Funerals Make Me Angry, and Other Fun Facts

Ever had a strong emotion suddenly take over without warning? The last several times I’ve been at a funeral, I’ve felt…..angry. Like seriously pissed. Not any of the feelings I think I should be feeling (sad, compassionate, generous, kind, grief). Nope, just mad.

The first time I noticed the mad-instead-of-sad trend, it made some sense to me. One of my close friends died of a heart attack. It felt super unfair, too early, totally out of the blue.When I noticed how mad I felt I figured it was pretty normal and didn’t give it much thought.

The next time it came up, I had a little more trouble with feeling mad-instead-of-sad. This time, I was peeved because the service was uber-super religious. Now this would be just fine if this was an uber-super religious person, but it didn’t fit the person who had died. At all. Again, I rationalized the anger away, feeling like the pastor had obviously not known the deceased and, as such, had made a misstep. I figured my reaction was a little off, but, again, basically dismissed it.

What I realized more recently was that mad-instead-of-sad is actually my reaction at any funeral. I thought back over the funerals I’ve attended throughout my life and recognized that my default emotional setting at a funeral is, indeed, mad, not sad.

Now the cool thing, being a psychologist and working with emotions all day every day in my work, is that I can take a step back and look at an emotional pattern and have some fun digging into the “why” of the pattern and, from there, figure out “what the heck do I do about it.”

Emotions, after all, give us information. They are not directives to follow (neither are a lot of our thoughts, but that is another blog for another time…don’t believe everything you think!). What are my emotions trying to tell me at a funeral? I have concluded that my reaction is actually a protective mechanism. I tend to field strong emotions privately and that is difficult to do at a funeral. Hence, it is easier to be mad and feel tightly wound, than it is to loosen into feeling sad. The next time I’m at a funeral I can give myself permission to just feel my feelings, whatever they are. I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Let me know what strong feeling might feel out of place for you and what information that gives you about your emotions. I’m always happy to hear from you!

Here’s to a wonderful fall season,

Fondly,Dr C