By: Jacob Hill, LCMHCA, LADAC, CCTP, NCC
In our current climate, it is hard to avoid stories of families or friends grieving the loss of a loved one. Across news platforms and evening dinner tables, conversations of death have become increasingly commonplace, habituation to grief causing a demystifying of death alongside recent global movements to destigmatize end-of-life planning. This exposure to loss has had marked impacts in both college-age and elder populations alike when addressing questions of mortality and reconciliation after traumatic loss; this evolution, however, has additionally led many to disregard lesser losses. “Grief and loss” have become cooped, synonymous to death, leading us to feel ill-prepared and even at odds with less terminal changes in our lives. How do we mourn the distance from our childhood friends or sit in the absence of our dream job? What does it mean to miss a version of ourselves when we felt more lively and engaged, or to find meaning from a break-up which just seems to linger? We find that the sense of grief often extends much farther than we imagine, leading us to question both how we can address these “smaller deaths” throughout our daily life as well as what deeper truths they stand to teach us about ourselves.
Stages of Grief
The response to loss, and the process of meaning-making which follows, varies drastically from one person to the next. Factors such as culture and context can significantly impact how we approach even the concept of grieving. Social and spiritual responses often get emphasized, where even today much of the clinical response to processing loss revolves around the “Five Stages of Grief” initially popularized by researcher Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in the late 1960s. In her model, which initially focused on terminally-ill patients confronting their own mortality, we see a very sequential perspective on grieving, causing many people to adopt the terminology of “moving” between stages on their road to recovery. We have become accustomed to this order of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and - ultimately - acceptance over the nearly 60 years following her research, applying the same patient-centric concepts of “confronting grief” to our family and community members. Kubler-Ross’ stages have come to define the healing process while new and pertinent additions have been made in recent years to abandon the linear format in favor of a more fluid perspective, though there is merit in considering these stages to loss and meaning-making when it extends to smaller deaths within our daily lives.
Denial: Often we see denial arise when we are not yet ready to accept or embrace the hurt we are feeling. Sometimes this can be an overt avoidance of grief altogether, such as throwing ourselves into work, relationships, or safer sensations. Comparatively, these feelings can manifest as minor resistance, where we may hesitate to discard a gift from someone special or some piece of our history that reminds us of a happier time. Denial is a facet of grieving akin to distraction, allowing ourselves space to process the hurt when we are most ready, though can become difficult to process when that distance becomes too vast over time.
Anger: Nowadays, anger can feel like one of the socially-safe ways of expressing complicated emotions. The expediency of the release is one of the reasons it shows up often in the grieving process, though frequently that anger is a sign of something deeper, harder to touch upon. Anger and frustration have roots in other emotions such as fear and sadness, often skipping over composed boundaries put in place to curate those feelings publicly. Well-timed anger can be hugely cathartic and allow us to vent the build-up of hurt emotions stuck inside us, though, in the heat of grief we often end up assigning our anger to the people who feel safest around us, causing conflict or a rift to develop inadvertently.
Bargaining: Unlike anger or depression, bargaining has no fixed expression, causing it to be more difficult to comprehend. This stage is an emotional defense, similar to how we see anger and denial manifesting, however it is not predicated on emotional expression but rather an attempt to find some sense of control or resolution around what we have lost. We can see bargaining after a failed exam or losing a game, applying so much power and value to how changing one thing would have spared us the outcome. Notably, bargaining is not about recovery but rather rationalization often in the face of something uncontrollable, though if we do permit ourselves the space for reflection and acknowledgement of our actions without the need for guilt or reauthoring the sequence of events, there is a great deal of growth possible at this stage.
Depression: It is unrealistic to expect that loss or lament will not include some degree of sadness; for many people this can even extend to a longer, more total feeling of depression. We comprise resources and tools to help us navigate our lives - be those important people, training and skills, or financial stabilities - so, when we are stripped of one or more of these resources, it is not uncommon to notice a sense of emptiness, exhaustion, or lacking motivation to arise. Our current climate has a confusing relationship with depression, promoting solidarity in the emotion throughout our media while often criticizing it publicly, though there is a cultural consensus to avoid sadness as long as possible; using Kubler-Ross’ terms of “moving past it.” Depression can indeed be a barrier to our finding a sense of peace in grieving, though we learn a great deal about something’s or someone’s significance when confronting their absence. Healing in the wake of loss becomes then less about avoiding the sad songs than understanding the purpose behind wanting to feel sad and coming to terms with what truly has been lost.
Acceptance: The finish line in most of our minds when grieving is to reach that point of closure or acceptance. Sometimes this can look like finding peace with a loved one’s death who had been suffering, considering that another profound love is possible, or even seeking out a way to start healing the rift in our friendships. Whatever our approach, acceptance is an individual response as we look to find balance in our own lives, reconciling the things that have changed with those that remain the same. The reality is that this state of acceptance is not always the end, cycling through other stages when reminded of the pain we once felt or reliving a similar emotional defeat; the work of healing and growing is permitting both to exist, as we come to accept grieving itself.
What Comes Forward with Removal
Death can be a significant life event, difficult to process regardless of our history or background; however, profound changes occur on a daily basis which can leave us feeling uncertain or ill-prepared. These stages for approaching grief are neither fixed nor the gold standard but can provide us valuable insight into our response(s) following loss. Approaching grief - and often mourning - as the opponent to our happiness and mental health deprives us of the chance of utilizing these experiences as tools in our development. It is through taking stock of these feelings of sadness, of anger, resistance, and of reasoning that we begin to see new avenues through moments of less-overt grief. A volatile breakup may spur anger or depression, skipping earlier stages of denial completely, while bringing up entirely new feelings when encountering the person a month later. Alternatively, reminiscing on our childhood or college selves may include a great deal of depression or bargaining as we reconcile how earlier drafts of ourselves have influenced new facets of our personality. Broadening our definitions of loss and our scope on grieving affords us the opportunity to more accurately identify where and how wounds have arisen, and can offer us a chance to address these smaller, daily deaths through a more comprehensive and compassionate lens; allowing the death and rebirth, the loss and rebranding to ultimately coexist.
Jacob Hill is a licensed clinical mental health counseling associate and drug and addiction counselor, working across the helping professions. As an outpatient psychotherapist with Three Oaks Behavioral Health & Wellness with certification in trauma and crisis counseling, he provides individuals and couples alike with the skills to face life’s transitions with community and comprehensive support(s). With over 10 years experience across three states, Jacob meets clients in their present moment, delivering empirically-proven and creative interventions to empower clients in navigating their present conflicts. For further inquiry and conversation, feel free to reach out to jacob@threeoaksbehavioralhealth.com.
