What's Grief?

Over the past few weeks many are grieving for different reasons. Grief is something that we all experience at some point in our lives. Grief is defined as: intense emotional suffering and mental anguish caused by loss, most commonly the death of a loved one, but also other significant losses like a divorce, job loss, or serious illness.

Grief is a personal, complex, and often unpredictable process involving feelings of sadness, anger, loneliness, and confusion, and can also manifest in physical symptoms such as sleep changes. Grief is something that does not have an end date. Grief is fluid and unexplainable at times. When people experience grief they often do not seem like themselves, and due to the change it can impact relationships positively or negatively. People often experience the 5 stages of grief; however, not always in an order that makes sense.

The 5 stages of grief are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Many people assume that one goes through the stages linearly; however, most people go through the stages all at once bouncing between them in an unexplainable order.

• Denial: It is not abnormal to ignore that the loss or change isn’t occurring or being in disbelief.

  Denying its occurrence gives the person time to process the grief. It is a common defense mechanism to numb the intensity of the situation so the brain can process through the pain more slowly.

• Anger: Anger is usually masking the emotions that are too painful to process. Anger is a secondary emotion that is generally shown when covering up pain, hurt, or sadness.

  It may be redirected to others, while your brain is processing through the intense emotions.

• Bargaining: In this stage people tend to create “what if” and “if only” scenarios to work through or postpone their grief. This can be seen as a defense mechanism to process through the emotions of grief, which may also postpone sadness, confusion, or hurt. During this time, you may feel vulnerable, helpless, and out of control.

• Depression: In this stage, people may be able to work through grief in an effective manner. They may isolate from others in order to cope with loss. Like the other stages of grief, it can feel overwhelming, foggy, heavy, and confusing. Depression may feel like the inevitable landing point of any loss, but as with the other stages people are not stuck here.

• Acceptance: Acceptance does not mean there is a happy ending to grief, or that a person has moved past it; however, it does mean that a person has accepted it. The person has an understanding how life has been impacted and changed, a new normal and learning how to live a new normal.

  
  

  

  
  

Grief is not something that is easily moved on from. Grief is a process and a constant choice of acceptance that things will not be as they once were. My challenge to you, be kind to yourself and know that grief doesn't have a time stamp, so allow yourself all the time you need to grieve.

"There are three needs of the griever: To find the words for the loss, to say the words aloud and to know that the words have been heard."

Victoria Alexander

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses."

Colette

"Life is not the way it is supposed to be. It is the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference."

Virginia Satir