5 Stages of Grief

( by Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kassler )

In our lives, we have encountered at least one time feeling of loss or death. However, very few of us realize which stages we are going through when we lost something or someone we love. Therefore I would like to share the summary of "On Grief & Grieving" written by Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler. According to the authors, sadly, people are living in a grief-illiterate culture although the process of grieving can give us courage and strength to move forward.

Let’s talk about five stages of grief (or loss). These are

DENIAL
ANGER
BARGAINING
DEPRESSION
ACCEPTANCE

Not everyone goes through all the stages or in a prescribed order. There is no linear timeline in this process. Stages can last only a few minutes, hours we flip in and out of one to another or to years. Also, there is no typical response to loss as there is no such thing as a typical loss.

DENIAL

When we encounter bad news for the first time, we are paralyzed with shock or go numb with disbelief.

"I can't believe he is dead."

"They must be mistaken."

This stage is nature’s mechanism of letting in only as much as we can handle when things are too much to fully believe. This coping mechanism is a must for our survival. This helps to unconsciously manage our feelings. As denial fades, it is replaced with the reality of loss which is the beginning of the healing process and we started questioning.

ANGER

Anger is one of the necessary stages of the healing process. It is not logical or valid at all and can be directed towards everyone around us: colleagues, friends, family, god, and even ourselves.

"Why me?"

"Where is God in this?"

Anger is the front line feeling which hides all the other strong feelings such as pain, sadness, panic, and loneliness under it. This anger gives us strength by giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. Also, this is the intensity of your love towards the thing or person you lost. So don’t let anyone criticize your anger.

BARGAINING

This is the stage full of “what if…” and “if only…” questions. And we keep thinking about how we could have done things differently.

“What if I stopped her that day...”

“If only I didn’t say like that...”

This is a distraction from the sad reality of life without loved ones. In this stage, we are ready to do anything just to avoid this pain of loss. We bargain about the past and even the future.

“I will quit drinking if I get this opportunity once again.”

“I will do all the good deeds around the world if I got my child back.”

All these bargainings give us time to adjust and fill the gaps that our strong emotions generally dominate. Unfortunately, no matter how many times we bargain, we meet the tragic reality in the end.

DEPRESSION

This is the level of empty feelings which are deeper than others. It is like going into a hurricane and sailing around. Once you reached in it, the exit is nowhere to be found. We have no desire to do anything and are detached from social life. This stage is too often seen as an unnatural one that needs to be fixed. But no expression when losing someone or something you love would be unusual.

This is nature's way of protecting us by shutting down our nervous system so that we can adapt to something we feel we cannot handle. To deal with it, we must assume depression as an unwelcome visitor. It will come to visit you whether you like it or not. So, invite it, sit with it, and face it without looking for an escape. Allow yourself to be depressed for some time. It will leave after it has served its purpose. But you also need to know that it may return from time to time with unseen unfamiliar forms.
( This is different from clinical depression which is longer and needed to seek medical treatment.)

ACCEPTANCE

We often confuse this stage with being all right or okay. In fact, most people don’t ever feel okay about this pain of loss. This is only a stage where we eventually accept that we cannot maintain the past intact and learn to live with it.

Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs: we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We may start to reach out to others and become involved in their lives. Finding acceptance is simply having more good days than bad ones. But remember that we truly begin to live again only after we had given grief its time.