dontwant2befat's Journal, 17 Nov 08

You have every right in the world to be pissed off!! I can't even imagine, you are so strong to have made it this far. I wished I knew what to say to help you. I would suggest looking online for support groups of other young mothers like you dealing with this awful grieving period. I might suggest looking for a good counselor... maybe through a local church? It is NOT going to be easy, I can't even imagine. Count your blessings and pray. I'm sorry it's so hard. You are right... one step, one day at a time. You can do this. Your kids need you... more then ever. We're here to listen and you can vent any time you need to! :) *hugs* Chin up girl... you have a lot to be proud of. :) 

Pissed off is absolutely justified as BT says. My heart goes out to you and your kids. My father was in the same situation as you when I was a kid and he certainly felt the same way. It is just not fair! I wonder if Parents Without Partners appeals to you? Just a thought... 

My hat goes off to you girl! You are doing so well for yourself and keeping it together for you and your kids! I am so sorry you are having a hard time! When my dad died, my mother was a completely different person and took her anger out on me for a couple of years. Luckily, I was an adult and worked in psych with the best support system in the world! I hope that your son has an advocate to talk to, a counselor seem to be such a harsh word to a teenager, too many bad steriotypes associated with it. I don't know if there is any good news to tell you, I'm sure you know that anger is a natural part of grieving and there is a definate cycle that you have to go through and anger is definately one of those stages. I blogged this for my sister early this year. I'm copying and pasting for you, there is a lot of information out there. Tuesday, January 15, 2008 The Grief Cycle Current mood: empathetic Category: empathetic Life ..> ..starttext--> The Kübler-Ross grief cycle Disciplines > Change Management > The Kubler-Ross grief cycle Background | The Grief Cycle | Sticking and cycling | See also Background For many years, people with terminal illnesses were an embarrassment for doctors. Someone who could not be cured was evidence of the doctors' fallibility, and as a result the doctors regularly shunned the dying with the excuse that there was nothing more that could be done (and that there was plenty of other demand on the doctors' time). Elizabeth Kübler-Ross was a doctor in Switzerland who railed against this unkindness and spent a lot of time with dying people, both comforting and studying them. She wrote a book, called 'On Death and Dying' which included a cycle of emotional states that is often referred to (but not exclusively called) the Grief Cycle. In the ensuing years, it was noticed that this emotional cycle was not exclusive just to the terminally ill, but also other people who were affected by bad news, such as losing their jobs or otherwise being negatively affected by change. The important factor is not that the change is good or bad, but that they perceive it as a significantly negative event. The Grief Cycle The Grief Cycle can be shown as in the chart below, indicating the roller-coaster ride of activity and passivity as the person wriggles and turns in their desperate efforts to avoid the change. The initial state before the cycle is received is stable, at least in terms of the subsequent reaction on hearing the bad news. Compared with the ups and downs to come, even if there is some variation, this is indeed a stable state. And then, into the calm of this relative paradise, a bombshell bursts... Shock stage: Initial paralysis at hearing the bad news. Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable. Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion. Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out. Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable. Testing stage: Seeking realistic solutions. Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward. Sticking and cycling Getting stuck A common problem with the above cycle is that people get stuck in one phase. Thus a person may become stuck in denial, never moving on from the position of not accepting the inevitable future. When it happens, they still keep on denying it, such as the person who has lost their job still going into the city only to sit on a park bench all day. Getting stuck in denial is common in 'cool' cultures (such as in Britain, particularly Southern England) where expressing anger is not acceptable. The person may feel that anger, but may then repress it, bottling it up inside. Likewise, a person may be stuck in permanent anger (which is itself a form of flight from reality) or repeated bargaining. It is more difficult to get stuck in active states than in passivity, and getting stuck in depression is perhaps a more common ailment. Going in cycles Another trap is that when a person moves on to the next phase, they have not completed an earlier phase and so move backwards in cyclic loops that repeat previous emotion and actions. Thus, for example, a person that finds bargaining not to be working, may go back into anger or denial. Cycling is itself a form of avoidance of the inevitable, and going backwards in time may seem to be a way of extending the time before the perceived bad thing happens. http://yourtotalhealth.ivillage.com/grief.html?ivNPA=1&sky=ggl|hco|em|tgrief||s http://www.mywhatever.com/cifwriter/library/mortals/mort2480.html