Angry all the time

[kamataca]

I know that there are those who talk about the grief cycle...and that anger fits in there somewhere. I just feel like I am angry all the time. I was asking people at work today (I was angry again about work-related stuff) if I am making too much out of things. They agreed that the things I was mad about upset them, too. I just don't remember being this angry and unhappy in the past. Maybe I used to be able to roll with the punches before.

I went to visit the cemetary Saturday. I'm a bit ashamed to say that it is the first time I've been back since Mom's funeral (11 months ago). She is 4 hours away, but in the town she grew up in--where her sister lives. I was so angry when I got there and found that the date had never been put on my Mom's stone (her name and birth date have been on it since 1978 when my dad died). My aunt was adamant that they would take care of this, and yet nothing was done. She has virtually cut off communication with us in the past year, but I had hoped she would have followed through on what she promised to do.

So now I am angry about that, too. I am taking care of it, like I would have done 11 months ago, had my aunt not insisted on 'doing it'.

At any rate, I saw Katie's post about how we have changed since losing our parents / loved ones. I think I am less able to deal with the daily stresses. I go to a group grief therapy with my kids. I don't know what to do to make it better. I don't want to be so angry or sad any more. I just don't know what to do.

Thanks for listening!

Kelly

[sharyn]

Kelly,

I relate to what you wrote, I really do.

I think once cancer has entered our lives, we are forever jaded. And, sad as it sounds, I think that if you had a close bond with your Mom and/or Dad and you lose them, you are changed forever.

I too am not as happy go lucky as I use to be, I can be a real BIT H at work, and like you, I ask others if I am blowing things out of proportion and they say NO, but, I am the only one who seems to be complaining all the time... everyone else seems to be able to let things roll off their backs.

I find myself going to bed thinking of Daddy and how different things would be if he was still with us, I find myself waking up with the same thoughts.

Sometimes I feel SO GUILTY because he takes up so much of my mind sometimes. I wonder if its normal to miss and love one's Daddy so much? Argghhh I don't know whats normal and whats not, I just know this is how I feel and plan and simple I WANT MY DAD BACK NOW!!!!!

Your not alone Kelly.... I am sure there are more people like us out there. Love, Sharon xx

[RandyW]

boy is this gonna be a long list. I know how you feel. wish i had the words but I cna lways offer up the prayers For Ya!

[J.C.]

Situations that used to make

me laugh before, just get me

mad now, I do try but the mean

mood always comes back.

Also no patience.

Jackie

[crystleshoe]

kelly

i am right there with you. i am so short on patience these days. it seems like i am always mad about something. i am glad that you wrote this because i have been thinking that i was going crazy. my sisters and i took my dad out for dinner last week...it was my parents aniversary.. and no one even mentioned my mom. i wanted to stop at the cemetery and bring flowers and balloons but we were running late and they thought we didnt have time. i was so pi//ed off. it seems like not a day goes by that i dont cry or fly off the handle. there are so many things i am mad about. i am mad that the world goes on without my mom. and i am mad that i cant seem to come to terms with it all. and i am mad that my sister lives around the corner from the cemetery and cant ever make it there to bring flowers to our mom. i am mad that we still dont have her headstone yet. i am mad that all my thoughts of my mom are ruined by memories of the last 4 months of her life and that everything is tainted by the bad times and not rememberd for the good times. i am mad that 15 months after her death i am still missing her so much that i cant think about her without crying. i dont know if its part of the process or what but i am so tired of being mad and sad. i dont know how to make it better either but if i figure ou something i will shout it for all to hear. and now i am mad that my shift key seems to be broken so this will look really weird.

[Welthy]

Count me in too. My threshold for b.s. is zip. I've become an equal opportunity offender and freely alienate people.

Most of that is in relation to the dreaded pink ribbon -- it's like a bull seeing red for me. I've ripped off several think-pink faces lately. Gotta work on that one...

This too shall pass... I hope it's soon for all of us because living this way isn't a good thing.

