Stages of Grief

~ you will never be forgotten ~

I’ve been reading a lot about the stages of grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, bevor the death in my family and also after. Her book ‘On Death and Dying’ is a must read for anyone who has no choice but having to deal with death and who’s interested to understand more about the topic.

She talks about the 5 stages of grief:

1. Shock / denial
2. Anger
3. Depression
4. Bargaining
5. Acceptance

Rather than stages where, once gone through them you’ll return to a ‘meaningful life’ I’ve come to understand grief on a personal and professional level as a grief cycle: We go through the stages again and again. Sometimes it seem that we haven’t progressed at all, as we are yet again facing anger, for example. It still means progress because the anger will have changed, not necessarily become easier to deal with but you will have gone deeper in the process of grieving.

I guess I have become less social due to my process of grieving and some people find it hard to just be with what is in the moment, which adds to the social alienation.

Just recently I read a post from another grieving mother on Facebook, which I found very useful, especially in the case of loosing a child:

The 10 stages of a mother who has lost a child.

1. Shock- You don’t know what is happening
2. Comprehending -what happened to my child
3. Questioning-why my child
4. Lose Faith-Am I being punished for something I did wrong
5. Blame-If only I would’ve done this
6. Guilt- Why am I alive and my baby’s not
7. Acceptance- My child is gone
8. Depression- I can’t cope
9. Grieve-Repeating steps 1-8, maybe all in one day, maybe in a
different order, maybe some more than others
10. Bereavement begins
Steps 9-10 have no limit, it could possibly be a lifetime of healing.

Related articles

• stages of grief (livelikenotmrw.wordpress.com)
• Grief – It’s Not Only About Death! (mrsrh3.wordpress.com)
• Stage 1 of Grief-Denial & Isolation (horoscopes.typepad.com)
• Great article on the stages of grief (curioustendency.blogspot.ch)

Unrecognizable to Myself

The Essential Bruce Springsteen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recently I listened to Bruce Springsteen’s song ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and the lyrics were all to familiar to me:

I was bruised and battered and
I couldn’t tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself 
I saw my reflection in a window
I didn’t know my own face

This is how I sometimes meet the person I didn’t know before: Me. The other Me. The part of Me that must have been there all along but maybe dormant.

Yes, I have been angry in my life. Yes, I have been unsocial, tired, quiet… at times but more often I’ve experienced myself as a friendly person that enjoyed social interactions, had friends to meet up with and laughed and enjoyed life. Now I find myself alone in a cafe, having lived in my home country again after 15 years abroad and really haven’t had all that much social contact with my friends that I still have (or maybe no longer have) from when I still lived here.

How Are You?

How are you REALLY?

Yesterday my sister asked me: How are YOU?*

It took me some time to answer and yet, my answer wasn’t able to fully express my state.

This is a question with so many facets. Answering how I feel is like summarising the ups and downs as they change so often and so much and it’s almost impossible to find a simple answer. It is also a question that, at least for me, requires a climate of space, time, openness, ability to feel, hear and be heard, acceptance and especially the ability of the listener to just allow the answer to be there.

So often in the past I have been offered solutions to ‘apparent problems’ that I didn’t even have in the first place, and not just when expressing how I felt. Why not just change the way you feel, if it doesn’t feel good! Especially when taking the time and opening up to how I feel it is disappointing that I’m met with not just my own desire to change it but also the always good-intended ‘I just want to help you feel better/different’ vibe. I know there is always good intention but more so it’s the uncomfortable-ness of being in the company of someone that is less than happy and smiling.

If there was absolutely no point or benefit in feeling exactly the way we are feeling at each moment, whether that is comfortable, bad, uneasy or the opposite, why would we?

Gone, Gone, Forever Gone

~

As I’m approaching the first anniversary of my Mother’s death I’m finding myself just a little bit challenged: even more angry than usually, less emotionally strong, wondering whether it’s just me… Oh yeah, what else would you expect?

Today when I mentioned to someone that I’m still really angry at ‘my Mum leaving us’ she gave me some suggestions like ‘maybe you should try to be compassionate?’ She meant well. I’m sure. But no, I don’t need to be told ‘not to be angry’, that’s just the fastest way to get me angry…

The same person said that ‘as long as your mother is alive you’ll always be a daughter’. Well, she’s 64 and her mother is in the 90s so they do have some life experience but she has yet to experience being a daughter when the mother is dead. I know what she meant. She meant well…

Avoiding The Present Experience

Get out of my way or I’ll scratch!

It is fairly common to avoid what we experience, specifically if we don’t like what the experience brings with it. Often, dare I say always, it is the emotional component that is disliked, unaccepted or denied.

I don’t like anger

I am aware of this right now. Today marks what would have been my mother’s 70th birthday, if she had not chosen to end her life prematurely in January this year. Today is a heavy day for me and I struggle with the mixture of anger at her decision to leave, her not being physically present and celebrating with her and her one year old grandchild, the feeling of missing her and on the other side the desire for me to be compassionate, accepting and seeing the positive in everything. Right now, the anger is much more prevalent and in my head I hear the screaming voice saying: ‘What the hell is there positive in this???’