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Remember that the bad times pass...

	How to recognize the symptoms of Grief
	The Tasks of Grief that must be undertaken
	The Stages of Grief

 

The Symptoms     Of Grief

How do you know if you are grieving???     If you have suffered a loss through the death of a loved one or through divorce, and don't feel "normal", you are probably grieving.     If you exhibit or are feeling any or all of the following symptoms, you are dealing with grief.     You must allow yourself to feel these feelings, and accept the fact that you are normal if you are engaging in any of these behaviors and signs of grief. You need to allow yourself time to grieve because it is an important aspect in your healing. If you feel the feelings and work through them, your grief will lessen, and in time, fade.     If you are severely depressed for too long a time, if you think about ending your life, or if you become so incapacitated that you can't function day after day, you need to seek professional help until you are better able to deal with your grief. Seeking help is not a sign of weakness; rather, it is a sign that you want to live and move on with your life.

Feel physically drained Out of emotional control - feel good one minute; in the pits the next Can't eat - food makes you sick. People tend to lose up to 40 pounds while grieving Susceptible to illnesses "Zombie Effect" Feelings shut down due to your body's natural coping mechanism Brain is scrambled; can't think clearly or remember things Cry continuously Can't cry -- bottle it up (it will come out years later) Stay extremely busy so as not to have time to think Drink too much Take too many drugs Can't sleep at night Take naps frequently and are constantly tired Sigh a lot Lose interest in work; house; physical appearance Neglect personal hygiene Fantasize about the past Suffer from extreme loneliness Have lots of guilt about things you did or didn't do Lack of interest in sex Engage in self-criticism Have a huge hole in your heart and soul Think you will never recover from your loss Suffer from severe depression See no reason to exist

The Tasks of Grief

These are the tasks you must accomplish in order to work through your grief. It isn't always easy, and each person must accomplish these tasks in his or her own time. But each task must be accomplished in order for you to heal and move on with your life.

 

Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross did a great deal of work in the field of grief, and clarified the five stages of grief. Each and every stage of grief must be passed through and experienced before you can heal. Dr. Kubler-Ross later made it very clear that these stages are not necessary, or usually, experienced in order. In fact, she stated that they usually aren't. Be aware that even though you think you may have worked through a stage, you may suddenly find yourself back in it. This is O.K. It just means that there is something else that needs to be worked through. Let yourself do it. It is important to remember that grieving is a process. We must emotionally work through each of the grief stages effectively, and we must overcome our fear of grief. It is not a sign of weakness to grieve. Sometimes progress is like standing still but not going backwards; sometimes it is like one step forward and one step back; sometimes it is two steps forward and only one step back. Eventually you will have more steps forward than back, and finally very few setbacks in your path to becoming normal again. You must give yourself permission to grieve for as long as necessary. It takes some people longer than others, so don't be hard on yourself if you have to grieve longer than you think you should. An old saying is, "When you get sick of tired of being sick and tired, you will do what is necessary in order to heal." When you are ready, you will do your grief work.

 

These 5 stages were identified by Dr. Kubler-Ross, but some of the comments are my observations. Please be aware that you may pass through each stage more than once, and you may be in more than one stage at a time. There is no particular order in which you will work through these stages. Even when you think you have reached the end, another loss may trigger you back into one of the stages.

 

 

Stage 1:     Denial	The first reaction to a loss is Denial.   You tell yourself that it isn't happening. You tell yourself that your spouse will come back to you. With a divorce, you think that he / she is just going through a phase or mid-life crisis and will come to their senses. You think that you cannot accept that it is ending, and you refuse to see the obvious signs that it is over for the other person. With a death, you just don't accept it as final. When they are dying, you believe they will get well. You refuse to use the term, "died" or "dead".. you say that they have passed on. You don't go to the grave site to view proof of the death. In general, your mind refuses to accept what is happening.
Stage 2:     Anger	Anger comes as you begin to accept reality.   In a divorce, the frustrations that have existed in the marriage begin to come out. You become angry at the way you were treated, about the settlement offers, about your life that has suddenly changed about the way your spouse lied and deceived you, at the future you expected that will never be. With a death, you become angry at fate, at God, at the doctors, at yourself for not doing enough. If anger is turned inward (not felt or expressed), one becomes depressed. Anger should be gotten in touch with, expressed properly and dealt with. It is important not to be destructive in your anger, but it is equally important to express your anger. Expressing anger is a sign that you are beginning to deal with your loss. If anger isn't expressed, it will make you bitter and hamper your recovery. It is important not to bury your anger, and it is important to express all of your anger before you try to forgive that person.
Stage 3:     Bargaining	Bargaining is trying to get them back.   With death, the bargaining comes before the death. You promise anything if God will just let them live. With divorce, you promise the person you will change; you will do anything they want if he or she won't leave. You make elaborate plans for what you both can do to make it better. Sometimes people compromise their values and beliefs to try to keep a person from leaving. Sometimes a couple will get back together and try again when one spouse is so insistent that they try again. Very few marriages make it after it has gotten this far because the real issues of the discontent aren't dealt with, unresolved problems are not solved, unhealthy patterns have become ingrained, and usually one person is very unhappy with the marriage. Reaching the bargaining stage shows that you have begun to face the fact that the relationship is ending. You are past the denial stage. This is a necessary stage, and it helps you to look at what caused the problems in the first place.
Stage 4: Letting Go	Letting Go is the beginning of the end.   When the bargaining has failed, and you realize they are gone, you have to learn to let go. This isn't easy, but it must be done in your own time. You enter a different type of depression which makes you feel that your life is over. You wonder about you are worth, what you are here for, what will you do with the rest of your life. You feel all alone and think you will be alone for the rest of your life. This is a dangerous stage in which some people tend to give up, or even contemplate suicide. It is important to remember that you will get past this. Just knowing about this stage helps. You can be prepared by knowing that this is a typical stage, and that you will pass through it. It is a necessary stage. If you don't let go, you will hold on to an unrealistic dream for the rest of you life. With a death, you have to realize that the person is really gone and will never come back, and that nothing can change that fact.
Stage 5:     Acceptance	Acceptance means that you have reached the final stage.   When you have worked through all of the other stages, you will come to acceptance. You will realize that it is final, and you are ready to get on with your life. In a divorce, you will come to realize that everything happened for the best, and that your life does have meaning. You will begin to feel free from the pain and the hurt. You will be finished with your grieving. You are ready to move on to a new life and let the other life remain in the past. You will be able to remember the good as well as the bad.     With a death, you accept it as what was meant to be. You accept death as an inevitable part of life. You will always love and miss that person, but you realize that you are alive, and you have to go on living and make a new life for yourself without that person.

