Everyone will experience grief and loss at some point in their lives. Grief can impact people in many different ways and can look very different from person to person. It also doesn’t just come from the death of a loved one. People can experience grief that can be brought on by loss of a job, a housing move, loss of a friendship, opportunities, a relationship, and any number of things. It can also be brought on by a loss of a social role, such as the role of a worker when someone retires or the loss of parenting role once children become adults and start their own lives away from home. People often talk about the stages of grief, something we’ll discuss in detail here.
Grief can be about mourning the actual, physical loss of a person but it can also be about mourning the future and dreams involved with that person. Any joint plans, expectations, or hopes for the future that can no longer happen because of someone not being in our lives anymore can all come with an experience of grief and a feeling of loss and mourning.
There is no one way to grieve and there is no one definitive list of what can cause a grief response for someone.
The Five Stages of Grief
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was the first to detail what many of us know as the “five stages of grief”. While she initially developed these to explain the process those with life-threatening illnesses go through once they receive a terminal diagnosis, it can also be applied to many other forms of grief. These stages are not linear. What this means is that someone can go through them in any order, may never experience certain stages, or may go back to stages even after “resolving” them. For example, someone may reach acceptance, but may then experience anger or denial again.
Denial
This stage is defined as not being able to accept or understand that someone or something is truly gone. People can experience this as an expectation that things will go back to normal and that this is temporary. When dealing with illness, for example, it is a denial that the diagnosis is terminal and that you or someone you love will find an effective treatment that will not result in death.
Anger
When talking about the stages of grief, anger can be seen as a desire to blame someone or something else. Often this is seen as an expression of things not being fair or just. “Why is this happening to me?” “Why would God do this to me?”
Bargaining
With grief, bargaining often looks like trying to make promises to the universe, a deity, or someone in our lives in order to make things go back to normal. This is different from denial because the person accepts that the loss is happening but not accepting that nothing can be done to change it. Sometimes this can look like “I promise I’ll go to church again if you save my mother from dying” or “I promise I’ll take my medication and go to the doctor if I can just get better.” It’s an attempt at gaining control over a situation in which someone feels helpless in the face of their loss.
Depression
This is a realization of the loss, and the fact there isn’t anything that can be done about it, which often brings upon strong feelings of despair and hopelessness. Often people withdraw from their families or loved ones as a result of this. It can be seen as “What’s the point?” or “Why should I even bother?”
Acceptance
This should not be seen as the end of the grief experience or cycle. People do not always reach “acceptance” about their loss and then stop there. Sometimes someone can accept their loss but then go back to anger or denial, for example. This stage involves accepting the reality of their loss and no longer trying to change it but moving forward. There is an acceptance that things cannot go back to the way they were before the diagnosis, the housing move, or the job loss.
Grieving
The process of grieving and going through these stages is incredibly personal and individualized. No two people will experience grief or mourning in the same way, even if they are responding to the same loss. Two siblings going through the loss of a parent will experience this loss in different ways, going through different stages at different times, and reconciling with their own personal experiences with this parent and the impact of the parent’s loss on their lives.
It is normal to compare your experiences with grief and loss to how others are experiencing it or how society tells us we should. Our perceptions of how others are experiencing a similar grief can also impact how we should or should not be behaving or reacting to grief. There is no timeframe for grief and there is no normal way to grieve. Our personal way of grieving is not wrong just because it doesn’t look like someone else’s.
Help and support
There are many different resources out there for people who are grieving. Getting support and care from those we love is certainly a first step. We can also take extra steps to be gentle with ourselves and prioritize self-care. Bereavement therapy is an option for those who feel grief is impacting their lives in a way they need extra support with and there are many grief counseling groups revolving around different forms of grief, such as child loss or parent loss.
Additional resources
About the Author
Kerry Moran is an intern at CCC who is currently enrolled in the undergraduate psychology program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She is currently applying to graduate programs for her master’s in counseling with the goal of becoming a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. Grief is a topic that is close to her heart and something she feels passionately about, especially since so many people grieve alone as a result of societal pressures. Grief and grieving are important parts of the human experience and her hope is to be able to one day work with many different types of clients, but especially those experiencing grief and loss.
