five stages of grievance

this is one of my friend's favourite psychology theory to date and he shared it with me months ago, I feel it is indeed very true.

my friend who as a psychology minor told me that this theory was proposed for death related issue which means someone dear to you has passed away recently. However, later it was found to be pretty much applicable to situations where you part from someone or something that you have attachment to,usually something that means a lot to you and often associated with any kind of loses that is dear to you.

five stages of grievance- denial,anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Denial is the first stage. In this stage,you will get a huge shock as if being struck by lighting and will not believe what has just happened or had happened. Subconsciously, your mind will work to undo what has been the reality presented in front of your eyes. For example, you might keep persuading yourself that it is not true, there is no way it gonna be the truth,etc. It must be a dream, or a nightmare most likely.

When you enter the second stage, Anger is what you will feel. You are just mad. You are angry that God took something deary to you away, angry at yourself for letting it happened this way, angry at anything and anyone that reminds you of that incident.

Third stage, bargaining. Start to get desperate,desperately trying all kinds of ways to fix it, making promises about what you will do to get it fixed. You gonna feel like if everything will go back to how it used to be, you will not ask for anything anymore. You may try very hard, and as you keep trying, the only thing you realized is that, the more you do, the worse it becomes. Final realization, nothing could be fixed. It's the end.

Depression. You are beginning to see it as a reality that could not be changed. Starting to feel that this life has no meaning, the world means nothing to you anymore. You may have insomnia or lose your appetite. The world looks so grey.

As time passes, you came to realize, everything that has happened is not your fault and there is nothing you can do about it now, no matter how hard you tried or how sad you might be. However, you also may start to feel that you life does not end here and you can still go chasing after other things that you dream of in life. One day you woke up finding that, hey, I am feeling slightly happy today. This signifies that you have entered the final stage, Acceptance. Slowly, you will be back like how you used to be, without being bothered much by that past incident, slowly finds that life has becomes meaningful once again, found a new path and a new direction to continue the journey of your life.

credits to A, my friend.

anyway, cheers! and it is known as 'prost' in German ^^