Person First

I think I’ve officially reached the “Anger” stage of grief. A few months ago I didn’t even seem to know what the whole anger gig during grief was all about, but now — hoo boy — I am spitting nails and taking no prisoners. This business with the Grief Group has really bothered me and gotten under my skin. My friend Susan was horrified by my blog post (“Mindset“) describing our managed exit from the Group, in which I mentioned her rotten experience in a grief group, and we had a great time exchanging texts blasting grief counselors, grief groups, and the whole grief industrial complex. It’s good to be fair and balanced about these things.

I so want my dear readership to view me as mature, circumspect, rational, stable, lucid, level-headed, a good egg in every possible way. But perhaps you realize that you may have an unreliable narrator at this point, that I’m pretty flaky and can be be a bit of a blurter even in the best of circumstances, or if you want to use person-first language, someone who blurts.

I remember when I was studying to take the bar and attending a bar review prep course, the professor who was teaching the Evidence section told us that one of things to look out for during the multiple choice exam was the fact pattern of the person who “blurts.” That if the fact pattern contained a sentence like “Suddenly Paul blurted out the information that Rico had buried the safe in the backyard,” then we should hear a little mental bell ringing to clue us in that there was an exception to the Rules of Evidence that applied. (The Rules of Evidence are basically all about exceptions to the Rules of Evidence. This does not constitute legal advice in any way.)

That would probably be me blurting in the fact pattern. I’ve always been blunt and a “suffer no fools” type and it’s gotten me into some trouble, although I can be diplomatic and I think I’m a naturally kind person at heart. I just sometimes give my opinion too freely and I should be more reticent sometimes. I’ve turned a couple of IEP meetings into shit shows when there was no need to, among other situations that I will not go into here.

So I’m feeling angry right now, and also down on myself for my core personality. In our texts that we exchanged, my friend Susan said that reacting with upset like I did is a perfectly normal part of grief. That was very comforting to hear. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to try to do better, but it was reassuring to know that I don’t have to be a perfect person right now at the hardest time in my life.