Job 3:26 NIV: “I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”
My ever-evolving series on grief has a new addition today. I think it speaks to the complexity of grief that the series keeps expanding. This particular stage in the grieving process will be familiar to those who’ve spent time with Kubler-Ross’s five stages of grief.
Anger is the experience that people grieving get stuck in the most. Anger can sink its teeth into us, twist and grow, and entrap us. Anger serves as a secondary emotion because it masks other vulnerable emotions such as fear, sadness, or shame. Anger feels more powerful and comfortable than sadness, which can feel weak and intolerable.
The verse I included is spoken by a man named Job. All his children were killed in an accident when a roof collapsed on them, and then Job himself developed a horrible medical condition with sores all over his body. He was angry at his circumstances but also at God when he spoke these words. The word used for turmoil in Hebrew comes from the root word for wrath or anger and means agitation or rage. Job was understandably angry, and the entire chapter is a poetic example of angry grief. Job explains the problem of anger; it makes peace, quiet, and rest impossible.
In my experience with patients and families during my work in hospice, I often encountered anger. Often, it was directed at the medical system with delayed or missed diagnoses, unexplained or misunderstood outcomes, or perceived wrong treatment. Other times, the anger was directed towards God or fate, as an overwhelming sense of unfairness settled into the narrative. Occasionally, the anger was directed at the self or the person lost, with regrets over past decisions and what-ifs infiltrating every thought.
Like all emotions, anger’s intensity is a spectrum from annoyance to bitterness and rage. I depicted some of the ways I experience anger with heat, chaos, and an urge to lash out.
Ultimately, despite the fact that anger feels protective, it can trap you in your grieving process by distracting you from moving forward. Paradoxically, by acknowledging that anger is normal in grief and expressing that anger in safe places, you eventually allow yourself a release of what cannot be changed, and anger will free its hold on you.
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