Grief
According to Wikipedia, The Kübler-Ross model, or the Five Stages of Grief™, postulates a
series of emotions experienced by terminally ill patients prior to death
or people who have lost a loved one, wherein the five stages are: denial, anger,
bargaining, depression,
and acceptance.
This model addresses grieving before and after death, but I believe the stages are relevant in any type of loss, including death, job loss, and relationships, both intimate and platonic. While the stages might be the same for each, the process of grieving is different according to the type of loss, and no two experiences will be the same.
I’ve experienced a variety of losses in my life that have all caused some form of grief. I’ve navigated grief after the death of friends and family members, some expected and others not expected. We expect grandparents to die because they’re often older and it makes sense, but they still hurt. I remember playing music at one grandmother’s funeral and journaling heavily after the death of the other. After my sister lost two of her children, I once again turned to writing to get my thoughts out and wrote a song for each of them.
The unexpected deaths are a little harder to get through because we’ve had no time to prepare. But even the expected deaths, that we’ve spent time preparing for, don’t occur without us feeling and spending time in these stages of grief. My father passed away a couple months ago. He was battling stage four lung cancer and it was inevitable. Treatments stopped working and even with treatment, he wasn’t expected to live much longer after being diagnosed. But he lived ten hours away in another state. We were all on lockdown and isolated because of COVID-19. All of these things are difficult on their own, and when thrown together, it seems unmanageable. It wasn’t impossible to grieve but this experience was like no other. The stages came and lingered awhile. The “normal” activities that come after someone’s death couldn’t happen immediately. Everything was put on hold. It took me a couple of weeks to even gather my thoughts enough to write, but I was finally able to do it and give myself a little bit of closure. I was never in denial about his death and I’ve tried to bargain/reason my way to acceptance of it. I am still angry and depressed and that’s okay.
My experience with grief after a job loss was unique. I spent a lot of time being angry, full of disbelief and questioning myself. I worked for a doctor and had been in the same position for five years. With any job, it was something I was never expecting to lose. I had good attendance, was on time, stayed until the work was done, and performed well. I wasn’t disruptive to others or argumentative to authority. I did my best to do everything right. And then one day, she asked me to do something that would have been considered insurance fraud and, if I was caught, could potentially result in me getting sent to prison. I didn’t feel right about it, couldn’t believe she asked and wasn’t even sure it was really happening. I might have been more shocked about her asking than I was about losing the job. This was the only thing I ever refused to do, and it wasn’t to be defiant. It was simply because it was not right.
When I refused to do it, she asked a couple of other people to do the same thing and they also said no. At the request of one of them, the three of us confronted the doctor and told her we weren’t going to do it or help her do it, and if we saw her doing it, we’d turn her in. She fired us all immediately and said it was not okay to threaten your boss.
I’d never been fired from any job before! This came as a shock, and I was angry for a long time. Not only had she asked me to commit a crime, but then fired me for trying to maintain my own moral integrity. I spent months, almost an entire year actually, sorting through my anger and realizing that my response was not appropriate. This experience was certainly different from any other type of grief I’ve gone through. It wasn’t something I expected, which caused shock, and I had to come to terms with the part I played in it. I could have responded differently. I could have prevented this loss. I’m glad I said no to her request, but grieving this loss was unlike any other.
When relationships end, whether romantic or not, we suffer grief. I’ve not been divorced, and really had no long-term relationships before my marriage. But I’ve watched friendships fall apart and those losses are not easy to navigate. When we become friends with someone, grow close and begin to confide in them, we get over confident. I’ve said too many times that a friendship will be forever, or that nothing will ever come between us. And some friendships do last a lifetime; it’s not impossible. But when the ones you anticipate lasting a lifetime get dissolved, it’s tough. I’ve been responsible for friendships ending because of my own selfish actions, and while those are hard to overcome, the stages of grief are different. Maybe because when we terminate the relationship, we are in control and have already worked through the stages before the loss.
When we are on the other side of the relationship, it’s more difficult and the grieving is more evident. The last friendship of mine that was broken completely blindsided me. I got to a point where I felt a boundary needed to be set and truly believed if our friendship was as strong as she’d convinced me it was, she would respect the boundary. Instead, I was hit with “…then our friendship is over.” Nothing made sense at first, and some of it still doesn’t. I was angry, sad, and in denial for sure and it took me a long time, and therapy, to get to the acceptance stage. I bargained with myself for a while and almost considered removing the boundary just to save the friendship, to prevent the loss.
With any loss, a peace comes when you reach the acceptance stage. Getting there is trying and sometimes lengthy, but I think the stages before acceptance are critical. They’re where we think, feel and maybe learn.
If you’re grieving, please remember
there is no right or wrong way to do it, no two people will grieve in the same
way, not even for the same reason, and the time it takes to move through each
stage does not have a limit. It must be done in your way and in your own time.
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