How the Five Stages Affect Your Life

He died. They were killed in a car crash. My husband lost his job. My wife was raped. My business partner was stealing. My best friend told everyone. My son is in jail. My relationship is over. My daughter had an abortion. I wish I hadn’t wasted my life.

Hopefully not all of these things happen at the same time. But, from time to time we do in our complicated lives have these issues and more thrust upon us to deal with. What we choose to do at that point makes all the difference in our lives and the lives of those around us.

Every one of us has been in the situation of having to deal with grief in some form or another. To an extent we each deal with loss differently. However we individually deal with loss within the same boundaries of grief as everyone else. In other words, we may be walking on the same path, dealing with the same loss and yet my journey will be completely different from yours. Is your loss more important than mine? Is my loss more devastating than yours? Why does this happen? How can we be in the same place, at the same time, experiencing the same issue and yet it seems we are worlds apart? The answers to all of these questions and more are relatively simple and yet more complex than we know.

What is grief? Definitions of this word include but are not limited to; weighty, hardship, loss, bereavement and emotional distress to name but a few. Grief, as most of us think of it is synonymous with death. While this is true, it is also associated with any type of loss experience. This may include loss of a job, breakdown of a family, ending of a relationship by party, a friends betrayal, a loved ones illness or even missed opportunities. Grief is not about the loss per say but moreover the process we utilize to come to terms with the loss and move forward. How we get from point A to point B when dealing with loss is determined by the stages of grief.

There are five stages of grief. In order to come out healthy and whole on the other side we must give ourselves permission to go through the five stages. This is sometimes very difficult to do depending on your family history and even your gender, as boys are taught not to cry or show emotion other than anger while girls are taught its okay to cry, but then you should keep it secret and deny that you ever did.

Denial is the first stage of grief. Regardless of whether you have lost a loved one or you just found out your child has a disability and needs special services, the first mode we go into is denial. We are in shock and the brain must process the information and determine if the information is correct and then what action must be applied. This stage is generally relatively short as the facts keep slapping us in the face and we can no longer deny them in the case of death. However, some people never leave this stage where some losses are concerned. In the case of a child having a learning disability many parents just can not accept that their child really is different. Often they remain in denial and apply more pressure to the child where school is concerned.

Bargaining is often the second stage. Most of the time this stage takes shape in the form of prayer to a higher power. In a failing relationship it is common to see one party in the bargaining stage. We are willing to do anything to keep the relationship together.

Blame is generally the third stage of grief. When we hit this stage we are angry. We will find any way to attach whatever the loss we are experiencing to a fault, be it some thing, someone or God. When the grief is due to a death it is very common to be angry with or blame the person who has died for leaving, although admission of these feelings is terribly difficult and makes us feel like we are bad people.

Depression is stage four. This happens when we stop blaming everyone else, we can’t deny it any further and there is nothing left to bargain with. The phone has stopped ringing with condolences and concerned friends and family. It seems that everyone else’s life has moved on except ours. We are left to figure out how to cope with this loss. It is in the depression stage that we alienate people as we feel such overwhelming sadness and don’t want to be a burden to anyone. The depression stage can be long and generally something has to change before we leave this stage. Medication, talk therapy and support groups help greatly here.

Acceptance is the final stage of grief. And by the mere connotation of the word it seems we should be well on our way to sunshine and better days. What this stage really is about is coming to terms with the fact that you have suffered a loss and you will forever be changed by it.

At any point in this process we may jump around within the stages as life happens to us and the need for growth presents itself. When we encounter situations that bring the loss back to the foreground sometimes there is a need to travel back to another stage to help us work through it and eventually get on with the task of moving on past the loss.

Loss and subsequent grief are very much like the path that your journey is on and a gigantic boulder dropping out of the sky and blocking your way. You stand there for a while in disbelief and then you pretend like it’s not really on your road so you try to go around it, over it, under it and nothing works. It’s not moving, it’s here to stay. You pray for help but you’re not praying for another path to appear, you pray for the boulder to be gone, out of your life forever. Finally we have to resign ourselves to the fact that it’s here and now we have to do something about it. It is true we do all travel paths together from time to time and there is comfort to be found in reaching for another’s hand on this journey. But even though we walk the path together no two pairs of shoes are exactly alike. Your shoes are yours alone, your journey is yours alone and your story is yours alone. Life is not about all of the things that happen to you. Life is about how you cope, with the things that happen to you.