By: Jennifer Greene
Grief is attached to many different emotions specific to each person. According to the psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, in her book On Death and Dying (1969), there are five stages of grief. These are listed as shock and denial, anger and bargaining, pain and guilt, depression, and acceptance or hope. Two more stages were added later including upward turn as well as reconstruction and working through it. We have listed twelve different emotional experiences in those last two sentences alone. This does not include the mixed emotions not mentioned, which are also triggered by grief such as loneliness and sadness, passivity, redirection, or masking. The range of stages an individual goes through depends on their unique circumstances, emotional stability, and other factors.
You may be grieving from a personal loss such as a job or a housefire. Perhaps a significant event has caused grief like a loved one passing away or you and your spouse deciding to divorce. There is a multitude of situational and interpersonal influences that potentially may trigger grief. In the seven stages written by Kübler-Ross, it is said that not all the stages affect everyone necessarily. Nevertheless, she also thought that people enter at least two of these stages. The emotional experiences come in no specific order, nor do they have any set time frames or duration. The emotions that stem from grief can last days, weeks, or even years. An individual could deal with several different stages at once and repeatedly return to a select few over time. For example, someone might be depressed coupled with denial and then switches to becoming angry before cycling back to the depression.
So far, we can understand that grief is saturated with emotional experiences that are determined by various personal and significant events in our lives. It is also clear that because individuals are diverse and different from one another, their encounters with grief will also reflect an array of feelings and emotional reactions. People may deal with these moods or attitudes for any length of time, repetitively return to certain stages, and could be managing multiple emotions at once. On another note, it might be obvious that we all feel several emotions at any given moment. Another reason emotions, which were not stated in the seven stages of grief, have been mentioned above is because it may bring more awareness to the multitasking our mental and emotional selves always manage. Can anyone say they only feel one emotion at once or would you agree that most individuals are experiencing several feelings at one time?
Becoming aware that we are complex human beings is the first step toward learning how to understand ourselves better and cope with the circumstances in our lives. Grief represents this complexity because, in one word, it can magnify several different emotions at one time. Sometimes grief passes quickly making it easier to move on with life. On the other hand, some people may painfully grieve for decades before finding acceptance or hope. One major factor that could determine the intensity of someone’s grief comes from the strength in connection to the personal loss, significant event, or tragedy.
Like most people, I have experienced grief in many forms throughout my life thus far. From the recent shock of my dog that I loved for 15 years passing, the abuse I suffered in high school, or the heartbreak I still feel from my divorce back in 2013, I have experienced a great amount of grief in my life. And while I usually do not come to you from a personal place, I felt this article deserved a personal touch due to the emotional complexities of the topic. I would like to
additionally add some of my personal experiences with grief to help illustrate its diversity, variety of influenced connections, and unique emotional processes.
First things first, the death of a loved one. My grandfather passed away from cancer when I was thirteen. I remember the denial stage beginning before his death. I refused to believe he was as sick as he was. I also held a lot of hope at that time that he would get better. The night he passed remains vividly detailed in my mind. My body exploded with a combination of intense emotions. I did not handle losing my grandfather well at all. The years following included several bouts of depression, pain, and anger. It took me over a decade of cycling through the motions to come to a place of reconstruction. Nevertheless, I return to those emotional states occasionally every year. The loss of my grandfather is still with me today, showing us that grief may last a very long time.
The next example should be the loss of my best friend’s friendship. We met each other in high school, but after two decades of friendship, our lives began to grow in separate ways. We had a few disagreements and slowly the distance kept stretching between us. While there were no harsh feelings, it was an unspoken acceptance that we would soon become strangers to one another. I remember being distraught at the start of awareness, however, quickly moved into an upward turn of gratefulness for the time I did have with her. Working through this significant event in my life has moments of emotional difficulty, yet I seem to be moving forward rather quickly with a surprisingly positive attitude. Not all grief has to be devastating and painful. Sometimes it’s just a matter of the perspective you take from the loss or event.
Hopefully, in case you didn’t already understand, you realize that grief comes in all shapes and sizes. We all experience it at different times, within multiple stages, as well as through a large variety of complex emotions. Most of the time, it is not easy to deal with grieving. Nevertheless, it usually is a process that cannot be avoided. For even if you try to ignore your emotional state, those feelings are still deepening within you due to the uncharted territories of grief. Developing a practice of emotional regulation and learning to strengthen your emotional stability may help cope with symptoms of grief.
Overall, it is wise to always remember that grieving takes time and to be patient with the processing of emotions. I was told once that no emotion is good or bad but that right and wrong were relevant to any situation. Emotions are okay to express in various forms but remember that they may not all display ideal behaviors. That is where learning to regulate and cope with your emotions becomes vital to managing the experiences of grief. Remember, grief is a natural human experience unique to you and the circumstances you are facing. Also, acknowledge that you are not alone because we are all facing grief in one way or another.