Understanding the Grief Process

Grief Heals:
When someone you love dies, possible futures are lost. You have lost what might have been. You may have to find new ways to express nurture and be nurtured and other persons with whom to share. There may be losses of familiar places and habits. A loved one who has died may revisit in your dreams. Objects and places that were part of your shared history may bring back vivid memories.

Grief is a normal, human process:
Understanding grief is a good start for the process of healing after someone you love dies. Grief is a basic, human process of dealing with the loss of "what has been" and moving on to "what will be." When you don't give yourself permission and time to grieve fully, the grief you suppress can pop up later and pollute your life and future relationships in unexpected ways.

You aren't crazy or defective for feeling some of the feelings grief will bring you. You are doing what people do as they recover from loss. What feels like irrational behavior or unexpected emotion is understandable when you see it as part of the larger process of grieving.

Stages of Grief:
Grief plays a role in any change in our life. It isn't a pleasant prospect, but it's a fact of life. Grief has a beginning, identifiable facets, and an end. The stages of grief ebb and flow in unpredictable waves. Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified the normal, healthy facets of the grieving process.

Denial:
"The loss has happened," you may say to yourself. "Now let's be done with it!" You don't ever want to go there again. Why think about it? It just makes you sad and mad all over again. "Why spoil today by revisiting old hurts? Forget it and move on," you might say to yourself.


We have a hundred ways to deny that our loss exists. We can't let it in. It's too painful; or we're afraid the feelings would overwhelm us:
     "This really isn't happening."
     "It really wasn't that big a deal."
     "I shouldn't feel bad... It's all for the best."


People can get stuck in continuing denial. They develop "no trespassing zones" in their life that are too painful for them or anyone else to visit. To stay safe from feeling grief, each new loss becomes a new "no trespassing zone" no one may enter. Denial leads to more denial; and ultimately to a brittle and careful life.

Bargaining:
We all want to avoid pain if we can (denial). If we can't avoid it, we at least want to learn what it was that caused the pain so we can be sure never to do that again! This is bargaining. There are always "if-onlys":
     "If only I hadn't done that, or gone there, I wouldn't be hurting like this now."
     "If only I had said this, or left that unsaid, maybe things would be different."
     One of the biggest "if-onlys" is, "If I hadn't loved him/her so much, I wouldn't be feeling so bad now!" That may be true, but if you follow that rationale to its logical conclusion, you would need to isolate yourself from everyone.

Anger
...is also a normal part of grieving. We expect the world to be logical and fair. But life isn't fair, and bad things happen to good people. Sometimes there isn't any answer to the "why" question, and that can make us mad.

You can express your anger at your human imperfections or what you feel are the weaknesses or mistakes of others and do "if-only"s at the same time: "If only I hadn't said that." "If only we had gone to the specialist earlier."

Although anger is a normal and healthy human emotion, sustained anger over weeks and months can be corrosive. Long-term anger directed at another person or at the world or God ultimately damages the one who holds on to it. It's like drinking poison and hoping someone else will die.

Depression:
After you've tried denial and bargaining, and after admitting the painful reality of it all and how mad it makes you, you may withdraw. Your loss is real and it won't go away. You may turn inward for a time to regain your inner strength and emotional flexibility after an "injury" such as the death of one you loved.
Depression is a normal part of healthy grieving. You may need to spend time alone with your hurts. You don't want to be artificially "cheered up" or told you should "get over it."

Depression is like a drain on your "battery." You continue to operate normally, to all appearances, but you feel depleted emotionally. You have no energy. You may sleep longer than usual, or be unable to sleep at all. Your sense of humor and your taste buds take a vacation. Your emotions seem to flatten out.

Tears sneak up on you at unexpected times: at 2:00 AM; at the stoplight; in the middle of a conversation with a friend. Insensitive and superficial people irritate you; and you avoid them. You can't "just snap out of it."

Someone clever with words defined depression as "anger without enthusiasm." It's true in a way. Depression feels at times like anger that has collapsed in on itself.

Grief comes in waves:
It's normal to experience all of grief's various stages; and to skip back and forth between them. You can feel angry one minute; "if-onlys" the next and depressed within moments thereafter. You can slip into denial that the whole thing really happened.

It's not a step-by-step, once-and-for all process. The phases of grief come and go as you work through your loss. Denial may be more prominent at the beginning of grieving and depression more evident toward the end, but all of them will be part of the mix. It's important to recognize denial, bargaining, anger and depression as parts of the larger process of grieving and allow each to do its work and move on.

Acceptance:
The final stage of grieving is acceptance. Acceptance is the signal that you are coming to an end of your active grieving. The end of grieving isn't forgetfulness. You don't wipe away the memory of your loss. Acceptance is the ability to take the gift of life and love with that one who has died, put it in your heart, and move on with your life.

The pain can subside with time, if grief is allowed to work its way through you. Time helps. The loss moves from your present into the context of your past. It remains part of you, but doesn't "drain your battery" any more. There will be scars; but wounds heal and bruises fade.

Trust the Process:
Your friends may give you three weeks or three months to get over it, but grieving the death of a loved one can take a year or more. It can't be hurried. If you suppress or obstruct the grieving process, it can take much longer! When you repress your grief, you create a closed loop, recycling through denial, "if-onlys", anger or depression over and over again.

Old griefs you haven't fully come to terms with will pop up when a new grief comes along! If you have a pattern of repressing grief, over time you may collect a closet-full of painful old wounds that have only partially healed. When a new loss - a job change; a change in housing; a failed relationship; an illness - comes along, all the old losses will piggyback on the new loss and it can feel like too much.

Because it's overwhelming to deal with all of them, the grieving process is denied again and the old griefs, along with the latest new one, are crammed back into the overflowing closet. Life becomes increasingly cautious as the stack of unresolved griefs increases.

To be healthy, happy and healed, you may have to do some work unpacking your old griefs. It may be painful to face old losses, especially while you are trying to cope with the death of a loved one. But old unresolved griefs can insert themselves into your current grieving. If they are there for you, try to "go with the flow." Feel the old losses along with the new. Don't resist them. It's OK to feel sad, mad, withdrawn or depressed for a while.
Find a counselor or an insightful friend who will sympathetically listen as you "rehearse" the story of your loss(es) as often as it takes for the losses to lose their urgency within you.

Some Specific Suggestions: