Today I discovered that grief is not made of sadness alone.
Most of the day was sadness. Heavy sadness. The kind that settles into your body and follows you everywhere. But at least twice today, something else surfaced: anger.
Not rage. Not bitterness. Just anger.
I found myself asking questions that have no real answers.
Why me?
Why did this have to be my family?
Why couldn’t they have been healthy, loving, and safe?
Why couldn’t I have been the kind of person who could simply look away from the dysfunction, ignore the manipulation, and accept things as they were?
Why couldn’t there have been another way?
For a moment, I was even angry at God. Why couldn’t there have been a miracle? Why couldn’t hearts change? Why couldn’t something intervene and make this unnecessary?
But then I remembered something difficult: even God does not override the will of other people. I cannot change people who do not want to change. I cannot heal relationships by myself.
And so the anger faded back into sadness. Then all I could do was cry.
The hardest realization is that I believe I made the right choice. If I thought I had made a mistake, there would be something to fix. There would be a path back. But the grief comes from knowing that the right choice was also the painful choice.
I wished there was some middle road where I could keep my family and keep my autonomy. A path where I could remain connected without surrendering myself. I searched for that path for years.
The anger came when I realized there really wasn’t one.
Yes, I had a choice. I could stay. But staying would have required me to accept circumstances that were slowly costing me my peace, my growth, and my freedom to live my own life.
The alternative was leaving.
Neither option was painless.
One path led to growing resentment and deeper wounds. The other led to grief.
I chose grief.
Today I understand that anger is part of this process. It is grief protesting a reality it never wanted. It is the part of me that wishes things had been different.
But underneath the anger is still sadness.
Sadness for what was lost.
Sadness for what never was.
Sadness for what will never be.
Despite the small twinge of anger I felt, the sadness remains the strongest emotion. For now, I think that’s where I am on this journey.
Day three: anger mixed with sadness.
Both are grief.
My Voice Unchained 