Friday 17 June 2016

The 5 Natural Stages of Grief

Have you ever lost someone? The kind of loss I'll be talking about in this post is not only when a close relative passes away. Loss could be breaking up with a partner, grieving the loss of a partner or person years ago, losing an inspirational person (e.g. when a loved celebrity dies), leaving education, losing your job. We experience loss a lot more than we think we do. So how can we best deal with it?


There are five main stages of grief, as defined by a lady called Elisabeth Kubler-Ross from Switzerland. She outlined them as follows:

1) Denial

The first main stage, which helps us to survive the loss. The world becomes meaningless and life doesn't seem to make sense as we go into a kind of shock. Days blur into one another and our goals are about getting through each day. This allows for the pacing of feelings, and only enough feelings are let in that we can handle. 

2) Anger

This stage can feel endless. It will hurt, but the more you let yourself feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate. We might have other feelings underneath the anger, but anger is the emotion we are used to feeling the most, so other feelings come out as anger. Your anger might spread - you might find yourself feeling angry at the little things, or focusing your anger on one particular person. You might find yourself feeling angry at God if you are religious or agnostic, and this can be one reason why some people turn to atheism. 

3) Bargaining

This can come during anticipatory grief - if a loved one is very ill and you want them to live. It can also happen afterwards as we start to think 'what if' and 'if only' thoughts, or 'if I could go back in time what would I do differently?'. This can also be accompanied by guilt. This part focuses our attention on ourselves and can lead to treating ourselves badly if it is not rationalised. This is a natural part of grief, but remember it is your body's way of trying to negotiate our way out of the pain. 

4) Depression

After bargaining happens, we begin to come back to where we are at in our lives. Our feelings of emptiness and sadness come at us on a deep level. It might feel like it will last forever and you may end up withdrawing from your life. This is a normal response and it would be unusual not to feel this way. This can help us to get through this part of our healing process. 

5) Acceptance

This is a new stage where we begin to accept reality. We recognise that they have gone and learn to live with it. We readjust our lives and start to reach out. This doesn't mean we are suddenly 'ok' with what has happened, but if the grief process has been given the time it needs, we start having good days again and reinvesting in our lives as they are. 

Here is a chart of the grief process: 
The important things to take away from this post are:

  • Grief needs time. 
  • Be kind to yourself through this process and remind yourself it is natural
  • If you feel angry, try not to do anything you might later regret. Keep your anger expressed in healthy ways - it is a normal part of grief. Turning it on yourself, your friends or precious objects that remind you of your loss can be hard to deal with later. 
Let me know how you get on or any thoughts you have and share this post if you've found it helpful :) 

Image 1 from here

Image 2 from here
Read more about grief here




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