STAGES OF GRIEF Through the Process and Back to Life
SHOCK & DENIAL In the first hours or days after the loss, you may feel shocked, numb and confused. You may not remember what people have said to you. You may think and act as though the loss hasn’t occurred. This is called denial.
As the shock wears off, reality will slowly break through. You’ll begin to realize that the loss has happened.
We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense, why we should go on. We are in a state of shock and denial. We try to find a way to simply get through each day.
Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to set pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle. Shock provides emotional protection from being overwhelmed all at once. As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming stronger, and the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all the feelings you were denying begin to surface.
This process can last for the first full year and is a normal all part of the process.
Do not let others tell you how you should feel or what you should be doing this all takes time and there is not rush or clock with this we are all different.
PAIN & GUILT As the shock wears off, it is replaced with the suffering of unbelievable pain. Although excruciating and almost unbearable, it is important that you experience the pain fully, and not hide it, avoid it or escape from it with alcohol or drugs. Life feels chaotic and scary during this phase.
You may have guilty feelings or remorse over things you did or didn’t do with your loved one. We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time: find the tumor sooner, recognize the illness more quickly, stop the accident from happening…if only, if only, if only.
The ” if only ” cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt.
People often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours as we flip in and out of one and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the first one
ANGER & BARGAINING Frustration gives way to anger, and you may lash out and lay unwarranted blame for the death on God, religion, doctors and nurses, the one who has died or other loved ones, or even yourself. Please try to control this, as permanent damage to your relationships may result. This is a time for the release of bottled up emotion. You may rail against fate, questioning “Why me?” You may also try to bargain in vain with the powers that be for a way out of your despair (“I will never drink again if you just bring him back”) Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. Be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. There are many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time, but anger is the emotion we are most used to managing. The truth is that anger has no limits. It can extend not only to your friends, the doctors, your family, yourself and your loved one who died, but also to God. You may ask, “Where is God in this? Underneath anger is pain, your pain. It is natural to feel deserted and abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. Anger is strength and it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. At first grief feels like being lost at sea: no connection to anything and your world has stopped turning. Then you get angry at someone, maybe a person who didn’t attend the funeral, maybe a person who isn’t around, maybe a person who is different now that your loved one has died. Suddenly you have a structure your anger toward them. The anger becomes a bridge over the open sea, a connection from you to them. It is something to hold onto; and a connection made from the strength of anger feels better than nothing. We usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it. The anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love. Bargaining Before a loss, it seems like you will do anything if only your loved one would be spared. “Please God,” you bargain, “I will never be angry at my wife again if you’ll just let her live.” After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. “What if I devote the rest of my life to helping others? Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream?”