The Process of Grieving

The following is provided for those grief stricken by divorce or trauma.

(There are numerous conceptions of the grieving process.  The one presented here is one of the more well known but not universally acknowledged as definitive.)

 

Dear Client,

There is something I would like to share with you regarding grieving. There is evidence to support the belief that many people experiencing divorce, infidelity, death, or terminal disease go through as many as five stages in the grieving process. I thought you might appreciate knowing what these stages are in advance so that you are not surprised by them, and by being able to identify them in your life, take courage that what you are experiencing is normal and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You might not pass through them in the order presented, but you will most likely experience all of them, some possibly more than once.

Usually the first stage is denial - expressed by thinking, "this cannot be happening to me....It cannot happen this way....It should not happen this way (or to me)." Typically this stage is characterized by so many emotions that the result is an overall feeling of numbness. Concentration goes out the window, and time seems to pass with little or no awareness of what is going on around us, or memory of what we did. It is the "shock" to our system similar to when our body receives a serious physical injury before we feel the pain. Recognizing that you are in "shock" and that what you are experiencing is both normal and expected can help you cope. For most people, this is a brief period but might occur more than once.

Typically the second stage is anger. Here we move out of denial and begin to put a price tag on what we now acknowledge is happening to us. Not only is anger normal and expected, it can be useful. Anger provides energy and drive to accomplish the myriad tasks involved in dealing with the events surrounding your trauma. It enables you to take the appropriate action you could not take while in the denial stage. Some anger will be directed toward self as a result of guilt, and some toward others, including God. Realize that you are not the first person to be angry with God, nor will you be the last, and that He will not abandon you because of it.

After anger comes bargaining. Here you might try to negotiate a reversal or modification of the inevitable by making promises to your self, to others, and even to God, such as: "If I change ______, then please do not let ______ happen." It is somewhat related to denial but here you are operating more rationally, using your ability to think, reason, and plan. It is a time when you begin to identify and comprehend just how your past thinking and actions might have contributed to the situation you earnestly desire to change.

After bargaining fails to have the effect you seek, you might move into depression. Here you feel helpless in the face of circumstances that seem too powerful to even comprehend. You feel so small and insignificant, like a pinball in an arcade game, bounced about in a random and unfair existence. The stage of depression can be the prelude to many wonderful options that you might never have considered apart from the pain that brought you there. It is the stage King David was in when he wrote many of the Psalms we use to inspire and encourage. It is a time in which you can easily comprehend how small you are in the scheme of things, and the awesome power and control God has over everything. It is difficult to imagine, at this time in your life, that anything good awaits you, but please believe me when I tell you that most women, and men, tell me how wonderful their life became after they moved through this stage and how they wish they had gotten to that point sooner.

The final stage is acceptance. Here you are fully aware of what is happening, realize you cannot control it, and make the choice whether or not you will let it defeat you the rest of your life. You have processed the anger, and stand ready to do what you never thought you could do before your trauma. The prospect of a new and even better life ahead seems attainable. You have insight into how you have unwittingly played a losing game in the past and how you can win in the future. You are stronger, more resilient, and more free from your compulsion to try to control the people over whom you have no control. You tend to lose some, or all, of your infatuation with a make-believe world and begin to grasp how genuinely rewarding the real world can be. It can be a time of great excitement, optimism, and wonder, or it can be the beginning of an impotent lonely life characterized by anger and bitterness.

My hope for you is that you will find, as so many others have, that you can be stronger as a result of passing through this traumatic experience. My hope is that you will make choices resulting in you becoming more wise, confident, peaceful, trusting, compassionate, and more of a blessing to others - others who will seek you out because they sense you posses something priceless that they admire.

Sincerely,

 

Charles Jennings, M.C., LPC