Grief and loss

There’s so, so much happening in the world right now. Momentous events (disasters is the word I prefer) both natural and human that are hurting others, leaving people homeless, injured and without essentials. People have died, lost or lost contact with family, friends and pets. It’s heartbreaking.

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Grief and loss can come from little things as well as major, newsworthy events. There’s the grief of losing a loved one. Whether expected or sudden without warning, losing a loved one is hard. Both are hard in different ways. Losing someone slowly over time through a medical condition allows time to ask questions, share stories and make memories. A sudden loss is abrupt leaving you with questions, grieving planned experiences that didn’t happen.

In some ways I feel that watching someone slowly drift sway can be harder than the sharp sudden loss. Depending on the illness, the person you knew starts to fade in different aspects, physically or mentally or both. But you grieve differently. You start to grieve from the moment you know your time together is limited. With sudden loss your grief starts with shock. In both cases there’s a before and after but in my opinion the longer time starts with a mix of shock and hope. The hope of we can beat this, there’s this treatment, hope that the predicted outcome is not going to happen.

Then there’s loss in the form of jobs, homes, friendships, hopes and dreams. While in some instances these could be seen as smaller, less significant losses it really depends on your perspective. If your identity is completely formed by your role in the workforce, then the loss of a job effects not just your financial security but also your sense of self. The loss of a friendship, could be just a heartbreaking to you as the loss of a spouse. Everyone is different.

How do you move on from loss? It really depends on how deep that loss was to you. For example, our pet rabbit (the bunner) has been really sick and the Youngest and I have taken her to the vet multiple times. The bunner is now much better. But it took an emergency vet appointment, 3 normal vet appointments and lots of syringe feeds of medication, electrolytes and food over 5 days to get her there. If the bunner had not made it, the Youngest and I would have been devastated. For us, the bunner is family. For the Spouse, he has minimal connection with her and she is more of a inconvenience or chore.

If she had died, his response would be completely different to mine. I would be going through the stages of grief and him, not so much. That’s okay because everyone is different. Our reactions to grief and loss differ because of that.

There are two slightly different versions of the stages of grief. The 5 stages from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross are probably the most well known and consist of:

1. denial,
2. anger,
3. bargaining,
4. depression,
5. acceptance.

This work has been updated to the seven stages which I like a little more. The addition of hope also appeals to me. These seven stages are:

1. shock or disbelief,
2. denial,
3. bargaining,
4. guilt,
5. anger,
6. depression,
7. acceptance/hope.

In both, the stages are fluid and non linear. People can miss or revisit any of the stages. While one stage is labelled depression, in this context it is not considered a mental health condition, rather a natural and appropriate response to grief.

Life is complex, without the addition of a pandemic and the flow on effects it has had of lock downs, working and learning from home and job losses. Over the last few years, I (probably like many others) have definitely spent quite a bit of time feeling shock/disbelief, denial and depression. While I have been sad about the state of the world (among other things) I’m fully aware that I have not been clinically depressed.

However, there has been so much change. I’ve given up a job, multiple people who have touched my life (including members of my family) have died. That added with natural disasters, cities being bombed and uncertainty about the future, I’m heartbroken for others and I think my acceptance and hope might still be a little way off.

What do you think about the stages of grief? How are you holding up given the state of the world?