5 Stages of Overcoming Grief

 

One way or another, as a human, all of us may come across the feeling of emotional grief… whether it is a loss of romantic  feeling (relationship break-up) or loved one (s). But of course, the way we process the relationship break-up isn’t exactly the same as how we would process a death. (with the broken relationship, the other person may still interact with us which make the healing process more difficult).

I have watched an old movie entitled “Bucket List” and the 5 stages of grief that Morgan Freeman mentioned stucks into my mind. Here it goes:

1.)   Denial:

Defenitely, your mind and heart are debating on the issue… your heart says, “everything is fine and  can still patch it up”; while your mind says, “come on, it is about time to face reality that it should end as not everything is alright.”  You kind of know that things are not quite right anymore but you don’t want to deal with, we are just too afraid to admit that things need to change so we keep ignoring the problem as long as we can.

2.)  Anger

This anger can be scary but it’s a very real part of the grief process. The important thing is to acknowledge the anger and deal with it in ways that are safe and sane. Don’t be self-destructive. Write it out in journal entries and letters that you don’t send. Work with a counselor. Get anger management therapy if you need it. But don’t repress that anger or it’s just going to come back and bite you later on.

3.)  Bargaining

This is normally considered to be the third stage of grief but it may come before the anger for a lot of people as they try to move out of their denial and to work things out with their partner.

Sometimes bargaining actually works. Sometimes you can actually find constructive ways to reach an agreement with yourself, your partner and change the situation so that you can still be in a relationship. But most times it is just part of the process that we go through as we learn to deal with the fact that our relationship with someone is coming to an end

4.)  Depression

After all of the denial & anger & bargaining have been done and we realize that things really are starting to end, we become depressed. We feel helpless and powerless and overwhelmed with sadness about the loss that we are experiencing. We feel like things will never be the same and it makes us feel sad.

At this point in time, it is highly important to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves. Let us have ourselves be surrounded by  supportive friends, people who love us and make us feel good about ourselves. And we need to force ourselves to go out and do things that interest us even though this feels like the last thing that we want to do.

Even as we do all this, we need to acknowledge our depression. We need to admit to our emotions. We need to cry. To deal with loss, we have to feel the terrible pangs of sadness that come along with that loss. Depression is a powerful emotion but it is only an emotion and it will eventually pass.

5.)  Acceptance

Believe it or not, at the end of all of this, you will eventually reach a day when you have accepted the situation. No matter how many times you passed back and forth between the stages listed above, you will one day find that those stages are finally done. You will have accepted that things were the way they were, the situation ended as it did, you grew as a person and it’s all okay. It feels like you will never get to this stage as you go through the trauma of a breakup but eventually, believe it or not, if you’ve dealt properly with the other four stages of grief then you really will get to this one. And you will just say.. “I remember the person but I don’t remember the feeling anymore”

 Thanks for reading 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: grief, relationships, stages

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