The 5 Stages of Grief: Tips for Coping with a Loss
Everyone has heard of grief and has a basic idea of what it is. But not everyone fully understands the stages of grief and how important they are when it comes to fully healing.
Grief occurs when there is any type of loss in your life. Whether you lost a loved one, a family pet, or even if you’re going through a divorce or separation, you have to be able to get through the loss in an effective and productive way.
The stages of grief are meant to help you get through your loss from start to finish. You’ll never completely “forget” the loss you experienced, and that’s not the point. The point is being able to move on from that loss and continue on with your life.
So, what are the stages of grief? And how can you cope if you’ve experienced a loss?
1. Denial
Denial is often the first stage of grief and probably seems pretty self-explanatory. Many types of losses can come as a shock—a sudden separation, the death of a family member or beloved pet, etc.
These losses can make the whole world feel overwhelming and almost surreal. You might not want to believe the person/pet you cared so much about is truly gone.
Denial isn’t a terrible thing. It’s your mind and body’s way of letting you cope by not giving you more to process than you can mentally handle at any given time. But, obviously, it’s important to get past the denial stage and understand that the loss really did occur.
2. Anger
When you get through your denial, it’s not uncommon to start feeling angry. Don’t try to hide this emotion. Instead, let it out (constructively!), and you can work through it faster.
Anger can make you feel stronger when you need it most. Maybe you’re angry with yourself or the person who died or left you. You might even be angry with God or a higher power. Give yourself the time you need to feel angry and express it in healthy, productive ways.
3. Bargaining
Bargaining isn’t a stage of grief everyone is familiar with. The truth is, bargaining and guilt tend to go hand in hand. You might start asking yourself a lot of “what if” questions. You might start to think of things you could have done differently to keep someone from dying or a loved one from leaving you.
Unfortunately, bargaining keeps you in the past. It forces you to try to negotiate your own feelings—even the pain you’re going through.
As you go through this grieving stage, wishing you could do anything to reverse the loss you experienced, it might feel like a step back. But it’s important to remember that these stages don’t have a specific timeline. What you must do is keep going forward and working through them. And, eventually, you get back to the present.
4. Depression
When you do come back to the present and you’ve stopped bargaining, you’ll probably realize that there’s nothing you can do to “fix” the loss. You can’t bring someone back. The reality of the situation might start to hit you heavier than it has already.
As a result, it’s not uncommon to feel depressed and hopeless.
As heavy and hard as depression might feel in the moment, it’s a normal (and necessary) stage in the grieving process. Obviously, any kind of loss is depressing. Allowing yourself to feel that and to experience it means you’re not trying to keep your emotions and feelings at bay. When you process them and allow them to come up freely, you’ll be able to heal faster.
5. Acceptance
Typically, the final stage of grief is acceptance. But acceptance doesn’t mean you’re automatically okay with everything that’s happened. You don’t forget about your loss or your loved one. Acceptance simply means that you acknowledge and accept the reality that the loss happened. That the person/pet is not coming back.
Do you feel great about it? No. But coming to this realization and knowing you can’t do anything to fix it can help you to let go of lingering feelings of anger and depression.
Reaching this stage can help you to grow. Because you’ve been through this experience, you can reach out to new people, reconnect with old friends, and start to move on with your life again.