Understanding the stages of grief really helps!
Everyone will experience some grief throughout their lives. Grief is a universal experience and the cost of loving. Not everything you love will be lost, but when someone or something you care about deeply is gone, grief comes rushing in to fill that void.
Grief can even be triggered when you lose a loved one, a pet, or a job, have to move into a new home, or simply when major changes happen in your life and you feel like the things you’re used to are gone.
Grief impacts everyone differently. But there are stages that almost everyone experiences as they navigate their journey. The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Let’s take a closer look at these stages, including what you can expect from each one.
1. Denial
It can be a difficult thing to accept a loss. Denial can make you feel dissociated from what’s actually happening. You might use it to protect yourself from reality or as a refusal to accept things the way they are.
Denial can take the form of fear or shock, but it often leads to emotional numbness. You can’t move forward through the grieving process if you’re stuck in denial. Once you accept the reality of the situation, you can truly start to heal.
2. Anger
Losing something or someone is painful. Some people deal with pain by getting angry. You might be angry about the situation or even direct your anger toward the person you lost. Some people even find themselves angry with God or whatever higher power they believe in.
Anger is a way to cope with pain, but it’s not sustainable or healthy. It can cause you to lash out at others and doesn’t actually address your feelings. Rather, it’s covering things up.
3. Bargaining
The bargaining stage of grief can often seem like a desperate attempt to do whatever it takes to reverse the loss you’ve experienced.
For example, if you’re grieving over the death of a loved one, you might bargain with a higher power to somehow “be better” if it means bringing them back. Obviously, you know that isn’t realistic, but when you’re in such pain, you’re willing to go to extreme measures to deal with your loss.
4. Depression
As the reality of grief starts to sink in and you realize there’s no going back to the way things were, it’s not uncommon to feel depressed. You might struggle with extreme sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness.
Physical symptoms of depression include:
- Fatigue.
- Changes in sleeping and eating habits.
- Even withdrawal from things you typically enjoy.
Depression can be an isolating thing, and if you let yourself stay in this state, it can have an extremely negative impact on your quality of life.
5. Acceptance
The final stage of grief occurs when you accept what happened. That doesn’t mean you’re automatically okay with everything and ready to live without ever thinking of that loss again. When you lose someone or something important, it will stick with you.
But accepting that loss means you can think about it and process it in healthy, effective ways. You can truly start to move forward with your life.
The stages of grief aren’t always linear. You might move forward and then go back, and that’s okay. There is also no timeline for how quickly you should go through these steps. As long as you’re working on forward progress, don’t push yourself too hard through the process.
Grief might affect everyone at some point, but that doesn’t mean you have to deal with it alone. If you’re struggling with loss, working with a therapist can help you develop strategies that will support you in working through it. Therapists at Wellness Matters specialize in dealing with issues of grief and loss. Feel free to contact us today to set up an appointment. You can connect with the Wellness Matters Intake Coordinator by texting or calling (218) 616-1276
At Wellness Matters, the intake process is all on-line and can be done in less than fifteen minutes. On-line appointments make it possible to attend appointments from the comfort from your home or office. In-person services may also be available for people living in northern MN.
