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Writer's pictureDr. Rachel Ibaibarriaga

Grief in Real Life: The Truth about the Stages

If I ask the average adult what comes to mind when they think of the process of grieving, nearly all of them would mention The Five Stages of Grief. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. Sound familiar? We have all heard about the stages. This is still the most well-known guide for people coping with loss. We learn about it in school. We hear about it from our doctors. We hear about it from people in our lives. We see it in television shows and movies. The "stages" model of grief is all around us.

What most people don't know is that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the world-renown Swiss-American psychiatrist, actually did not initially develop these stages to apply to the experience of loss. She initially identified these stages as they applied to the experience of dying, as she worked extensively with terminally ill and other dying patients. Eventually, those stages were generalized to the experience of losing someone.

It makes sense, if you think about it, as to why this happened. What is it about grief that is SO difficult? Why is it so hard? Well, it is arguably the most profoundly helpless experience that we face as humans. We can't fix it. We can't think our way through it. We can't make the pain go away. We can't do any of this because the only thing that would make the pain go away, would be for our loved one to be with us again - for us to never have lost them in the first place. We want to go back in time - to bring them back. Losing something or someone we love is a kick-in-the-gut confrontation with the reality that we truly have so little control over our lives and what happens from one moment to the next. So... you bet your a**, we needed to find something to hold onto. We needed to have something - some model or guide - that made this helpless process feel a bit more manageable - a bit more in our control. Cue The Five Stages of Grief.

Now, if you are reading this, and you are one of those people that has grappled with loss and felt that the stages really fit with and reflected your experience, I think that is so wonderful. There is something really powerful about seeing your experience validated. However, for me, both in my own personal experience, as well as in my role as a psychologist, I have never met anyone who felt that these stages, in any way, captured their experience of coping with loss. In fact, the reason that I get so passionate about this topic is because I have seen first-hand just how much harm can be done when people feel like this model is the end-all-be-all model of grief, grieving, and coping with loss. Sadly, more often than not, the first thing that I hear from my bereaved clients who are seeking help is that they feel that they are doing it "wrong." They come to me feeling like something is profoundly and deeply wrong with them and with their way of coping. They feel like they are "crazy" or "losing their mind," because, again, they do not see their experience being reflected in this popular stages model. They end up feeling completely alone. They become more anxious, more depressed, more isolated, because they feel like something is wrong with them and that no one can understand what they are going through. They shut down or disappear - stop going to work or school, stop talking to or reaching out to loved ones, stop engaging in their lives. They question everything about themselves and their world - their strength as a person, their relationship to their loved one who has died, their ability to cope or function, their worthiness. They fall apart. And all of this is not even because of the pain of the loss itself, but because they are stuck in judgment of themselves - feeling like they are not grieving how they are supposed to.

This breaks my heart. Because we have become so attached to this one model of grief, those who do not see their experience reflected are suffering. They are suffering deeply, and, what's worse, they are suffering in silence. They're quiet because speaking up would mean admitting that they are having a different experience. They're quiet because they're ashamed and they're scared and they worry that no one will understand or that they'll be judged. The problem is that we are all suffering in silence, further reinforcing the pain, shame, and stigma of the true experience of grieving.

The more we speak up about our real, raw, and true experience of grief, the better off we will be. Yes, our loss will still be gut-wrenching and painful and helpless. But, we can hopefully remove the secondary pain of judging ourselves for not "fitting the bill." There can be relief in knowing that there is nothing wrong with us or with how we are experiencing our loss. We can start talking about all the other emotions that we might be feeling - emotions other than just sadness. We can talk about anger. We can talk about guilt. We can talk about relief or shame or resentment. We can talk about regret.

Grief is a NATURAL and human response to loss. You are allowed to grieve in whatever way feels natural to you. There is no one-size-fits-all model of grief. It is okay to fall apart; it is okay to not fall apart. It is okay to feel everything or nothing. It is okay to feel sad or relieved or guilty or angry or confused or empty. It is okay to question whether life has meaning, whether life will ever be the same, or whether you will ever feel "normal" again. There is no "right" way to grieve. There are no "right" emotions to feel, and no timeline or sequence in which you should feel those emotions. It is okay to feel whatever it is you're feeling. It is okay to not be okay. You are not crazy. You are not wrong or flawed or messed up because you are thinking or feeling the things that you are. You are not the problem! The problem is that we live in a world and a culture that just does not get it.

For this reason, we grievers need to stick together, we need to start the dialogue about grief in real life, and we need to find the safe places and the safe people who do get it and who can support us. Grief is messy and complicated. It can be overwhelming and debilitating and helpless and all-consuming. But it does not have to be lonely. We need to rethink the way we approach grief. You do not need to try to fit your experience into the "stages" model. It does not fit for everyone, and that is okay. Even Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said at the end of her own life in 2004 about the stages, "They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages... There is no typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grief is as individual as our lives."

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