It’s been pretty well accepted wisdom for some time that there are five stages of grief. Developed in the sixties through work with terminally ill patients, this model was supposed to describe the process by which people come to terms with the news that they have a limited life expectancy. The model was subsequently applied to the bereaved, and further to people who suffer other forms of grief, eg redundancy, marital breakup etc.
I have to say I am struggling to make it fit me at the moment. There is tremendous risk in making this statement, it’s “early days,” I may look back on this time and laugh at the denial I’m in now. And yet I really can’t make it work. I’ve believed in the model for so long it is frustrating not to be able to use it. I see others have challenged it and I think I do too, at least for the bereaved. I think it could probably work for some of the other application scenarios.
They say the five stages can happen in any order and may repeat or be omitted. So let’s look at all of them:
Denial: I don’t deny that the Professor has died, nor that he won’t come back, nor that my life has irrevokably changed as a result, nor that I miss him, or need him. How can I deny this? it’s happened, it’s a matter of public record, I was there when it happened, there were other people there too. I know I will never see him laugh again, or hear him argue with me, and I know his beautiful face and body no longer exist except in photographs and memory.
Anger: I don’t think I’m angry. Who can I be angry with? Him for dying? he wanted it even less than I, if that’s possible. I can’t blame him, he did nothing wrong. His medical team? they didn’t bring about his death, most of them did everything they could for him. The cancer caused it, can I be angry with a cancer? I don’t know how. I would like to be angry. I sometimes get a lot done through anger, it stirs me up to write letters that need to be written or make phone calls or rearrange accounts or whatever it is that needs to be done. But there is nothing to do here, and nothing to be angry about.
Bargaining: This one is the most ridiculous of them all. Just who can I bargain with? And what bargain can I strike? There is only one thing I want, and that is to have him back, laughing, joking, teasing, arguing, snoring, loving me, loving his family, his house, his garden, with all his energy and passion and intelligence. This cannot happen, and there is nothing else I want.
I often say to myself “I’d give my right arm to have him back” or “I’d give every penny I have to have him back.” And these statements are true. I would. But there is no person or agency on earth that can achieve this, and even if there were, this is the thing, what would they want with my right arm, or all my money, if they had the power to bring people back from the dead? They wouldn’t need anything I could give. So they won’t want to bargain with me anyway.
Some fundamentalists might say that Satan might make me an offer I can’t refuse. I just can’t picture that I’m afraid, it doesn’t fit my cosmology. Is that denial?
Depression: I don’t believe I’m depressed. I don’t hide under the duvet and hope the world will go away. I know that feeling, and I don’t feel it right now. I don’t feel like I’m under or inside an impenetrable cloud. I can empathise with others without being prompted. Ah, but they say the depression of grief isn’t clinical depression anyway (although that can happen) – it’s more “feeling sad.” If so that is just a cop-out – of course bereaved people feel sad, you haven’t designed a model if you say so.
Acceptance: I accept that he has died, but I will never accept that I am happy about it. Can it be that I am in acceptance after only five weeks? Without going through any of the other stages? I don’t believe it. Is that denial?
From personal experience with this grief stage thing it seems that the stages are not really ever clear. I accepted my husband died, I had to didn’t I? Planning a funeral sure makes it a necessary “stage” I guess. But I haven’t accepted that I should be OK with it.
What isn’t said about this grief thing is it isn’t a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 step process like we’d find in an AA program or something. It’s all over the place. 1, 4, 5, etc. Its complicated and its a solo process. No one tells you its ok if you’re not sobbing, though they’ll also think that you’re in denial.
No one tells you that it sometimes takes years and years and years to work through all the stages and once you think you’ve gone through them all…a stage repeats without warning.
No one can tell you what’s right or wrong for you in the grief process, because its so unique for each person there really is no road map.
All I can say is this, do it your way when/if you want. BUT remember the only past it is through it.
Its so extremely early for you…soon….5 weeks? I didn’t know what I was feeling, thinking, doing 5 weeks after my husband died. Hell I didn’t even know who I was! I just went numb. I stayed there for months actually. I decided I’d cried enough, was tired of making decisions so I wasn’t going to do either of those anymore for a while, if ever again. To talk about tackling the stages of grief was harder than considering flying to the moon.
Take your time and don’t worry if you’re doing it right. You are. How do I know? Because you’re wondering if you are, its not denial, its not lack of acceptance its just…grief with all the questions that goes with it. (((hugs)))
Thanks for taking the time to comment Rose.
I know the stages might come out of order, or you might miss some, or one might not come along for years. I don’t think you ever finish grieving, rather, you start living with it. I just don’t think this particular model applies to bereavement.
I think it’s more relevant to grief for a future event. If you know you’re going to die, for example, or lose your job, you might not believe it, you might be angry about it, you might try barganing (“How about if I give up alcohol, will that make my heart last longer?” “What if I take a pay cut, can you keep me on?”). I can see how those stages might be very relevant, and the other two too. But for past events, I don’t think they work.
And, I suppose, Cathi, that your grieving began long ago with his diagnosis.
Sending my love.
Indeed yes, we both grieved, mainly separately, occasionally together, last year when we were told the cancer had metastasised. There’s no doubt it helped having that advance warning – I was able to think through whether I would stay in this house, for example, and he and I were able to talk about what he really wanted his legacy to be.
I still have questions about how I will manage – what about all the spiders, how will I cope with them? and where is the pump that I need in order to empty out the water butts which are about to overflow? and what happens if, heaven forfend, I fall down the stairs, break my legs and can’t reach the phone? Perhaps these fears are out of proportion at the moment and I will eventually normalise them as we all learn to minimise the risks from the threats we live with every day.