.

I got myself in a difficult space today again thinking about my sis. I offered to go have lunch with her on Sunday and to go to her pre radiotherapy treatment appointment today. She didn’t take up either offer which is fine but it just made me very sad on some level. I can’t connect with her easily and its probably no one’s fault and I look back to times my anger pushed both her and my mother away. I then cried trying to digest all of this a while ago. I count myself lucky to have friends who do understand when I lash out there is often a valid reason. These friends show empathy and support and care and they don’t see me as ‘bad’, just human. The Course In Miracles actually says that all of these kind of lash outs are really just ‘a call for love’. But it can be harder for some of us to the see the grief and loss and longing hidden under anger. It can be hard to say to someone who is lashing out “I understand you are in a lot of pain and feel hurt, let down and disappointed and I do care about you very much.” Instead many lash out too or poke the bear and get an even more grizzly response.

Anyway today I accepted my sister did not want me to go with her to the appointment. Who knows, she may be trying to spare me grief, I don’t know. I was able to bring my pain about our struggles to connect to therapy yesterday which was good. I struggled over the weekend making myself bad and wrong again….and turning all the blame around on myself for others not including me. Its something I do and then I cry for myself that I do it in therapy lately, which I guess is some kind of progress I guess. Maybe many of us do this in some way. When things hurt or don’t go right we look for someone to blame and either turn this blame outwards or inwards when really the truth is things just did not work out and hard as we try we cannot connect with or express love mutually with each other. If we stay focused on blaming we don’t get to feel what we really feel and just move through to acceptance. I guess that is natural as so many of us do not want to feel powerless and we do need happiness and a sense of power in our lives, but somethings are just so far outside of our control. That too is a kind of loss but it is one we have to work to summon all our best resources of resilience to deal with in as calm, realistic and grounded way as possible.