Maybe we need to focus on a good memory a day and build from there. Just a thought. (Hey! I had a thought!! Maybe I am making progress.)

My heart goes out to everyone who is feeling this way.

Hugs,

Welthy

[blueeye]

I agree too but I think I'm the opposite. Now I see others getting mad about stuff at work and I kinda think that those things don't matter a whole lot. I just want my parents back and healthy. I do however cry at the least thing. I always cried when I got frustrated but now it's crying for everything!

Welthy, I so agree with those darned pink ribbons!!! I had the urge to take one of those magnets off of a car the other day! I will really have to hold all that in at our Relay for Life.

[Leslie]

Kelly--

I can really relate and it's not just anger--it's like a constant level of irritation with EVERYTHING. Nothing feels right...I feel like I'm constantly the critic just picking at everything because I feel so angry. I certainly had these tendencies before (I have to be honest with myself...) but they are multiplied by a thousand since my dad died.

I have to believe that this is all a part of living with intense grief...somehow, coming to peace with this enormously painful situation. But, it sure is hard to terms with it in the meantime.

And Welthy and Leslie--I HATE the pink ribbons too...argh!

Best,

Leslie

[kamataca]

I love you all---you've made me feel less crazy...more normal. Maybe this is just where we are now, and maybe it can get better. I am so sorry that many of you are going through this, but I am also so glad I'm not the only one.

Kelly

[Nick C]

You know, I've posted the anger topic before.

I still am angry at times.

I'm mad at a lot of things and people. I could list them out...but that's what I pay my therapist for.

But the fact is, and this is just me...I'm not saying this is you, because I know this statement will make, and has made people uncomfortable: I needed to recognize that I was in fact angry AT my mother and at God, to be honest.

Mom, how dare you leave me at this stage in my life. You were built into every plan I had except for my own retirement. I need you, your daughter in law needs you and our baby has been cheated, because there is noone on this planet who could have ever filled her with as much joy as you would have. A trip to Grammy's house would have been like weekend trips to Disney.

God, I owe you everything and love you above all else, but I am angry this is the plan you had for me. I wouldn't have minded something a little easier. I would imagine Moses wasn't thrilled about walking around in the dessert and teeing off Pharoh, and Paul wasn't thrilled about leaving his life to get tossed in prison all the time. I would think they were a little angry too. But I too understand that this is the life I've been given and God will reunite us again, and for that I am grateful. And his will should be done...so I try to subscribe to that as best I can.

I love God and my mother. Anger doesn't mean you don't love. It's uncontrollable to feel it. It's controllable to not let it ruin your life though.

[tiredmom959]

Anger is definitely my most common emotion. And I honestly feel for anyone with any type of cancer, but that Susan G. Komen organization just about puts me over the edge ... is they ANY product you can't buy now in a "PINK RIBBON" version.

When I would tell people my mom was battling lung cancer and they asked, "did she smoke" it made me angry. But now that she's gone, if someone asks that I feel like strangling them while yelling "WHAT THE *#&@ DOES THAT MATTER".

There is a woman I sit by at work that is syrupy sweet to everyone she comes in contact with ...except her mother. You can tell when her mother calls or she has to call her ... the whole voice, attitude and demanor changes. She is SO MEAN to her. She'll readily admit she it's for no other reason than that she's "annoying". What I wouldn't give for an "annoying" phone call like that from my mom right about now ...

[Mskim]

It always amazes me when I come in here (which is not nearly as often as I used to) how EVERY post feels like I wrote it myself. From being angy and not being able to understand how to be with my children (I am considering family therapy) to getting pissed at the girl across the street for treating her mom badly.

The race for the cure was this weekend...

a sea of pink.... while I support breast cancer awareness (I have a couple of those breasts myself) I always feel compelled to quote statistics of LUNG CANCER that has no CURE either.

