The grieving process

Processing Grief

Everyone experiences the loss of a loved one differently. While the grieving process is unique to each of us, we all experience some common feelings as we work toward healing.

The different feelings we experience during grief are often described as “stages.” These stages don’t follow a set timeline, and people don’t necessarily move through them in an orderly, straightforward way. A stage may last minutes or hours. It’s not unusual to move from one stage to another, then return to the first. You may repeat this cycle many times as you work through your grief.

There are five commonly observed stages that people experience during the grieving process. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Denial

At the beginning, you may feel a sense of detachment, shock, or numbness. You may even wonder why you are not more upset over your loss. This feeling of disconnection is a survival response. It is simply nature's way of helping you to continue to function on a basic level while under extreme stress. Denial is a tool that unconsciously enables you to do the things that are necessary to carry on with your life in the days immediately following your loss.

Anger

Anger can connect you to others as you move beyond the initial numbness of grief. You may find yourself angry with the doctors, your family, the loved one who died, or God. Anger is a necessary part of the healing process. It is connected to your pain. The more you allow yourself to feel your anger along with the pain, the more it will ease and the more you will heal.

Bargaining

There comes a time when you may feel guilty for the person's passing. You tell yourself that there could have been something done to prevent it from happening, something that you could have done. You may try to pray for a trade off of some kind, negotiating with God. Don't be consumed by the "if onlys" or any theoretical situations, this will only make you feel more guilt. Try to have an open mind, begin to understand the situation in a logical and accepting way.

Depression

There will most likely be a period when you feel empty inside. This is the depression stage. It may feel as if it will never end and the pain will last forever. You may struggle with wondering if life is worth living and question life itself. Understand that depression is the most common response to loss. It would be unusual not to feel depressed after losing someone you care about. Accepting that your loved one will not return is very difficult. You must stay strong and keep moving forward.

Acceptance

Accepting the loss of a loved one is often misunderstood to mean feeling “completely fine” or “all right.” At this point, you have come to terms with the reality of what happened and accepted this new reality as permanent. You begin adapting to a world in which your loved one is no longer physically present. Learning to live in this new environment can be extremely uncomfortable. You may try to live as if nothing happened, as life was before their passing. Over time, acceptance can help you readjust and adapt. As you begin to find peace and live your life again, you may feel as if you are betraying your loved one. You can never replace what you have lost, but you can form new connections, relationships, and interdependencies. It is only natural to grow and evolve, change, and move forward. But we must allow the grieving process to run its course.

How long am I going to feel this way?

Everyone is different, and so is their grief. Each person follows their own path toward healing. There is no right or wrong amount of time to grieve, but many experts agree that it is not unusual for the grieving process to take at least a year.

Complicated Grief

The duration of the mourning process can also be influenced by your relationship to the deceased, the amount of support you receive, and other factors.

Sometimes the healing process may be disrupted or delayed if a person has experienced other significant events or traumatic losses in their life. This may be especially true if the other loss is relatively recent or has never been fully processed. This grief experience is known as “complicated grief.” People experiencing this type of grief may benefit from working with professionals trained to address complex grief.

If, after some time, your grief remains persistent and disrupts your daily life, please seek professional counseling.