When Grief Looks Like Rage

I never knew that grief can look like rage.

Not just sadness, not just longing, not even your typical anger—but a kind of fury that rises out of nowhere and swallows you whole. The kind that makes your hands shake and your chest tighten and your voice tremble with words you never thought you’d say out loud.

There are moments—shameful, terrifying moments—where the grief inside me boils over into something unrecognizable. When pain turns to fire. When sorrow is too big to cry out, so it screams in anger instead.

Today, I felt it again. That flood of rage so strong I had to leave the house. Not for fresh air, but for fear. Fear of what I might say. Fear of how I might act. Fear of who I’m becoming in the shadow of this grief.

Because this isn’t who I was.

Before loss shattered everything, I was steady. I was patient. I didn’t snap at people I love or slam doors just to feel something other than heartbreak. I didn’t feel this constant tension sitting just beneath my skin, threatening to rise at the smallest trigger.

Now, there are days when I hardly recognize myself.

And that terrifies me.

I didn’t ask for this version of me. I didn’t choose this hollowed-out, raw-nerved, quick-to-burn shell of a person. I didn’t ask to parent while grieving, to work while unraveling, to live while longing for someone I can’t ever get back.

And sometimes the injustice of it all just ignites something deep inside me.

It’s not that I’m angry at the people around me. Most of the time, they aren’t doing anything wrong. It’s the world I’m mad at. The unfairness. The silence that followed the scream. The way life keeps moving forward when mine feels frozen in the moment everything changed.

I know this anger is just another face of grief. I know it’s pain in disguise—desperate, exhausted, cornered pain.

But it still feels awful. And scary. And out of control.

I want to believe that this isn’t who I’ll always be. That somewhere beneath the fury and the fear, the gentler parts of me still exist—buried, maybe, but not gone. I want to believe that with time, with grace, with healing, I’ll find myself again. Or maybe I’ll become someone new—someone shaped by sorrow, but not consumed by it.

But for now, I’m just being honest: sometimes, grief looks like rage. And on those days, I walk away—not to escape the pain, but to protect the people I love from it.

And maybe, in its own way, that’s love, too.