[ErinM]

Anger is my most common emotion these days as well. I guess it started after my husband's grandfather died in October of cancer. We don't even know where his cancer came from because everything happened so quick. He went in for routine surgery and was so filled with cancer that the surgery wasn't finished and he was gone a few days later. He was never even sick before this all transpired. My husband and I went there to be at his side with the rest of the family. I wasn't that close to him, but I find myself greiving as if I were. It has brought out so much anger in me because I have seen what my dad will go through. It is like it has forced me to grieve before it is even time to grieve.

I find myself shutting people out and letting myself silently ponder my anger at everyone around me. I have felt anger for irrational things like the fact that I am an only child and have no siblings to share this with. I have been angry with my husband because he has a sister he is very close to and he will have a sibling to share it with when he loses a parent. I have my mom, my husband, and my friends but I have thought many times that I would give anything for a sibling to know exactly what I was going through. Ironically, the only person I have been able to talk to about some of my anger is my mother in law. After losing her husband to lung cancer and her father to cancer I can at least relate to her.

I have to believe that anger is just a normal emotion to deal with. Cancer does change you. I hope that someday I can get past this anger, but I don't think I will ever look at people the same. Maybe it is me, because I was always so optimistic about life. Nothing ever really got me down or bothered me. The biggest difference for me is that all of my closest friends seem to notice my anger. I suppose that is because I was always the one to try and make everyone else cheerful and happy. Right now, I am just working on trying to talk openly with my husband rather than bottling things up. The thought had not occured to me until I read this post to try therapy, but maybe that will help. It is just nice to know that others are dealing with anger as well.

[missyk]

Kelly...

Im going to send you a message with a few more details...but I wanted to share with the board that "mad" is one of the reasons I'm just not around much.

I'm easily frustrated, my feelings get hurt quickly, as someone else said "my b.s. level" is almost nonexistant and that has definately caused some issues. But even more than the "mad" is the "I'm pretty sure I left my brain somewhere back in last May" feeling that takes over sometimes...ok, alot of times. I have absolutely NO ability to concentrate...and THAT makes me mad, too! LOL

As for the pink ribbons...well, the last time I spoke out about my personal feelings on research spending for breast cancer vs lung cancer...I haven't heard from about a dozen "friends" since then. I guess giving my blog the title "Why I Don't Wear Pink" turned a few off; but the written words of "I give where I want and when I want but I don't wear a billboard announcing it like I need a reward for supporting the charity" didn't sit well with the rest.

Oooops...there goes the b.s. meter again!

[Barbb]

You all write what I feel I just don't care about much anymore, hate the pink ribbons, too. Nick, you really said it about loving God and being mad at him. I rage to him about taking my husband. I rage to Rod about leaving me. I kept asking him not to leave me and he would say, "I'll try my best not to". I feel so awful about putting that burden on him. Life sure sucks right now.

Barb

[sundrop]

y'all.

My dad died of metastatic lung cancer (NSCLC) 3 years ago.

It was terrible, awful. The images are burned in my mind forever.

I didn't like the pink ribbons either.

I didn't like Komen

I didn't like it at all.

Not only did I NOT wear a pink ribbon, I questioned the whole thing.. everyday.

Once I even blasted a lady at Panera for pushing the BC agenda.

Until I found out I had stage 3C breast cancer.

This all happened 18 months after my dad died.

Its pretty serious. 75% of my nodes were cancerous.

I've had a double mastectomy, chemo, rads and a hysterectomy.

i'm not getting reconstruction because I don't see the point. I wear a prosthesis.

I had my mammograms. No family history of BC. My only symptom was a pain in my armpit - it ended up being a cancerous lymph node. The tumor itself was so small, it was only picked up on a MRI.

M dad was 65, and I still cry everyday - but I was dx at 42. They tell me I'll be lucky if I see my 15 year old go to the jr. prom.

So, please, please, please, please try to not be so hard on the pink ribbon people.

Cause now I really get it.

I don't want any of you all to ever go through what I'm going through right now.

I never thought it could happen to me.

But it did...

I feel the frustrations regarding LC stats, but now that I'm on the other side.. well you get it.

Thanks.

I wish there was more support for LC and cancer in general. I'm not exactly sure why it became cool to support BC - but it is....

Peace.