Carly has done an online course about the five stages of grief; anger, denial, bargaining, sadness and acceptance. Carly is very worried about being angry. Carly has been worried about that for years. So instead, she is miserable. Really miserable. Crying all the time. Her face is puffy like a puffer fish.
She tries specially formulated skin creams, but they don’t help. Sharon at work says these anti-aging skin creams have no evidence they work. But she would say this as she does Botox injections to help aging skin look lush again. Carly feels she has cried so much she has run out of sadness. She thinks she can get closure for her grief. She thinks that the five stages of grief are artificial, and she doesn’t need to be angry. She is very worried about what she will be like if she is angry. Maybe she will never stop being angry. It will be overwhelming for everyone. It is more acceptable in society to be sad. It is not good to be bad (angry) or mad (overly sad with voices).
So, Carly starts a course of therapy to help her grieve for her very long marriage that ended. She wants her therapist to help her deal with her sadness. Her therapist tells her she must get angry. Carly is angry with her therapist for telling her to get angry. Instead, they move onto what Carly’s ideal new partner would be like. Carly considers this in her usual high-energy, dedicated and organised fashion. She reads her list of 19 key attributes in alphabetical order. Carly’s therapist suggests that she might never find a partner with such a long list of requirements.
Carly agrees and hones her list to only two. Carly is happy as these are all prime numbers. She explains that nineteen minus seventeen equals two. Her therapist pulls a face, but Carly explains that she loves numbers. So much so, that her daughter thinks that Carly is autistic. But Carly has already just diagnosed herself with ADHD and she cannot add to this burden of additional diagnoses. Eventually, it is time for Carly to stop her course of therapy. As predicted, Carly and her therapist talk about endings. Will Carly be able to manage without her therapist? Carly believes so. She managed before she started therapy, so why shouldn’t she afterwards? Her therapist isn’t so sure. The question is who really needs the therapy to continue?
Carly has been on a course about anger. This was particularly interesting. It was a residential course using cognitive, cathartic, ritualistic and ceremonial elements. It was all-encompassing. Unsurprising, Carly cried a lot. Carly learnt that you need a degree of anger for your energy levels, your lifeforce, your mojo. Anger is a force that can be used for good and to promote change. Now Carly is prepared to get angry so she can feel alive and purposeful. She can get really angry if she applies herself. This has been revelatory for Carly. She can be angry, but it can be contained and not dangerous. Rarrrrrrrggghhhhhhhhh growled Carly. But where can you actually go to do this getting angry business? You just cannot open your mouth and roar anywhere you fancy.
So, Carly chatted to others about how they deal with their anger. It seems that lots of people like to shout and get angry but don’t advertise this about themselves. One man told her that he shouts his head off in his car when he is driving up the motorway. Carly thinks this is a good plan. She once went on a road traffic awareness course. It was probably the only course she went on she can say truly changed her behaviour. Well, a bit, as she has got a couple of speeding tickets since. On that course, she learnt that country road driving was the most dangerous and motorway the least. Therefore, next time she is on a motorway she will also shout her head off and know she and others are pretty safe with her driving in this state. It needs to be a long enough drive for Carly to work herself up. A five mile stretch between two junctions isn’t long enough to get in the right frame of mind.
Her cousin in New York says that she yells as loud as she dares when the subway train comes in the station. She stands at the front of the platform, waits for the train to just pass her so the driver doesn’t get worried and then she hollers as loud as she can. Sometimes she does it with her teenage sons. They all thoroughly enjoy this. Carly is not sure this could work on the London Tube. English people are really much more uptight.
When Carly is by the sea, she can put on one of those full-face breathing masks on and bellow as much as she likes when she swims out. She is sure the fish won’t mind. She is not even sure fish can hear? But Carly does look like something from another planet and the whole thing feels weird and ghoulish. However, Carly is creative. She is a doctor. She knows that when you ask to see a child’s throat, you can tell them to roar like a lion to get a good view of the tonsils. She demonstrates with a moderately loud ahhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and then she and the child take it in turns to really growl getting louder and louder. At least five times each. Only Carly knows why they are doing this. The child thinks it is a game. The parents think it is part of the examination. Only Carly knows it is for her benefit alone. These children have constipation or flat feet. The staff outside sigh. They say – well that Carly – she is something else.
Carly thinks about how to deal with denial and bargaining. Maybe she can enrol on a joint course for these aspects of grief? Carly goes off to investigate. She hopes she will be successful in her quest as this might help stave off her grief.
Carly does get very sad when her cats die. This picture is here as she has enough in her Carly adores cats story and here is a good place to put this drawing. As her dad always used to say. “Waste not, want not”. Then he would add. “Pick your nose and eat it”. Her mum was very disgruntled about that addition. Carly doesn’t eat bogies anymore, thankfully.
