Relative Joy

There are five stages for grief.

Anger

Denial

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

It’s otherwise called in psychology the Kübler-Ross model and “postulates a progression of emotional states experienced by terminally patients after diagnosis and by loved ones after death.”

It is natural for all of us to go through a grieving process. Letting go is not as simple as it seems. When the circumstances leading to grief is a sudden one, it usually takes a longer time to reconcile the stages.

The element that makes us feel grief is love.

“Sometimes you can’t let go of what’s making you sad, because it was the only thing that made you happy.”

Denial is a defense mechanism that buffers the immediate shock of loss. More often than not, when people are unprepared for a tragedy, the denial stage is prolonged because we need to figure out the overwhelming emotions of the loss.

Anger comes when the numbness of denial wears off. There is blame, intense guilt, and various forms of anger.

Bargaining is the “what if” stage of grief. It provides temporary escape from pain, provides hope, and serves as the adjustment period to reality.

Depression is an appropriate response to the loss. There is intense sadness, inability to sleep well, feel demotivated, have poor appetite and experience nausea, and poor concentration.

When the stage of depression is too prolonged, mental and eventually physical health becomes compromised.

Then the final stage is acceptance. It means accepting the reality of the loss. And nothing can change that reality. And will move on from the loss. But not necessarily mean the person is “okay” with the loss.

The last blog for the month is a reminder that “grief is just love with no place to go”. And some good things come to an end. And whether they are happy endings or not, letting go and moving on will always be the stories of our lives.