Grief

When watching the DNC Convention speech by Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris, I was struck when she said, “we are a nation that’s grieving”. At first, I assumed she meant because so many Americans have died from COVID-19, but she went on to talk about job loss, lost opportunities, changes to daily routine or normalcy in addition to loss of life. Politics aside, she is right. Grief comes in many forms. It is complicated. We are all grieving something and that impacts us in many ways.

What is grief? Deep sorrow caused by loss. Loss occurs with death, divorce, moving, job changes, major life events and the passage of time.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross first identified the commonly accepted fives stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Actually, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s co-author, David Kessler, to On Death and Dying has a new book proposing a sixth stage, Finding Meaning.

What are the stages? From Grief.com:

Denial

is the first of the five stages of grief™️. It helps us to survive the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. … Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle.

Anger

is a necessary stage of the healing process. … The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. … [It] is the emotion we are most used to managing. … It can extend not only to your friends, the doctors, your family, yourself and your loved one who died, but also to God.

Bargaining

Before a loss, it seems like you will do anything if only your loved one would be spared. … After a loss, bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. … We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time… Guilt is often bargaining’s companion. The “if onlys” cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have done differently. We may even bargain with the pain. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt.

Depression

It’s important to understand that this depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the appropriate response to a great loss. … Depression after a loss is too often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of. … If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.

Acceptance

is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. … This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality.

Notice these stages are not numbered. One does not move through the stages in a linear, predictable fashion. There is no set timeframe for you to spend in each stage. You may even bounce around from one stage to another and back again. It is natural to have these emotions while grieving a loss. It is not a sign of mental illness; however, sometimes unresolved grief can lead to a clinical depression and other conditions which do require treatment. Our emotional health is critical to our overall well being and should not be ignored or neglected.

I often think of the quote about making plans and God laughing. It’s so true. Life is uncertain. That uncertainty brings loss, but it can also bring unexpected joy. You have to take the bad with the good.

If you are struggling with grief, know that you are not alone. There are many types of support for all kinds of loss. Do you need help understanding what resources would best match your needs? Contact me today for assistance.

Kate Bender is a dual-certified Psychiatric Mental Health and Adult Nurse Practitioner. She knows, firsthand, life is messy and hard. Sometimes people need support and help from a professional. When working with Kate, your mental health will be compassionately addressed in a manner that honors your mind, body, and spirit. She lives with her family on the shoreline in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.