Grief and Loss
Grief is personal and individual, and every person experiences its nuances differently. Your personality, your support system, your natural coping mechanisms, and many other things will determine how loss will affect you. There are no rules, no timetables, and no linear progression. Some people feel better after a few weeks or months, and for others it may take years. In the midst of recovery there may be setbacks – this nonlinear process can’t be controlled. It’s critical that you treat yourself with patience and compassion and allow the process to unfold.
Grief is often described in stages, though each stage may last for a different period of time - for some people, the stages may be briefer or longer than for others, and some people may not experience all of them. Acknowledging that you may experience some or all of these stages will help you understand what may be happening. You have the right to grieve and to fully experience your grief. Your feelings are normal, and it’s important to remember that at some point, it will get better. You may not get over your loss, but you will survive it. The general stages of grief below are described by Swiss-born Psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
DABDA
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, know loss, and have found their way of the depths. These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and a concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
And, as always if you're feeling stuck or in need of any support, please reach out.
Denial. Denial, the first stage of grief, is necessary to help you survive a loss. ...
Anger. The next stage of grief, anger, is a very necessary part of the process. ...
Bargaining.
Depression.
Acceptance.
Finding Meaning.
DENIAL:
Denial is the stage that can initially help someone survive the loss. Life doesn’t seem to make sense, has no meaning, and is too overwhelming. The terrible news is denied, and, in effect, the person goes numb.
It’s common in this stage to wonder how life will go on in this different state – you are in a state of shock because life as you once knew it, has changed in an instant.
Someone diagnosed with a deadly disease might believe the news is incorrect – the blood work in the lab was mixed up with someone else’s. Learning that a loved one has died will be met with clinging to a false hope that the wrong person was identified. In the denial stage, the “actual reality” is exchanged for a “preferable reality.”
Ironically, it is denial and shock that helps one cope and survive the grief event. Denial aids in pacing the feelings of grief. Instead of becoming completely overwhelmed with grief, the denial staggers and reduces its full sudden impact.
ANGER:
Re-entering “actual” reality again from “preferable” reality often brings anger along with it. Thoughts such as, “why me?” and “life’s not fair!” surface in this stage. It may seem beyond comprehension how something like this could happen. Blaming others for grief or redirecting anger to close friends and family are not uncommon.
Mental health professionals backed by extensive research agree that such anger is an essential and necessary stage of grief and needs to be encouraged.
They emphasize that it is beneficial to truly feel the anger. It’s thought that, even though a person may feel that he/she is in an endless cycle of anger, it will dissipate – and the more one truly feels the anger, the quicker it will dissipate and expedite the healing.
Anger can also be a pathway to reconnect to the world after isolation during the denial stage. When a person is numb, this results in feeling disconnected from everyone. On the other hand, when one is angry, there is a connection, albeit unhealthy.
BARGAINING:
Bargaining is the way to continue to grasp those strands of hope while being buried beneath unbearable emotional pain. When confronted with this untenable reality, one truly believes that one is willing to do anything and everything to restore life to what it was before the loss.
And often these thoughts are not bound to what could be done in the future but may include the past as well. For example, a person may be thinking in terms of “what if” or “if only”: what would it take for everything to return to normal; what could have been done differently to avoid this devastating loss?
And once a person goes down this path, it’s a slippery slope into guilt as the griever subconsciously struggles to regain a modicum of control by taking responsibility, even at his/her own expense.
Then come the endless “what if” statements. What if I had left the office 10 minutes sooner – the accident wouldn’t have occurred. What if I had encouraged her to see the doctor three months ago as I had initially thought – the tumor could have been discovered sooner, been removed, and she would still be alive.
These thoughts and emotions are quite common. And as painful as they are to experience and endure, they are therapeutic because they help the person confront the reality of the loss.
DEPRESSION:
Most people regard depression as a bona fide expression of grief. When confronting a debilitating loss, depression isn’t a symptom of a mental health condition. Instead, it’s a natural and appropriate response to grief.
Depression is the sensation of the heartbreak and emptiness we feel when navigating reality and realizing that the person or situation is gone forever. In this stage, the one who is grieving might withdraw from life, feel numb, live in a fog, and not want to get out of bed in the morning to confront life. It’s too overwhelming!
And it’s difficult to muster the strength to face another day in the world. There is no interest in being around others or talking to anyone — only feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Depression may even be accompanied by suicidal thoughts – wondering, “what’s the point of going on?”
ACCEPTANCE:
The final stage of grief identified by Kübler-Ross is acceptance. Essentially, it is entering the new reality by coming to terms with the fact that the “new” reality is that the loved one is never coming back – or that illness will soon result in death.
Acceptance isn’t necessarily about being okay with the loss. Some people may never feel this way, and that is understandable. Rather, acceptance is more about acknowledging the losses that have been experienced, learning to live with them, and readjusting accordingly.
While the loss isn’t a “good” thing – it is something that can be lived with. The stage of acceptance is a time of adjustment and readjustment. There are good days, there are bad days when one feels uncontrollably sad, and then the good days return once more.
It is important to remember that reaching the stage of acceptance doesn’t preclude “moving back” to another stage of grief. Moving back-and-forth between stages is natural and all part of the healing process.
The 6th Stage: Finding Meaning:
David Kessler (an author, public speaker, and death and grieving expert) has recently documented a sixth stag: Finding Meaning. Many people talk about finding “closure” after a loss, but Kessler talks about learning to remember those who have died with more love than pain and learning to move forward in a way that honors our loved ones.
According to Kessler, “It’s not about finding meaning in the death – there is no meaning there. What it’s about is finding meaning in the dead person’s life, in how knowing how they shaped us, maybe in how the way they died can help us to make the world safer for others.”
In other words, finding meaning is something the bereaved can do after the death of someone they loved very much. It’s how those who are still alive can integrate the existence of the lost individual into their lives in a very positive and productive way.
It’s how they can allow the deceased to change them, and how they can behave in responding to it. And, perhaps most important, finding meaning is “the stage where the healing often resides.”
Anyone who has grieved a loved one would give up in a blink of an eye, the growth they have experienced, if it would bring their loved one back, but that’s the one thing that no one can do. So the only choice is to grow and find meaning.
And aside from the obvious benefits for oneself, we have to remember, too, that the deceased would have wanted us to find meaning in our lives because of them.
The bottom line about grief, says Kessler, is this: there’s no wrong way to do it. Grieving is as individual as each of us; our grieving needs are different, in every case.
The Surprising Consolation of Grief
People who have been in the deepest depths of despair have the broadest bandwidth when it comes to enjoying life: “When you’ve traveled through the deepest valleys, you surely appreciate the views from the highest hills.” And for those who have traveled together through the deepest of valleys, that’s a very important and uplifting message to hear.
CONCLUSION:
During times of grief, to get to the 6th stage, it’s important to surround yourself with your loved ones, faith, take time off from regular responsibilities, and have good self-care. If you are already moving towards acceptance and finding meaning, it can be a good time to reevaluate your values and priorities as well.
If you’re feeling stuck, please reach out for professional help. We would be honored to help you.
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