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Talk it out, indulge freely in revenge fantasies with like-minded or else understanding non judgmental persons. Know that homicidal thoughts - though new and out of character - are normal especially for male relatives when someone like an impaired driver kills your loved one. It's the protective instinct, couldn't protect the victim at the critical time but maybe can protect rest of society from repeats.

Natural thought when the driver continues to drive impaired while on bail. I discovered through involvement with a homicide victim group revenge fantasies are common. I think it's healthy for a time.

I'm sorry but I don't agree that it's healthy. It's normal, I agree for someone to feel total anger towards the person concerned, but after the initial anger I feel that the way forward is to let the destructive anger go and not hold on to it. I know people who have lived their lives since their loss in an anger which has destroyed their already traumatised life.  I'm not saying that everyone should lose their anger, because they're normal human beings and this isn't an ideal world, only that I wish they would think about what the negative emotion of anger is doing to themselves and their families.

I guess it depends how you define healthy. I think its normal and healthy - as I said just for a time which you seem to agree but replacing my healthy with normal. In no way was I saying it's healthy to get stuck in anger. Being stuck is known as complicated grief, and that can kill you leading to heat attacks, cancer etc.

My view is coloured by being a mental health nurse - and why I said that its healthy is I nursed so many woman who become suicidal, only because they are conditioned through life to think anger is not normal or healthy for women to show or experience. So they turn it inward.

People can feel ashamed - what will the kids think etc So they repress it and get very sick. But lifes not all smiles and quite a few studies show it is best that kids see we are human and do have extreme emotions in loss - and that we can survive them too. We always ran a lot of groups teaching women permission to be angry. Anger is a healthy thing to me, when it's appropriate of course, and when it does not result in aggressive destructive acts.  

Only very rarely the psychologists on our team would recommend we not teach some unusual patients to experience their anger - for a few sociopaths etc it does not relieve them and pitter out but rather it builds and feeds on itself. Normal anger should give a poerson relief once externalised through talk or physical means eg someone above said smashing ice cubes.

Anger healthily expressed should not harm a family, I wonder if you are associating it with some negative things like abusive behaviour that my post was not talkin about? If anger is expressed in ways that lack good judgment... not good. I've done that I'll admit  - I was quite mean to my brother at Mums funeral due to a short fuse under stress. It prolly wouldn't have happened had I thought to go smash some ice cubes! 

I should add the obvious - different things work for different people, just read your original post and I see that moving away from anger is what works best for you.

Sorry about the untimely loss of your child, in another country must make it even more difficult too.

Hi again driver.   I appreciate your knowledge and experience as a mental nurse, and thank you for that insight.  I've always said that grief affects people in different ways, so I've never generalised.  I can only speak for my own experiences not anyone else's.  I know a couple of people who are consumed with anger, which isn't good.  It affects their whole life and turns them into a very negative beings. They spend their lives just being angry about everything because of the anger they feel at their loss, and the remaining members of their family suffer because of this.  Instead of maybe finding a way forward they remain in a very destructive frame of mind.

I've always been fascinated in psychology and what makes people tick,and applaud you for your very worthwhile career.

Ann