How To Get Over Grief

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Any grief, strong emotional experiences, acute feelings of emotional pain are associated with loss in one form or another. The loss of love, a person, a dog, trust, a sense of security, intimacy is accompanied by a strong experience

The person feels so bad that he loses appetite, sleep, interest in previous hobbies. And often the environment in this case advises to be distracted, to switch attention, to do something. If only to divert the vector of attention from mourning to any constructive activity. "Hold on", "Be strong", "Take courage", "Take a break", "Work", "Go in for sports" - this is not a complete list of "competent advice" … People give advice based on their experience.

In our country, expressing emotions, especially bitterness, sadness, is considered something wrong, not aesthetic.

From childhood, our emotions were devalued, a ban was placed on feeling and even condemned: "Don't cry!", "Stop whining!" Then the child understands that crying means putting himself at risk of being rejected, unloved. Therefore, it is better to suppress emotions, not to show them.

But the fact is that suppressed emotions do not disappear anywhere … Displaced into the subconscious, they periodically begin to "splash out" in the form of phobias, psychosomatic diseases, mental disorders. Why bring to this? Grief, sorrow can be, and most importantly, you SHOULD live to the end. And here a natural question arises - HOW to live? If it hurts so much that it is impossible to breathe, a lump in the throat is such that it is difficult to swallow food and it is impossible to fall asleep with these thoughts, the body twists and aches. How to deal with this? This takes place in several stages.

American psychologist, beautiful woman, author of the book " About death and dying", Elizabeth Kubler-Ross worked with cancer patients and developed the concept of psychological assistance to the dying. Further, she realized that this concept is suitable not only for a person who is preparing for his own death, but also for a person experiencing any loss, experiencing severe emotional pain.

So, according to the concept, she highlighted 5 stages of dying (otherwise, 5 stages of mourning):

1. Denial

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

Any person experiencing this or that loss goes through these stages. In order to survive your grief, you need to go through all five stages consciously, with a clear idea of what you are doing and why.

First stage. Its essence is negation what happened. This is a defensive reaction. This is how the psyche protects a person from the upcoming emotional pain. "Nothing happened, I don't see it, I don't know, I don't accept it." Typical feelings, emotions, thoughts - disagreement with what happened, refusal to accept it, rejection, unwillingness to accept new reality.

The essence of the second stage (anger) is a natural emotional reaction to a new, changed situation. The function of anger is protective, when there is a violation of stability, security, there is a threat to the satisfaction of any need (proximity, stability).

Third stage - bargain … The essence of the third stage can be expressed by the words "Yes, if only, if only there were mushrooms in my mouth" … If I knew then, if I foresaw it then, how could I not appreciate what happened. It was necessary to do this, that and that, and in general in a different way. All three stages are a defensive reaction of the psyche, which does not want to accept the new reality in connection with the loss, an attempt to reject these changes.

Fourth stage - depression … Not necessarily, in its clinical form. At this stage, grief, mourning for loss, sadness, longing pass directly. The function of this stage is a rethinking, a reassessment of what was, a revision of a new, changed reality. There is immediate mourning for the loss.

The last stage is Adoption … Here, the vector of attention is already shifting from loss to a feeling of gratitude for the good that was, for the experience, for the pleasant memories.

A person experiencing grief runs the risk of being stuck at one stage or another, not moving on, which often happens. It is important to go for a meaningful, immersed experience of all five stages with an understanding of what we are doing and why. How do you get through all the stages?

We set aside a certain amount of time every day for the next stage. The amount of time is determined strictly individually, for insignificant losses you can allocate half an hour daily, for deep grief - several hours distributed throughout the day (not in a crowd!). To do this, set a timer in advance for the time that you have determined for yourself.

Lie on the bed, curl up, take the fetal position, you can crawl under the covers and whine. It is not necessary that you want to cry, but during this time, during this half hour, "come off" to the fullest. Feel free to cry. Tears are not a sign of weakness. Through tears lies the path to healing, recovery. If all this time you have been trying to switch from negative thoughts and experiences, then during this half an hour you can give yourself free rein, feel sorry for yourself, think about how bad and unfair everything is, if you can't cry, then whine, imitate children's crying.

Stop it. Cover your face with your palms. As a little child grieves, do the same. And do it in stages of mourning.

The first is negation … At this stage you say “I don’t want this and that in my life, I don’t want this, take me away from this, save me someone from this! It should not be this way!”.

At the second stage, swear at fate, at your parents, at all people who negatively influence you, who disappointed you, offended, betrayed, show them this, condemn, get angry as much as you want, you can get angry at yourself, scold you. Scold God, fate, life. Scold the departed person. Do not choose expressions, censorship is out of place here.

Further - bargain … Think about what would have happened in your life if these betrayals, this deception, these meannesses, this injustice, this loss that were in your life had not happened. What kind of person would you be? How could you have prevented what happened?

The next stage is grieving … Pay for your loss. You need to mourn, to grieve everything that you have received less or received bad, have pity on yourself. You really deserved and deserves a different attitude, a different life, a different childhood. Mourn your unfulfilled dreams and hopes. At this stage, you acknowledge that your loss is real, it has happened, and your previous life is no longer possible. At this stage, the recognition of the loss occurs.

And the last stage is the most important. I accept everything that God has given me, I accept everything that I have experienced, what happened to me. I accept everything that life has taught me. This is mine. an experience … I needed to live it, I needed to experience it in order to become wiser, I learned to distinguish good from evil, I know how and how a good attitude differs from a bad one. And it taught me to appreciate the good and light that life gives me.

The main question of this stage is why did this happen to me? What does this mean to me?

Immersion in experiences takes place at a strictly allotted time on a timer! As soon as the timer rings - that's it, wipe the tears (if any), get out from under the blanket, you can take a few deep breaths, and drink a glass of water. If you feel that you do not have enough time, next time set it for a larger interval (instead of half an hour, set it for an hour). The timer will help you not to get stuck in your worries, not to get stuck in your grief. Further, when the timer rings, you can do your household chores. If negative thoughts still arise periodically during the day, then tell yourself, remind yourself of the cherished half an hour in the evening, when you can digest them, chew, burn out, feel sorry for yourself, plunge into a state of grief.

You live each stage separately. One stage can take from several days to several weeks or months to live. It depends on the depth of the shock, on the depth of the grief. It is also possible to return to the previous stage, which has already been passed. Just keep track of your condition, watch how you feel. Don't expect recovery to happen overnight, it will happen gradually, step by step, day after day. In addition, ups and downs are possible, pullbacks in their state. The main thing is to keep the motion vector and then you will inevitably overcome pain and return meaning and joy to your life!

(C) Anna Maksimova, psychologist