About the Stages of Grief

When a person experiences the death of a loved one, a divorce, a job loss, or other trauma involving a major loss, he must go through several stages of grief. People experience and express their grief in different ways. A person who was very close to the individual who has died may grieve more quietly or in a different way than one who was not as close to the deceased. Someone who was surprised by the request for a divorce also may grieve differently than someone who knew that his marriage was ending. While people have different feelings and actions after a traumatic event, there are five separate stages of grief that most people must pass through to move on after a loss.

Denial

When a death or loss first occurs, the grieving person will experience denial. The person feels numb and in shock. He may withdraw from family and friends. He may also still sense, hear, or feel the person that has died, deny that the divorce is happening, or feel as though the loss that has taken place was only dreamed.

Anger

The second stage of grief is anger. The bereaved may feel anger at the person who died, at people in her office who were not laid off, and at the situation in general. She may also feel angry with herself for not doing more, not stopping the loss from happening, or not being there when it happened. The person will feel that someone must be to blame, and may express rage and blaming at people who could not have stopped the loss from occurring.

Bargaining

Once the extreme anger has abated, the person may begin bargaining with God or making irrational and unrealistic promises to himself or others. He may obsess over details of the past, analyzing what could have or should have happened instead.

Depression

After the bargaining phase of grief, the grieving person realizes that the person that has died is not coming back, that her divorce is imminent, or that she is no longer employed. This brings extreme sadness. She may be unable to eat, drink or sleep, or, conversely, may eat, drink or sleep too much. She may be unable to handle day-to-day decision making, and may have little control over her moods.

Acceptance

The final stage of grief is acceptance. While the person may still be sad, he is able to begin his routine activities again. He may talk about his loss more openly, and can focus on his positive memories of the past. Acceptance does not mean forgetting the deceased, marriage, job or home, but it does mean moving on with life after the loss has occurred.