Most of us have heard the phrase “in grieving”, usually to talk about the passing of a loved one. Grief in everyday language has become adjacent to mourning for a lot of people, but this isn’t the case. While mourning is the time taking to process the loss of a life, grief represents the feeling of absence or loss within our lives. It is then interesting to think that grief doesn’t always have to be accompanied with death. In certain cases, grief could be something extremely subjective and internal. Imagine the last day at your college, or the highschool farewell, a bad break-up or a job change. All of these instances can stir up a deep feeling of loss, whether its the loss of a phase of your life, loss of someone you cared about but aren’t with or simply the loss of a version of yourself.

An interesting thing here- grief is highly subjective. What can cause feelings of grief in one person might not in others, and some might grieve for a few hours or days, while others cannot get out of their grief. When there is an intense feeling of grief, it is accompanied with anxiety, confusion, even anger and depression. Everyone grieves differently with different intensities. It then serves us well to look at some of the commonly associated feelings with grief and when they can arise.

Anxiety

Situations like loss of job or graduation can lead to feelings of loss of a certain way of life, which can lead to feelings of anxiety. This is typically seen when the object of loss is someone or something that they heavily rely on.

Depression

When a loss or process of loss has been emotionally draining and intense, like loss of someone through a sudden onset illness or divorce after an emotionally turbulent marriage.

Relief

Loss after a long and gradual struggle, like a chronic illness or breaking away from an abusive relationship. Here, the grief can accompany a sense of relief for the end of struggle for both you and the person you have lost. This can sometimes be accompanied with feelings of shame or guilt for feeling glad about the end of a suffering, which can manifest as anxiety or as deep emotional turmoil.

Confusion

A sudden and abrupt loss can cause a sense of disorientation or confusion. Think about accidents, amputations or a sudden job loss. These can cause a sense of grief which can be coupled with anger, anxiety or depression, depending on how the person digests the loss.

Now, does the grief of one situation impact us more than the other?

The answer is – not always. Grief is a deeply personal experience and doesn’t need to necessarily follow a set pattern or a set of feelings. Then why do we try to list out feelings and situations for grief? It is simply to help people look through a structure which helps them navigate the experience. A very good example for this is Kubler Ross stages of grief.

This model provides us with a rough outline of how a typical experience of grief can be divided into stages of different emotional onsets. The stages are-

· Denial

This hits with the news of the loss. Ross says that denial and numbness come in initially to help us with our survival. We tend to ignore the effects of the loss to help us function in our day to day lives, as trying to unravel and process it might just be too overwhelming. So we gradually start letting in facts and feelings as we might have the capacity to handle them.

· Anger

Once the initial numbness wears off and the details of the situation have had time to sit with it, the next emotion is typically anger. In a way this can be understood as the built up resentment and frustration towards the helplessness for the loss. So, the anger acts as a way for the mind to become active and feel in charge, this can come out as anger towards your friends, family, the object of loss or even God and fate. The important thing is to realise that this anger shouldn’t be surpressed at the fear of hurting someone close to you, rather it must be channeled and managed into moving forward with your life in a healthy way.

· Bargaining

This stage is particularly interesting. In essence, it occurs at the beginning of a loss surfacing, wherein we try to bargain with the situation. Hopeing that the object of our loss isn’t loss completely, we think things like “if only we (partner) can remain friends after the divorce” or “if they (the departing) can live another couple of months.” But bargaining doesn’t stop here, after agner has surpassed, it comes back as rumination to the past. We begin to think about the days, weeks and months leading up to the loss, thinking about the things we could have done differently or if things had unraveled differently, we could have prevented the grief. Simiarly, we can try to bargain for the pain we feel, trying to rationalise it by thinking about the alternates that can never be- “ if only they were here”, “if only I had worked harder” (loss of job).

· Depression

After bargaining, the attention moves back to the present. Here, the loss hits at its deepest, especially after having thought about the alternatives for our loss. We lose all our energy and initiative, our normal hobbies and daily activities stop holding value and fulfilment. The disruption can be quite significant on our life. However, it is important to remember that this is an essential part of the grieving process and actually draws out the most appropriate reaction for the situation. If we have lost something or someone, then our most natural state is to be in a depression. Yet, one must remeber while navigating it that only through this stage can we process the loss fully and move beyond.

· Acceptance

Acceptance is misrepresented in most forms of media. People think it means to be okay with the loss or move on from it, but that’s not realistic or ideal. We never move over the loss of a loved one, or of a version of us that we once were, rather, the idea behind acceptance is to find the best way to live with this loss. This means that we remember and still grieve the loss, just not at the intensity that it overwhelms us. Some people use this time to find their new normal after the loss. It is interesting that this stage can look different for different people, for some it can simply be having more good days than bad ones, for others it can mean finding a new connection, a new job or a better sense of sense. The only way to reach this stage is working through the other emotions that arise on one’s surface, if we try to ignore them and march on, we might find ourselves in denial.

It is worthwhile to note that Kubler also talked about a sixth stage of grief- meaning.

This essentially moved the conversation beyond acceptance, talking about the way in which we can evolve from our loss and find some silver lining that helps us move upwards in our lives. Think about the people who start a trust or charity in the name of their loved one that they lost to a chronic disease, or a person who gets motivated to upskill himself after losing a job. Here, the trajectory goes beyond recovery, to thriving and fulfillment.

To end with,

we should remember that these stages can look very different for the different loses and for different people. Grief is a unique experience that awakens different things in people. The importance of having these emotions and stages in place as a guide is only to help people identify and introspect where they find themselves with their grief so that they can navigate it more easily. Another thing of importance is social and communal outreach- joining support groups and discussing your loss with people that are going through a similar phase always helps process it with a lot more clarity and reminds you that you are not alone. Sometimes, it is easier to connect with strangers in a similar loss than with friends or family that might not know it.