Grief refers to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors connected to the loss of something important.
Grief and loss are personal – no two people experience it quite the same way. Who you are, your relationship with who / what you've lost and your personal coping methods determine how you experience grief and how it will affect you.
Grief is not something you can make sense of. It's not linear and it doesn't just go away on its own. The process of healing from grief takes time. As the days pass, your capacity to deal with it gets better - even if the grief itself stays the same.
According to psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the five stages of grief are:
- Denial - "This can't be happening to me."
- Anger - "Why did this happen?"
- Bargaining - "Make this not happen-"
- Depression - "I'm too sad to do anything."
- Acceptance - "I am at peace with what happened and I can't change it."
These are natural responses to grief, though again - grief is not linear and these responses do not have to happen one after another. A grieving person may experience all, some, or none of these in any order. None of these are 'required' for the healing process, so don't worry about what you think you should be feeling. Remember, grief and healing do not make sense.
For some people, healing is a matter of days. To others, it's a matter of weeks, months, or even years. Some days, the loss may be manageable, and other days it may consume you whole. That is the nature of grief - it is overpowering, overwhelming, and unpredictable. Yet, the most important step to recovery is to acknowledge the pain and allow those overwhelming emotions to take over and let yourself grieve in your own way.
Only when you let yourself grieve do you take the step towards healing....