4 ways we get stuck in our grief recovery process

The grief process as it is commonly known has five components: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance.  Denial for shock, bargaining for disbelief, anger when the reality sets in, depression because we cannot change our circumstances, and ultimately acceptance because, for the most part, we learn we must move on.  These of course are generalisations, and generalisations don’t cater for nuances of peculiarity, especially when we consider that we can get stuck in the stages, that many people struggle to traverse the entire process to an acceptance mythically called closure.  I say acceptance is mythically called closure because there really is no such thing as closure.  But because this article is focused on getting stuck in the other four stages of grief let’s examine them.

The first, most basic, and commonest sticking point is denial.  How many people deny their losses, refuse to enter their grief, and drink their lives away?  Or, perhaps you can substitute the drink for some other ‘pleasure’ that hides the pain.  Many people of course choose to deny their pain without ever picking up a drink, and you wouldn’t know they are stuck in denial, unless you were a loved one, and you can see the complete reticence to be truthful about what cannot be changed.  The thing that dissuades people in denial to do their grief journey is they must start at the beginning, and they imagine that pain to be unbearable, and for the most part it is.  But it can be borne.

Too easily we get stuck in the bargaining phase of grief.  “If I do this, God, I know you will do that,” is the sentiment.  Or, if we’re not spiritual, we might rationalise that life will give us what we want if we give life what it wants.  Realistically, bargaining occurs at a level usually well below our consciousness, so we must enquire deeply of ourselves to see whether we are reassuring ourselves about a certain outcome that will surely take place, when realistically we have no such assurance.  See how bargaining sets us up for disappointment?  See how we are making promises to ourselves about how life will work out?  Almost every bargain we make with life will come to nothing, sad as that reality is.

So many people who grieve cannot get past the anger stage.  They become bitter and resentful and stay there.  How many people go on angry rampages when the deeper cause of their anger really is grief?  Again, like those who are steeped in denial, many varieties of sedative are used to dull the mental and emotional pain the aggrieved are called to bear.  Indeed, it is foreseeable that many people who refuse to do their grief process flip between denial and anger, utilising denial most of the time until the reality cannot be denied anymore, and when reality is pressing, the anger rises.

Then, of course, there is the depression stage, and so many who get stuck in this stage endure the torment of a depression or series of depressions.  The sadness and overwhelm truly become us when we’re here, and it may take years to ascend.  Still, again, addictions can become sticky in the stickiness of depression.  But being stuck in depression is one stage further on than being stuck in the earlier stages of denial, bargaining, and anger.  Not that it feels any better.  At least while we’re in depression we can feel our feelings a little more, and we are no longer denying the reality.  It floors us.  It consumes us.  Hopefully we become so desperate we begin to reach out for the support we need.

Of course, in discussing all the stages apart from themselves, we haven’t contemplated the grief that amalgamates them all in one day, or how they meld together randomly through the process, and this is very common.  So I have taken some liberty here in discussing the components of grief as separate stages.

Being stuck isn’t catastrophic.  It’s actually an important recognition.  It can be just the thing that causes us to reach out for help.  There’s no shame in getting help.  It’s the wise people who do.

The most important word in the title is recovery.  We can recover if we do the work of recovery.  This doesn’t mean ‘closure’ or anything other than being able to find some contentment in life again.  It is very much worth the effort.

Photo by Claudia Wolff on Unsplash