The Complex Dance With Anger
The one thing that continues to perplex me in this walk with infertility is the cycle of grief I experience at different times and moments along the way. This week in particular, I find myself dancing the complex dance I have with anger within it. Somehow, anger has always been the emotion that I try to stifle and proceed with caution with as I try to unravel my grief. In hoping to surpass it, or even skip over it, I mistakenly think that I can bypass my anger as I attempt to plow forward through this part of grief in hopes of rapidly reaching the end of the cycle where I am more comfortable. I tend to think that anger is such a negative feeling to bear, and I am afraid to let it reside in my heart for too long believing that it is robbing me of my peace. I see it as a wildfire that can build within me waiting to consume and destroy everything in its path. An ugly monster of sorts that if left untamed, I worry that the flames of my anger will get out of my control and that it will cause me to take a drastic turn and misstep in a direction further away from God. I am often confused by the purpose of anger, and I find myself frantically attempting to figure out what to do with this emotion right now.
So, what is actually making me angry? This month is the first month we’ve attempted to try for pregnancy following my surgery. My anger started with the rapid succession of migraines I’ve had all month that are simultaneously making me feel both physically ill and weak. It built up when I suspected that this may be a side effect from increasing the doses of my thyroid medication and this is my body’s reaction to it, or it may not be, so the anger for me continues to build in the struggle with the unknown. Feeling this way all month, I then get angry that I don’t just get to enjoy my marriage and sex without focusing on timing and trying that has been engrained into me these past 10 years constantly hoovering over the course of each and every day. The pinnacle of anger hit for me in trying to decipher if I am just having one of the worst and most abnormal cycles of my journey, or if I had the signs and symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy/miscarriage. This is all unfolded over a weekend when my medical support is not reachable, which left me feeling even more angry, annoyed, and helpless.
I want to blame all of my anger and sadness on hormones. I want to feel better. I want to bring the joy back into my marriage through physical intimacy without the volcanic eruption of fear I now have about pregnancy. I want to know definitively if I can ever successfully carry a child within my womb, and I don’t want to have to worry that I need to take immediate action for every abnormal symptom I feel and try to solve what they actually mean through my own merit. I really want to experience natural motherhood the “normal way” like everyone else, and I feel guilty that I actually want that! I want to stop feeling angry, but my cycle of grief has brought me back here to this place of unresolved feelings lead by anger without my consent.
One thing I’ve recently learned through the wisdom of counsel is that the stages of grief aren’t as linear as I once thought they were. The stages are actually more u-shape like (similar to a skateboard ramp), and we sort of ping pong around them vs. merely passing through them one step at a time to get to the end. At times, we may find ourselves at the end of the cycle where we are capable of helping others through with what we’ve learned and experienced through our personal grief. Other times, we can bounce right back to the beginning where anger resides even though we thought we “made it through” this part of our grief already. Different triggers and different moments in our lives place us at different points on the curve with varying degrees of intensity. I am also told that as we continue to process the entirety of our grief, we are greatly less overwhelmed by it with the natural progression of it through our experiences over the course of time. In other words, the grief and trauma of my infertility never really truly disappears, but my strong reactions to it will dissipate as a whole over time with much less intensity amongst the emotions and feelings that drive them.
Spiritually, I have been asking God “what do I do with the wanting?” as I am trying to understand why I have so intensely landed back at anger. What part of the grief of infertility have I not yet surrendered? What is it that I truly desire that He keeps having me circle back to and take notice of? I get angry at myself because the longing to become a natural mother has always been there, and I somehow think it should go away or decrease in intensity over time with my acceptance of my situation and circumstances. It feels like I’m betraying both Him and myself by continuing to want it…and I get angry! As I think about it more and more, my wanting of natural motherhood and the shame I now feel for wanting it is the source of my anger with Him.
The gift I recognize here is honesty. If God removes the visibility of all of the consolations He has blessed me with thus far, I am forced to process my grief in its entirety. It’s amazing to me of how honest I can become with myself and with Him not in-spite of the anger, but because of the anger. I’ve had to take a good hard look at this feeling and why I feel ashamed for having it here… in the dark. My immediate reaction is to get out of having to feel it by relying on distractions and old patterns of faith that I think will propel me back into the light, but I never truly achieve a cessation of feeling as it slowly starts to take hold of my heart.
The point He’s trying to make to me now is that I have to sit with my anger and wrestle with it, so I can truly and completely trust Him with even my deepest want. It’s the one want that I’m trying to deny and hide from Him that I’ve pushed aside attempting to forget it because of the shame I’ve attached to it. I don’t know if it’s because I think I am selfish for wanting it, or if it’s because deep down I believe that I’m disappointing Him because I’m wanting it, but I have to remind myself that anger is just an emotion…I am not transforming into this fiery monster of anger because I feel it now! I will never experience true intimacy in love if I can not address and feel all of my emotions to include anger.
I believe that even the anger is a gift, and it helps lead me to the truth: I can’t do any of this for Him or without Him. I want to share my anger with you to let you know that what you might experience along the way is real, it’s ok to feel your way through it, and it is so important to take all of it to Him (even your anger!). Give yourself permission to feel your anger and be honest with Him about it. By telling you this, I don’t feel any instant relief, nor has my anger lifted yet because it’s not my time yet as He wills it. This period in time reminds me of what the great Saints like St. John of the Cross and St. Mother Teresa describe as the “Dark Night of the Soul”. In the dark, they have explained that this is the true test of faith and love as we are all asked to choose Him despite how we feel. It’s an acceptance of real love (“Agape Love”) and how we respond to it when we ultimately feel so dry, desolate and spiritually barren. The absent feeling of the light doesn’t mean that He isn’t actually right there next to me in my struggles leading me through them. He’s actually asking me to pull even closer to Him and to grow even more reliant on Him as I move deeper within my gift of faith. The gift here isn’t necessarily what I feel like I want, but right now, it’s exactly what I need…to get angry!
A friend shared this amazing song with me by Jars of Clay when he was experiencing his own grief, and I thought I might share it with you too. I pray it will also help to shed some light on how to express the pain we feel in the wanting especially when we can’t seem find the words we need to say it to Him.
On the Memorial of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I pray that you please cover those of us navigating through our grief with your mantle of protection and love. Help us keep our eyes fixed on your Son so that we continue to move toward Him instead of further away despite the pain and anger we might be feeling. Help us to recognize all of the gifts of grace we receive through our individual crosses of infertility, and show us how to make our lives become a living prayer through them.
-Amen
