I believe that anger is grief. We dismiss and label, upon encountering people who are angry a lot, as callous or uncouth or time-bombs. I just can’t believe that life is that goddamned black and white. Many are in a perpetual state of bereavement my darling. So many of us spend our entire lives mourning moments that happened, very early, because no one taught them/us the practice of healthy grieving. For so many of us, we aren’t permitted the time and solitude it takes to “get over” things before life pushes us forward. We have no time to heal before another day or year is thrown on our shoulders and we’re forced to start the fragmentary sorrow all over again. You want to talk about mental health? Then we must, first, address spiritual and emotional health. Imagine a 40-year-old person with years of uncompleted grief on their soul. This is how we are taught to live. Go and buy something, go and pray to something, go and workout, go and eat, go to the film house, go for diverting purposeless sex, go for some romance in the hopes that the love of your partner will save you. It is in these distracting norms that we learn to sin against ourselves and manifest more of the pain we’re avoiding. We are taught everything but the unholy truth- the Mirrored Gospel. That the only way up is through. That the only way out is within. That we must, at all costs, and at all times, belong to ourselves and confront ourselves and save ourselves first. We ought to do this before we go expecting to save someone else or for someone or something else to save us.