Anger

Of all the emotions surrounding my wife's diagnosis, anger is the emotion that has surprised me the most. Objectively, I knew it would be part of the deal; it's one of the five stages after all! But undefined anger is a strange beast. In my 38 years so far, anger is typically tied to an event or person. You're angry at a situation. You're angry with someone because of something you think they did. Anger always has a partner.

I've found that so far, that's not the case. I suppose I'm angry at the universe in a sort of existential way: "why is this happened to her of all people?!" But mostly I just experience flashes of anger, and I find myself willing someone to give me an outlet for it. I've daydreamed a number of times on the metro about someone insulting me or trying to start a fight, so I have an excuse to beat the shit out of them.

Sometimes sadness turns into anger, like you go so far down the sadness well that you dig into the mantle of white hot anger. Sometimes you're so angry that it uses up all of your energy, and all that's left is hollow nothingness. Most of all, the anger just seems weird and out of place. I guess I should read more about it to find out the root cause in relation to grief, but if I had to guess, the anger is a reaction to the feelings of helplessness. You can't do anything about your situation, and that makes you angry.