Self Counseling #2 (Anger & Bitterness)

My feelings of abandoment turned to bitterness, anger, and resentment over the course of 2010.

I felt horribly angry at my Parents...for dying. Well, more so for my Mother because she wasn't the sick one..she wasn't supposed to up and die out of the blue. I know her love for my Dad was stronger than her love for me, but couldn't she have just stayed?

As a Christian I fought (and still fight) a huge resentment towards God. He stripped me bare where I had nothing left to lean on. I found it cruel to expect me to lean on Him when he was the One that did 'this'. He didn't have to take both parents..he could have left me one..He knew my husband was leaving... All of the 'healing' and comforting scriptures felt like mockary to my ears, the songs of praise I used to sing...just words that I no longer recognized or could form on my lips.

I was bitter towards my uncaring co-workers who were so...non-nonchalant about what I was going through. Going to work and looking at them just pissed me off every single day. How dare they not come to my parents funeral, or send a card, or an effing plant. How dare they avoid me because they don't know what to say?

I became resentful of my best friend for not being there even though I knew she couldn't help it. I would watch life and living go on as I stood at my windows looking out, and wonder how in hell does that happen? Weren't we supposed to be best friends? To be there through thick and thin? Well, I was pretty thin and I needed her. I began to question our friendship and pull back.

I wanted to stand in my front yard and scream.....Didn't anyone know that I was encased in a self-imposed cage...that I didn't know how to open the doors to get out? The bars were too heavy to move on my own - there was no one to help me.

After a while I became bitter-strong...."to hell with 'them' - I don't need anyone to help me. I won't dare intrude on God, or my friend, my family or my co-workers. They are all obviously too busy!" I pulled myself further into my darkness, which only intensified my frustration - such a bitter cycle I was in.

When deployment ended I thought all of the anger would end with it; it didn't. It may have decreased in it's intensity, but it didn't fade away like I had hoped. I held on to the feeling that I had been robbed of a year of my life! I had been unjustly punished for some unknown reason and it was so unfair!

Today, I'm not nearly as angry, resentful or bitter though the taste still lingers on my lips. I still can not find my way back to my faith and I am working on my realtionship with my friend. The innocence of trust I used to have for God, friends, family, myself...it's still weak. The only one I can trust to be there/here for me is me.

Peace.

(I have turned off comments..I just need to be able to get 'this' out there in order to find a way to deal with it. Personal comments can be emailed to me)