UNDERSTANDING GRIEF.................

Losing someone or something very important triggers an intense and overwhelming emotion known as grief. 

People grieve when a loved one dies, or when they or someone they love is diagnosed with a terminal illness, or when their relationship falls apart, or they get separated from someone they loved, or they lose a job or a career, or when they move away from their homes, states and countries. 

The list is very long. So where there is a loss there is grief.

The intensity of grief depends on the ‘sense of loss’ one experiences. It is very personal. No one can define how much one should feel the loss and grief in a particular situation. How people express their grief is also very personal.

Grieving is a process; it cannot be hastened, it cannot be controlled by medicines and directed by mourning rituals.  There is no set pattern of this process and there is no timelines. For some people grief lasts only for a few days while for others it many last for months or even years and for some it may be an off-and-on process.

Some people consider grief as a negative emotion. They think if people learn to ignore it, their pain of loss will go away on its own. Actually, the more you ignore it, the more painful it becomes. It is very important to accept your grief and deal with it actively. This will help in healing the pain.

People express their grief differently. Feeling sad, frightened and lonely is natural when someone or something very important is lost. 

Some people express their pain through crying. Crying is not a sign of weakness. It is just a way of expression of loss. In fact, not crying, when you really want to, is a sign of weakness. 

On the other hand, not crying does not mean that you are not feeling the pain of loss. However, it only means that you might have other ways of expressing your grief.

Psychologists have defined 5 stages of grieving process based on their observations of different reactions and responses of people who have gone through this process.

These five stages are not fixed and not all the people go through these in a set sequential way.  As mentioned earlier, grieving is very personal and so is it’s process. People may move back and forth in these stages and may or may not be able to come out of the grieving process.

However, the understanding of different stages helps the care-givers to provide appropriate help to the griever. You may think of these stages as the tools for the helper.

Here are the five stages or types of responses towards loss.

Denial and shock: 

This is the first stage of grief. When something bad happens, there is disbelief, numbness and nothingness. These are immediate and spontaneous defense responses towards shock. These responses protect the person and help her/him bear the loss. These responses work as filters and only allow that information which s/he can cope with.

Once s/he starts asking questions and let more information in, these defense-responses become weak and s/he gets aware of the loss. This awareness leads to the acceptance of reality and the person moves to the next stage of grief, which is anger.

Anger:  

The actual feelings behind anger are the feelings of abandonment or desertedness or rejection or breach of trust and faith.

This stage is very necessary in the healing process. When the person feels angry, it is a sign that s/he is out from the stage of numbness and nothingness. S/he reconnects with the loss and with others. Anger gives the way out to her/his pain. Once the pain is reduced, the person moves to the third stage of bargaining.

Bargaining:  

In this stage the person thinks about the circumstances and the reasons which had led to her/his loss. S/he thinks about all the bargains s/he should have done to prevent the loss. S/he may try to bargain with God and wish God will set the things right once again. 

S/he may try to bargain with current pain. You must have seen many people start doing something that can reduce their pain and fill the vacuum the loss has created in their lives. They may indulge in constructive or destructive behavior.  But, destructive behavior like indulging in drugs and alcohol may worsen the pain and obstruct the healing process.

Depression: 

The more the person gets connected with reality, the more s/he feels the loss. There are feelings of emptiness and void that lead to depression. It is important to know that this depression is not the clinical depression. 

In this stage grief enters into a deeper level. The person may withdraw from life, there are intense feelings of sadness and s/he wonders how she/he will carry on with life. S/he may even question the need to carry on with life.

Acceptance: 

This is the last stage of grief process. Acceptance does not mean that everything becomes normal once again. Acceptance means that the person has learnt to live again. S/he has established the new normal for example s/he has taken up new roles and responsibilities, established now connections, and developed new meaningful relationships. S/he has evolved and has changed as a person.

In case of loss of a loved one, sometimes person develops a sense of guilt also. When s/he starts living a normal life, s/he may think she/her is betraying the loved-one and gets confused whether s/he should feel happy again or not. Some people are never able to overcome these feelings of guilt and are not able to live a peaceful life. Society also plays an important role here in the readjustment of the person after the loss of a loved one.

A Reminder-

Not all the people go through all the stages and in the same sequence. People move back and forth and may or may not be able to come out of their grief. Some people say that grief only changes its form but it remains there with them.  It may not be painful anymore but it is still with them in the form of memories.