Grief is the intense sorrow, especially caused by someone’s death. It is a natural response of the body. When we lose a loved one, the pain we experience is unbearable. Greif is complicated and the person will experience the doubt whether this will ever go.
There are 5 stages of grief:
There are distinctly 5 stages of grief that a person goes through when there is a loss of a loved one: they are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance.
DENIAL
This phase happens when they don’t believe that the person who died is not gone or dead. Denial tries to slow down the process of grief.
ANGER
After the denial phase comes the anger aspect. Anger over the loss of a loved one. Adjusting to the new reality and new normal will be definitely difficult for the individual. .
Unfortunately, anger is the first thing that one starts to feel when an individual releases emotions related to loss.
BARGAINING
When a person loses a loved one, one would want to avoid the current pain or the pain one is anticipating regarding the loss.
Examples of bargaining are:
“God, I ask you to please heal my husband, if you do that, I will stop drinking.”
“If you extend one more year for my husband then I promise that I will clean up my act.”
When bargaining happens there is a higher power that the bargaining happens with. This is also fuelled with the thinking that “I am helpless and there is nothing I can do.”
We tend to also personalize our faults or regrets. There is a tendency to think that this situation wouldn’t have happened if things had been different.
DEPRESSION
Continuously thinking about the problem, and making it all about the you and the person that just passed away is a constant feature in depression. There is an inward pull and the emotions become more real. The sense of it looming over the person. The heart becomes heavy and suddenly the person feels like he is carrying a heavy burden.
ACCEPTANCE
Once a person reaches that stage, there will be an accepting of the situation. An accepting of the reality and what has happened. It helps the individual feel better about the situation.
Sadness and regret may still be there as emotions but the denial and bargaining part will be less.
When talking about grief, the different types are:
Normal grief:
Here the emotion is characterized with tears, crying or sobbing. There is a general lack of energy, changes in attitudes and withdrawal from social events.
Complicated grief:
When addressing complicated grief there is anger and irritation, the individual is not able to focus on anything and it swarmed with depressive thoughts. The person may also indulge with self-destructive behaviour.
The other types of grief are:
Delayed grief:
This is a type of grief which happens on a later timeline. Someone who doesn’t address sadness and grief when it happens. This also happens because processing of those emotions haven’t happened yet.
Disenfranchised grief:
This is a grief where they can’t express feeling openly because of real pressures has impressed upon the individual.
Traumatic grief:
This type of grief on the other hand, happens when a death takes place violently, unexpectedly or someone dies without saying bye, like an accident or a suicide.
How to help oneself and others deal with grief?
One of the ways that we can help ourselves and others is:
1. No fixing and no trying to rescue: When we see someone hurting our immediate response is to rescue them. This is not helpful, it is better to offer upliftment with comments that are hopeful, or a safe space to open up and deal with the emotions.
2. Allow time to heal: Don’t rush the grieving process. We live in a world where everyone wants the other one to portray only happy feelings, being accepting of the individual’s sad emotions will help him to take the healing process according to his ability to deal with it.
3. Make yourself available to help: Take the help of support groups, friends or counselling to get the individual’s feelings and emotions as well as their thoughts processed. Understanding and validating the person will be highly valued in this process.
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