Grief

Topics: Grief, Kübler-Ross model, Emotion Pages: 6 (2250 words) Published: August 18, 2013
How do you know if you are grieving??? If you have suffered a loss through the death of a loved one and don't feel "normal", you are probably grieving. If you exhibit or are feeling any or all of the following symptoms, you are dealing with grief. Symptoms: * Feel physically drained * Out of emotional control - feel good one minute; in the pits the next * Can't eat - food makes you sick. People tend to lose up to 40 pounds while grieving * Susceptible to illnesses * "Zombie Effect" Feelings shut down due to your body's natural coping mechanism * Brain is scrambled; can't think clearly or remember things * Cry continuously * Can't cry -- bottle it up (it will come out years later as problems) * Stay extremely busy so as not to have time to think * Drink too much * Take too many drugs * Can't sleep at night * Take naps frequently and are constantly tired * Sigh a lot * Talk about it over and over and dwell on it every moment * Lose interest in work; house; physical appearance * Neglect personal hygiene (don't brush teeth, take regular baths, or wash hair very often) * Don't care that you aren't taking care of yourself * Fantasize about the past * Suffer from extreme loneliness * Have lots of guilt about things you did or didn't do * Lack of interest in sex * Engage in self-criticism * Have a huge hole in your heart and soul * Relive and rehash scenes, conversations * Think you will never recover from your loss * Suffer from severe depression * See no reason to exist | |

  | The Tasks of Grief |   |

These are the tasks you must accomplish in order to work through your grief. It isn't always easy, and each person must accomplish these tasks in his or her own time. But each task must be accomplished in order for you to heal and move on with your life. |

TASK 1 | You must accept the reality of your loss. You must talk about the loss until you accept it. The more you talk about it, the more you will realize that the loss is real - that the person is really gone and will not come back. | TASK 2 | You must allow yourself to experience the pain of grief. You must accept the painful reality and finality of the loss. If you don't, your grief will keep resurfacing throughout your life and interfere with a healthy emotional state of being. You have to feel the pain. You can't avoid the pain. It will hurt. You will feel awful. But this pain must be felt in order for you to work through the pain and heal. If you push the pain away and refuse to feel it, it will fester for years and affect your entire future. | TASK 3 | You must learn to adjust to an environment in which the loved one is missing. You have to return to places you went together. You have to spend time in your home without this person. You have to encounter each aspect of your life without that person. It will be hard. You will need to learn new skills and tasks in order to assume responsibility for your own life. You have to learn to function without the person at home and in your everyday life. In other words, you must keep going. You can't withdraw from the world. The first time you go to a place, or experience a holiday without them, or do an activity you shared with your lost love will be the worst. After that, it will get better. | TASK 4 | Finally, after you have grieved all you need to grieve, you have to begin to withdraw emotional energy that you are investing in your grieving and the focus you have on your loss, and invest it in new relationships If, after a reasonable amount of time you constantly relive your relationship with the person), constantly go over "what I did wrong" and "what I should have done differently", and refuse to try to move on with your life, you are investing too much energy in your grieving. The support and encouragement of a loving family and a good support group is necessary in order to move on with your life. New friends and...
Continue Reading

Please join StudyMode to read the full document

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Healthy Grief Essay

    ... The loss of a family member and/or loved one can put someone on an emotional roller coaster. Whether it is an expected or unexpected loss, the emotional process of dealing with the grief could be the same. With an expected loss, loved ones are able to prepare themselves for what is to come. An unexpected loss could bring more emotions into the grieving process. This paper will discuss the grieving process by Kubler-Ross, the story of Job, and the way Muslims deal with death and dying. While some people focus on the sadness of losing a loved one, others try and find the positive in the any situation. To grieve the loss of a loved one, many would say that they feel a lot of different indescribable emotions. Shock, disbelief, emotional pain, anger, and sadness are all some emotions that people feel while grieving. Kubler-Ross developed a five step grieving process that one should experience and move through so they can move on to a happy life (Lecture 5 Notes). The process itself is: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (Lecture 5 Notes). It is easy for a person to not believe that a loved one has passed on as begin the grieving process (Lecture 5 Notes). Once the denial has processed and the loss has become a reality, it is normal to get angry and ask ‘why did this happen?’ Bargaining with God is the next step in the grieving process. Trying to make a deal with God to try and bring back a loved one gives a person hope that...

    Read More
    832 Words 4 Pages
  • Grief and Bereavement Essay

    ...Everybody reacts differently to the loss of someone close. Grieving is a natural process which ever way it is manifested. The time that immediately follows the death can be filled with a stunned belief even if the death was not totally unexpected. Sometimes it is not until later that the emotional feelings reveal themselves. Some people need to actually see the body of the deceased in order for the death to register in their minds. Other people would rather not see the body if this is the case then it is recommended that they do not.1 Sometimes it is best to remember your loved ones the way they were. The funeral itself often brings a feeling of closure. The person is now at rest forever and life goes on. Some people will experience grief for many years after the death, particularly if the death was unexpected. Some people never fully recover but learn to cope with their loss instead. After a death it is natural to feel angry, perhaps toward the medical staff or the doctors who were trying to prevent the death. You may feel anger toward other members of the family. It is even possible that you would feel anger toward the person who has died.2 Anger can be expressed in many ways, but usually it is expressed openly and verbally. When the anger is verbalized, one may listen supportively, even if these emotions appear irrational. Anger after bereavement is understandable, and individuals who vent anger usually are not in the position to examine...

