Five Stages of Grief

Grief and pain is inevitable. It is something that all of us have to experience, at one point of time or the other. The reason for grief might be diverse, like death of a loved one, divorce, and so on, but its effect is almost the same on every individual. Infact, almost all of us go through various stages of grief, before realizing that the loss has occurred and we have to learn to live with it. Till date, five stages of grief have been recognized, which when complete, help a person overcome the pain. Each one of us has to go through all the five stages, to heal and to smile once again. In the following lines, we have explained what exactly the five stages of grief are.

 

 

The first stage of grief is that of denial i.e. you totally deny that a misfortune has occurred. For example, if a person in your family has died, you behave as if he is still there - hale and hearty. You do not acknowledge the loss, no crying, no grieving. This is the stage when you go totally numb with pain and are not ready to accept the loss. You start living in your own, dreamy world, where everything is as it was before the tragedy.

 

After you come out of the denial and accept the loss, the next stage will be that of anger. Instead of experiencing pain, you will feel fury and rage at being the one on whom the misfortune has befallen. You might start blaming the deceased person for going away, leaving you alone behind. Irritation at the most trivial of matters, holding resentment towards the world in general, etc are some of the feelings that you experience during this stage.

 

After the anger has subsided, you will start looking for ways to get back what you have lost. This is the phase of bargaining, where you start looking for ways to escape the tragedy. If you have lost someone, you might start bargaining with God - begging, wishing or praying for them to come back. You might also look for somebody else to put the blame on. It is possible that you start pondering over what you should or should not have done, to avoid the loss.

 

The stage of depression sets in after you realize that bargaining will not bring back the loss. This stage usually involves crying, withdrawal, grieving or any other way of expressing pain and sadness. During this time, you get surrounded by feelings of despair, misery, bereavement disappointment, sourness and abandon. You often look back at how things could have been, had you not suffered from the loss. All the hopes and dreams seem to be broken forever and you become disillusioned with the world.  

 

The last and the final stage of grief is acceptance. It does not mean that you become resigned to the loss. Rather, you accept that what has happened has happened and nobody can be blamed for it. Now, comes the realization that world will not come to a standstill and you have to move on with time, taking only the good memories with you. You stop shunning the world and even experience lessening of the pain. Though the sadness is still there, it does not stop you from living and smiling again.