Intense Rage and Anger...

Sometimes the grief triggers me into flashes of intense rage. It isn't the slightest bit directed nor do I know why I get so worked up. The rage flashes over when the world doesn't understand why I'm still grieving or when someone says something callous like "You can't expect the world to go away forever." I'm not asking the world to go away. What I am asking is for time and possibly a little help to get me through this grief. But it seems like everything else takes precedence. And that triggers a flashover of temper.

Loss, Grief and Manliness; What Every Man Should Know About Losing A Loved One. This article was written by Brian Burnham. He writes about how a man grieves; since he lost his own father.

Evidently from what he says, Men go through a series of stages in grief, but they're not externally emotional. While men may go through periods of sadness and crying, depressed mood and/or sense of hopelessness; it's not the norm; we show less of those emotions. What we do show however are the following:

Anger: often directed at someone or something seen as responsible for the loss, but sometimes directed at the self or at nothing in particular.
Irritability: grieving men may be easily irritated and annoyed and may overreact to small annoyances.
Withdrawal: grieving men may withdraw from social contact as well as withdraw emotionally, experiencing an emotional numbness.
Rumination: persistent thinking about the deceased or death in general.
Substance Abuse: grieving men may attempt to cope by abusing alcohol or other drugs.

What I wish though is for people to understand that the grieving process is not the same for everyone and that I'm not going to "get over it" just at the snap of a finger.

I know I probably need some help and some counselling to get through the stages of grief that I'm going through with my dad's passing. I'm tired of not being understood to be going through the grieving process. I'm tired of not having people understand that intense rage and anger is a part of my grieving process; that if someone says something callous or tries to make me walk on eggshells around them or snaps at me for no apparent reason, I'm going to end up going nuclear. The simple solution to that is: Just Don't. Don't start a fight with me because you're upset about something. Bring it to my attention calmly and rationally instead of making a big emotional deal out of it. Don't snap at me or I will explode. Realize that the grieving process takes time and that I'm going to be hair-trigger taut for quite some time. And just be happy I'm not doing #5. So 4 out of 5 ain't bad.

Just do me a favor and let me get over the loss of my Dad at my own pace. I don't give a shit if people think that I should be over it in two months or that you may think that I'm grieving too damned hard. This was my father, someone who was my protector and the most important person in my world while I was growing up. I can't just get over the fact that he's gone...Just Like That.