    Read More
    1091 Words 5 Pages
  • Hamlet and Grief Essay

    ...There are five famous steps or stages to grief. Originally written by a Swiss psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969 in her book On Death and Dying, these five stages have since been modified to feel less rigid and more adaptable to all of us. Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler collaborated and wrote a new book On Grief and Grieving which takes on this task. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. However, these are still just a model for what people will go through during death and the process of grief. Everyone experiences these five stages in their own way and in their own order, sometimes even coming back to some stages before moving on to the next. Even though these stages were not identified until the 20th century one of the earliest examples we can look at is in Shakespeare’s play “Hamlet” where the main protagonist, Hamlet, goes through these five stages. However, with Hamlet, like many of us, he experiences these in his own order. This first stage of grieving helps us to survive the loss. In this stage, the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is...

    Read More
    1357 Words 6 Pages
  • loss and grief Essay

    ...Supporting individual experiencing loss & grief Grief is a natural feeling to loss. Throughout our life we will all experience some form of loss whether it be the loss of a loved one to something as simple as losing your phone or your keys. Two triggers of grief associated with death The death of a loved one can be the most common form of grief; throughout life most people will experience this type of loss. The loss of a loved one can trigger grief such as depression, anger and fear. The person lost could have been a big influence in the life of the bereaved offering them love and security but now that the person has gone they may feel a sense of insecurity like how will I pay the bill or who’s going to cook tea as the person who has gone may have been the main source of financial income for the family and who would do most of the cooking and household chores, and loneliness having the suffered the loss of a companion or a lifelong friend that you would talk to and see almost every day. The death of a pet can also become an upsetting and sad time, even though the pet is not human it will have become a big part of the family. It can be particular hard for the younger members of the family as they would have loved having the pet about the home. This could be a child’s first experience of death and they could feel angry and blame themselves or their parents for not taking care of the family pet. It...

    Read More
    1662 Words 7 Pages
  • Psychological Stages Of Grief Essay

    ...Cornesia Rogers The Psychological Stages of Grief The words sorrow and heartache are often used to describe the feelings of grief. Grief can be associated with the death of a loved one and/or family pet. Grief is a natural response to loss. It is the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief will be. Regardless, when losing someone or something valuable, some level of grief will follow. According to studies grief can release a number of complications upon the body if it is not handled in the proper manner. Grief is known to have five psychological stages which are denial, bargaining, anger, depression, and acceptance. (Love, 2007 p.76) The first stage of grief is denial. Denial is the act of declaring something is untrue, refusing or disbelieving the truth. In this stage, there is a lot of shock, numbness and uncontrollable feelings. Denial is not saying “No, she is not dead” nor “I don’t believe you”, denial is more of “I just cannot believe this has happened.” Many believe denying something will take away the pain. In the stages of grief, denial is most common. Denial is common because no one really wants to accept the fact that their loved one is gone. (Lancaster) The second stage of grief is anger. When losing...

    Read More
    800 Words 4 Pages
  • stages of grief Essay

    ...The stages of mourning and grief are universal and are experienced by people from all walks of life. Mourning occurs in response to an individual’s own terminal illness or to the death of a valued being, human or animal. There are five stages of normal grief that were first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying.” In our bereavement, we spend different lengths of time working through each step and express each stage more or less intensely. The five stages do not necessarily occur in order. We often move between stages before achieving a more peaceful acceptance of death. Many of us are not afforded the luxury of time required to achieve this final stage of grief. The death of your loved one might inspire you to evaluate your own feelings of mortality. Throughout each stage, a common thread of hope emerges: As long as there is life, there is hope. As long as there is hope, there is life. Many people do not experience the stages in the order listed below, which is okay. The key to understanding the stages is not to feel like you must go through every one of them, in precise order. Instead, it’s more helpful to look at them as guides in the grieving process — it helps you understand and put into context where you are. 1. Denial and Isolation The first reaction to learning of terminal illness or death of a cherished loved one is to deny the reality of the situation. It is a normal...

    Read More
    991 Words 4 Pages
  • 5 stages of grief Essay

    ...The 5 Stages Of Grief Source: http://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/, The Kübler-Ross Model, By Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying, 1969. The thesis of her article was that there are 5 stages a person goes through when dealing with some kind of loss or bereavement. Not everyone goes through each and every stage and neither does everyone go through a precise order . The five stages, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance were never meant to help secrete messy emotions into neat packages. Her article was based on her work with her terminally ill patients, seminars, interviews and also a lot of research. The overall pattern she took was from emotion to emotion. Referring to these emotions as stages. She explained each emotion or stage respectively. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the 5 stages of grief in her book On Death and Dying in 1969. The book was an interdisciplinary study of death and acceptance, then her book On Grief and Grieving involved the five stages with the process of grieving and fabricated a theory. The author organized her article by going from the very first most commonly shown emotion to the very last, although she stated that not every individual goes through these stages in a proclaimed order. The author used different kinds of scenarios to support her case. She used examples like, when a loved one dies, a bad breakup, losing a job, and so on. I would say that Dr....

    Read More
    886 Words 4 Pages
  • Essay about Grief and Loss (Nursing)

    ...KUBLER-ROSS GRIEVING PROCESS “THE BUCKET LIST” Nursing Fundamentals Mrs. Hartman By: Cecelia Z. Harrison 02/25/12 There are five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. With these stages come the knowledge of grief and its effects on us which equips us to cope with life and loss. These stages are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss as there is no typical loss. Our grief is as individual as our lives. The five stages are, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance which is the foundation of learning to live with the “lost”. They are tools to help us identify what we may be feeling. Not everyone goes through all of them nor do they go through them in a set order. Denial is the first stage of grieving in this stage the world becomes meaningless and overwhelming. Life makes no sense. We are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle. As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming stronger, and the...

    Read More
    1120 Words 5 Pages

Popular Essays

Become a StudyMode Member

Sign Up - It's Free