 

 

There are a few more stages that you might go through, so be aware that they are also a natural and normal part of grieving.    Shock and Numbness. During this phase you don't register any feelings. You know it has happened intellectually, yet emotionally it hasn't registered yet. You go about your daily routines and tasks like a robot, showing very little emotion for days, or maybe a few weeks. You may even wonder why you aren't feeling bad yet. You aren't able to cry much. Guilt. It is important to recognize this as a stage, too. It is normal and natural to feel guilty, both for things you did, and for things you didn't do. Don't beat yourself up too much. Everyone makes mistakes, and nobody is perfect. It takes two to make a marriage, and it takes two to break it up, although in some marriages the reasons are more obvious in some than in others, and the fault is more clearly one person's than the other's. Even if you didn't cause the breakup, you will feel guilty. Guilt is felt more by the person who leaves the marriage, although the other person feels guilty about what they think they did to chase their spouse away. With death, you may feel guilty that you didn't do as much as you could have for the person, or that it wasn't you who died. You may feel guilty for things you said in anger, or for things that you could have said but didn't. Those things are a part of life, and nobody is perfect. Just remember that you did the best you could do at the time.   Depression. Depression is an inevitable part of loss. It comes during the anger stage, and the bargaining stage, and in the letting go stage. It is characterized by many of the symptoms listed in the Symptoms of Grief. Depression is normal. It may last longer in some people than in others. Emotionally healthy people won't be depressed as long as emotionally unhealthy people or people who came from dysfunctional homes who haven't dealt with childhood issues. It is perfectly okay to seek help from a physician and take antidepressants for a time until you are better able to handle your grief. If you feel that your depression is lasting too long, you may benefit from the help of a therapist. Never be ashamed of taking medication or seeking professional help when you are grieving. When you no longer need the antidepressants, you will know and end your treatment. During the depression phase, you will cry a lot. Crying is normal, and tears are healing. Let yourself cry when you feel like it. If you cry constantly, everywhere, and it goes on for months and months, you probably need to seek medical help. Antidepressants will help you deal with severe grief.   Forgiveness. Forgiveness is a necessary part of healing. It is also a process. You can make up your mind that you need to forgive, but it sometimes isn't easy and it may take quite a while to completely forgive the other person. Don't try to forgive too soon in your grief process. You have go go through the anger and the guilt and work through both thoroughly before you can forgive. You have to forgive both yourself and your spouse in order to heal. You have to forgive in order for you to heal. Do it for yourself, not for the other person. Forgiveness is very freeing, and it is necessary in order for you to get on with your life without carrying nasty baggage with you.

 

Remember, each person grieves in his own way and in his own time. You will let go and accept your loss when you have worked through all of the phases of grief and dealt with each as long as you needed to. Don't let other people tell you, "It's time to stop grieving and get on with your life." Give yourself time, but don't expect time alone to heal. You have to do a lot of work. Read books, talk to people who understand, go to recovery programs, enter therapy, counsel with your minister,
or do whatever you can to heal.
You will be whole again one day.

Also remember that each time you suffer a loss, whether it be large or small, whether it be a person or a thing (such as a job or a house lost to a fire), it will trigger feelings that will bring back all of the feelings and memories of all of your other losses. You may not consciously think about them, but the feelings will be there. The grief may return momentarily, or last a few days (or longer) depending upon the nature of the grief. Go back and do the grief work again so that the loss is properly grieved.

 

A Word About Suicide Suicide is a permanent act, and is not a solution to your grief. You must remember that no matter now bad it gets, no matter now desolate, lonely, sad, miserable or lost you feel, it will get better. If you think that you cannot live without your loved one, you need to seek help. Being a martyr and ending your own life to be with the person who died (like in "Romeo and Juliet"), or to prove to the person who left you that you can't live without them is messed up thinking. Every person who is born has a purpose for their life. It is not up to you to end it. Even it you think that your life is worthless, you will be missed, and your suicide will affect those who know and love you. You have to live out your reason for being. You never know whose life you will touch, or you may never know the difference you make in another person's life. If you are having thoughts of suicide, if you think life is no longer worth living, if you think that your life is meaningless, please talk to someone. Don't keep your feelings to yourself. Seek help. Death is inevitable for everyone, but we should live our life and not end it prematurely. First of all, no man or woman who leaves you through divorce is worth it. You will eventually live a better life than the one you had with them, anyway. Secondly, if your loved one dies, they would not want you to grieve for them forever or to end your life for them. They would want you to live out your life as it was planned. They are happy now, and not suffering. Struggle through your grief and emerge on the other side of it ready to live and be who you were meant to be. You will emerge from your grief and be happy again. Trust the Process.