Lost someone close to you?
I learnt about Alan Rickman’s death recently, I have not known much about him, but having read all what people have to say about him, got me to read a lot more. While I was browsing through, I realized, death of a loved one is so difficult to deal with. I do not think that we ever get over the loss, but what we do is, that we try and re-adjust our lives, our relationships without that person around us. Only because, we do not have a choice.
Dealing with the loss of a loved one is never easy nor will it ever get easy. We need to find hope, courage, patience that will pull us through these difficult times.
A grieving process involves 5 stages, which we experience while going through with the loss. These 5 stages may not happen in order as I write, or we may not even go through all of them. Having said that, it is important to be aware of these because it is normal to feel any of them. It also becomes easy when you see someone else grieve and then you instantly realize that it is ok to experience what they are feeling. Understanding and knowing about these stages is our first step to awareness.
Denial, at this stage, our life without our loved one seems meaningless. We are in a state of shock and are not able think rationally about anything around us. World, seems overwhelming. It is so difficult to decipher anything that is happening to us. In a way, it is beneficial that we are not able to comprehend things, because genuinely we are not in the right state of mind & it is ok.
Anger, in this stage, we start experiencing anger. We are just about angry with anything and everything around us. Anger streams in because the one who we loved so much, is now not there, that person has left us. We feel abandoned, we feel deserted, we feel cheated. Anger is a very surface level emotion that we feel. Within this is pain. That pain gets us angry. That pain gets so deep within us that it gets out of control. Sometimes this anger is diverted to someone who is around us. It could be a friend, family member or could be just someone who is supporting us through these times & it is ok.
Bargaining, after the burst of anger that we have gone through, we feel so tired, that we now start negotiating in our minds. We tell ourselves, ‘What if, I started praying 5 times in the day, will I get my husband back’, or ‘Only if, I lived an honest life, I would not have lost my baby today.’ We start experiencing these dialogues, time in again to get back our loved ones. We wish we could get through the maze and get our loved one back into our lives and start fresh once again & it is ok.
Depression, as we go deeper & deeper into feeling this pain, we hit our lowest. We are so tired contemplating, fighting, getting angry that we are not able to push ourselves anymore and we break down & it is ok. This is not a sign of mental illness. These are normal and natural stages of grieving. If you do not experience them, that is when it will be a problem.
Acceptance, we confuse this stage to feeling that now everything is ok, and it will all be the way it used to be. NO! We get to this stage when we learn how to cope with the loss of the loved one and how to re-organize ourselves back into society and also to be able to handle our own emotions in a better way.
We need to give grief its own time.
My husband told me once, we can have the entire world supporting us, but what we are going through is only our struggle. At that point, I thought to myself, that is not the nicest thing to say, but that is true. It is only ‘our’ struggle & we need to fight it.
To help ourselves, its important to keep talking about our loved one, we do not have to bury our feelings and hide them in some corner of our heart. Speak, the more we talk about our loved one, the more will we keep that person alive, not just in our mind & heart, but in others too.
One last thing, do not make death your reason to speak about the person you love the most. Express what you feel and let them know how important and significant they are in your life. If you are reading this, then do it today. Do it now. Good luck!
If you do need any further guidance or support, you just need to ask for it & you will have it.
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