The 5 phases of grief (that we go through when we lose someone)

All our lives we are surrounded by very important people with whom we share stories, moments, emotions, joys and life; and there is nothing more painful and difficult than face the death of our loved ones.

It is something for which we are not prepared and much less used, so it takes us by surprise moving every fiber in our being and taking us out of our center. We know how to share joy and love with someone else but not how to face their death. That's why we tell you a little more about the 5 phases of grief we go through when we lose someone.

What do we talk about when we talk about grief

Grief is the natural process we go through when we suffer the loss of someone important to us. It is the emotional response we have to that loss, but while we may believe that it is our emotions that play a major role in the way we we respond and adapt to that situation, our physical and cognitive dimensions and our behavior are also part of the duel.

The Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was the one who developed the 5-phase model of bereavement after his experience working with terminal patients and situations close to the death. More than 5 phases of grief, her contribution was to identify 5 mental states that anyone can go through after learning about

the death of a loved one in its process of evolution and acceptance of this new situation.

This does not mean that we all go through absolutely the same process, there are those who live all the phases of mourning, there are those who go through only some, and not all of us go through the stages of mourning in the same order. However, when we know this approach to grief we can see all the nuances that a loss situation can generate in us.

The 5 phases of mourning

If you are facing a loss situation, we know how painful it can be. Perhaps knowing these 5 phases of grief can help you accept and integrate your emotions and what is happening with you right now.

1. The negation

This is the stage of mourning in which, as the name implies, We deny the loss, we deny the death of that person. We do it unconsciously as a defense mechanism to avoid that first impact of the news.

It is when phrases like "no, it can't be, it's a mistake, I don't want to" appear because we really want to convince ourselves that what they are telling us is false, so we want to postpone having to take care of our emotions and everything that the death of a person we love can carry.

During the denial phase of the duel we behave as if we were living a fiction, we interpret a role temporarily so as not to have to assume the sadness and pain that are approaching, but it is a unsustainable phase in time as it collides with reality we are living, so we end up leaving this phase of denial faster than we think.

2. Anger or anger

When we have finally managed to accept the death of that person we love so much, we also realize that that death is not reversible and that there is nothing more to do to change this irreversible situation for what anger comes, anger at death as a result of frustration.

The deep sadness and the reality of loss right now are impossible to avoid so we resent everything and we turn against everything, friends, family, that person who died, even life herself. At this moment, anger and anger are the only thing that allow you to express your emotions and all the questions that appear in your mind about the why of things, the person and the moment.

3. The negotiation

Another phase of grief is negotiation and it is very similar to that of denial because it is based on a fiction that we create to be better and escape from all the emotions that reality produces.

It is about that moment (which can happen sooner or later) in which we try to negotiate death, find a way to prevent it from happening or to reverse it if it is already a fact. It is a fantasy that we create in which, for a moment, we think that we can do something about it, that we can change death.

These negotiations are normally done with superior or supernatural beings. in which we believe, for example, when we make promises to God in exchange for that person not dying if this has not already happened. Another example is when in our mind, we go back in time and imagine that everything remains the same, that that special person has not died and that there is no pain; but again the reality is there colliding with this fantasy by what happens quickly.

4. The Depression

After we have stopped fantasizing about other realities that are not real, we return to the present, to the current moment in which someone passed away and we are absorbed by a deep feeling of emptiness and sadness. This phase of grief is called depression.

At this moment the sadness and emptiness are so deep that not even the best of fantasies or excuses can get us out of our reality. Unlike other phases of grief, during depression we realize the irreversibility of death and it is very difficult to see any reason to live without that person by our side.

During this stage the sadness seems to have no end, we are locked in ourselves, we feel tired, without strength, without energy and only sadness, pain and melancholy accompany us, even, it is quite normal that we isolate ourselves a little. Accepting the death of a loved one is painful enough but at this moment we are also accepting that we have to live a life with the absence of that person.

5. The acceptation

Here it is when we reconcile with the idea of ​​continuing to live without that person and where we truly accept his death. It is the last of the phases of the duel and the one that gives us the opportunity to start again, without saying that this is a happy phase compared to the other phases of the duel.

In fact we could say that it is rather a neutral phase, without intense feelings, in which we learn to live again. All the discharge and emotional pain are slowly lifting their mark so that we can think better, have a new understanding and ideas of our own that reorganize our mind.

It is a time when the tiredness of so many emotions is gradually giving us back the will to live, where we allow ourselves again to feel joy and return our life to its normality.