Grief; Thriving with Depression Series (Part 25)

Welcome back to the Thriving with Depression Series! 
Thank you for joining me on my adventure! 

To view the full series, check out our archive! As a reminder to new readers, you can start anywhere, even here as articles do not need to be read in any particular order. 

In this article, I talk about grief. The word "grief" is used many different ways and has many different meanings. Examples include exclamations such as good grief! or admonitions such as Don't give me grief! But I am talking about that feeling of despair or sadness when you lose someone or something dear to you. 

Those in the throes of grief may have a lot of questions, especially if they feel paralyzed by the pain. Here some common questions you may hear from those in the midst of the storm.

• Why me? Grief happens to everyone. No one is exempt. It does not matter if you are young, old, famous, unknown, rich, or poor. It just feels like you are alone because no one can take the sadness away from you. It is something you need to learn to deal with. However, others can help alleviate your sadness and bring you some comfort. 
• Will my grief ever go away? Grief is not a light switch. It does not suddenly end after two months. But it does subside and get better. Eventually, you control your grief rather than your grief controlling you. 
• Will I ever feel happy again? Yes, you will. You might not feel like you will ever smile again, especially if your loss is tragic. I will delve into this topic a little more at a later point. 
• What if my grief involves a child or tragic accident? Grief is challenging in itself. But if the loss also involves unresolved survivor's guilt from an accident or the loss of a child, then it may take extra steps or work to deal with your guilt. 
• How can I get through this? This is a great question. And probably the most important question of all. Yes, you can. Nothing lasts forever. If your grief is relatively new, within the past two years, then it may feel like it will never end. There is hope.

Many psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, and others have discussed grief. One of the most famous is Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. You've probably heard about her if you ever took a psychology class or worked in the medical field. Kubler-Ross wrote a book in 1969 On Grief and Grieving in which she describes 5 stages of grief. Kubler-Ross' work focuses on death, in particular death from illness. However, I believe these stages can apply to all types of grief.

The 5 stages of grief according to the Kubler-Ross model are:

Denial

Denial gives your mind and body as chance to get used to the reality of loss. It is a gift, a grace period. 

According to Kubler-Ross, it is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle. The numbness you feel gives you a chance to take care of the responsibilities and empty gaps left behind from the loss. As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming stronger (even if you don't feel it), and the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all the feelings you were denying begin to surface.

I am great at this period of grief. I can stay here for months or even years. I am the ultimate ostrich with my head in the sand. I lost my mom two months after giving birth to my son. I was busy caring for a newborn which made it easy to remain in this stage. I was very close to her and wanted to avoid the pain of her loss at all costs. I stayed in this stage for over 5 years until I collapsed from the grief one day out of the blue. 

Anger

Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process because underneath the anger is pain and other emotions. 

You may be angry at certain people, yourself, God, or absolutely everyone. Anger has a bad reputation in our society. We want to avoid anger and the pain that lies beneath. According to Kubler-Ross, be willing to feel your anger. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. 

Bargaining

This this can refer to bargaining to prevent a loss that is going to happen or the pain that we feel when it does. 

Bargaining to prevent a loss: People may bargain with life, the universe, God. Perhaps you read a book or saw a movie where one of the characters promises to devote the rest of his/her life to helping others if God or the universe would just save his/her loved one from cancer. Perhaps the main character bargains with his spouse and promises to stop all gambling and affairs if the spouse agrees not to leave. Guilt is also a part of bargaining- perhaps if we had just taken our loved one to the doctor sooner, then the cancer would not have spread. Perhaps if we had gone to counseling last month like we told our spouse we would do, then she would not have left. 

Bargaining to prevent the pain of loss: We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt. 

Depression

This is type of depression is not what people think of when they hear the word depression. It is not the depression that hides anger, and it is not a mental illness. This is a response to grief. 

According to Kubler-Ross, after bargaining, our attention moves from the past into the present. Empty feelings present themselves, and grief enters our lives on a deeper level, deeper than we ever imagined. This depressive stage feels as though it will last forever. 

When a loss fully settles in your soul, the realization that your loved one didn’t get better this time and is not coming back is understandably depressing. (Or that your spouse is not coming home once the divorce is final). If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way. 

I spent very little time in depression and bargaining. I pretty much went from denial to depression. 

Acceptance

I like what Kubler-Ross has to say about acceptance. Acceptance is often confused with the notion of
being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. This is not the case. 

It is not about agreeing with or liking what happened. It is not about being totally fine with the loss. It is about accepting your new reality, your new life. According to Kubler-Ross, at first many people want to live as if nothing happened. But we can't live in the past; life has changed. "We must learn to reorganize roles, re-assign them to others or take them on ourselves. Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time."*

 

I went through depression for a bit until I thought about my mom rather than myself. What would my mom want for me? Would she want me to mope around and feel sorry for myself? Definitely not. She would want me to focus on my life and her grandkids. As time went on, I realized that the best way to keep her with me and move on was through stories. And kids love stories, especially if you make them interesting and include photos. I hope when I am gone my family tells stories about me, especially the funny ones!

Last Thoughts on Kubler-Ross' Stages of Grief

Just a reminder we are not robots, we are all different and interesting individuals! I like how Kubler-Ross makes this clear. She keeps the human in human beings. 

The five stages are tools to help us understand what we may be feeling. Not everyone goes through all of these steps or in an exact order. People also don't stay in these stages for certain amounts of time. We may go back and forth. We have a hard day and go back to anger. But, even so, in the general scheme of things we usually head towards acceptance. 

Join me again next time as I talk about types of grief, how to heal, and what to do if you find yourself stuck.