When the five stages of grief were first presented back in 1969 by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, it was presented in such a way that made them appear linear. Of course, for those of us who experience grief, in some form, every day of our lives, we know the stages aren't linear and that when we reach acceptance, that acceptance is not permanent and we can easily rotate around to the earlier stages. And there are so many more than the traditional five of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I will explain the stages I believe are omitted in this post.
Once, when I was talking about grief with some like-minded widows, I explained my experience, and probably everyone's experience thusly. In the Friends episode called "The One with Phoebe's Uterus," Chandler is feeling inadequate as he approaches his first sexual encounter with Kathy, Joey's ex-girlfriend. He turns to Monica and she explains that women have seven erogenous zones and that you have to mix around the order in which the zones are visited. I like to think that the stages of grief are the same way. It doesn't necessarily go in order. It mixes on a daily, hourly, or even minute-by-minute basis. You may have a day when you are feeling depressed, then you get angry, then depressed again, then acceptance. Thing is, you keep cycling through the stages and I'm not sure there is ever an "end" to grief. As long as you are alive and missing your husband or wife, the grief will continue, just in ways you learn to handle better.
I would add at least three additional stages. The first stage, I put to you, isn't denial, it's numbness. It is just impossible to believe, and then you move into another stage not on the list, abject sadness. I know, for me, the first month or so after Chris died, these were the two places I found myself, going back and forth between just being numb and being more sad than I felt a human being could be. As we in the "west" have become more open in our dealings with grief and discussions of death and dying, I think denial has become less prevalent. We are no longer in a society that wants to deny death, and so I don't think we, as individuals, deny it as much as we may have 50 years ago. A better term would be disbelief. Another stage that isn't in the original five stages is self-doubt or guilt. "Could I have done more?" "Did I do everything right?" "Did I leave him/her in no doubt of my love and devotion?" I remember when my parents were in a very serious automobile accident, my mother and I had had an argument as they walked out the door. My mother almost died and all I could think was that she would die remembering my teenage words of anger. It wasn't until years later that I told her about this and she, of course, told me that she would never have left this world doubting my love for her. And that was a comfort. I know that when Chris died, all he could hear was me saying I loved him. But even that didn't keep me from wondering if I had done all I could have, that I did the right things to bring him comfort, that there was nothing more I could have done.
Another stage that I would add would be becoming either more introverted or extroverted. Some people want to grieve alone, others want to grieve amongst friends, most want a combination of both. With the lockdowns we experienced during the height of Covid, I think grief was a far more isolating and lonely experience. I'm glad that's no longer the case.
With my own grief, and its expected "rotations," I feel abject sadness, disbelief, depression, guilt, and acceptance. I can feel all or just one or two at any given time. And I've learned how best to cope with them. When I feel disbelief that Chris is dead, I just remember that his spirit is still very much alive and very close by. When I feel sad or depressed, I remember how lucky I was to have him in my life and how much he brought to me through his love and friendship. When I feel acceptance, I feel peace, but also a little guilt because I shouldn't accept it. I should fight the acceptance of someone so wonderful and relatively young being taken by a cruel and callous disease. That is the one and only thing I am angry about - that billions of dollars are donated to cancer research every year and we still haven't figured out how to eradicate it completely.
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The photograph I've chosen is an image Chris created when we were living in Moffat. I remember when he finished it, he was so excited. He called this creation "Spring Bulb."
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