Grief Resolution
From a quick email note sent at the time of an impending death about grief and its resolution over time. Names and details changed to respect privacy:
Two Anglican Prayer Book editions show changes to us...An old one has a prayer..."don't let me go so fast that I can't make my peace with the world...
A modern one has a prayer..."don't let me hang on so long that it's a pain in the butt...(or to that effect)
Grief reactions tend to be pretty standard in general terms, though how people react to the stress of the situation varies by gift, and relates more to the overall pattern of stress-reaction that is used generally in life I find, only more accentuated for some deaths than others.
Not every loss has discrete identifiable "stages" in every category. Not everyone goes through them at the same rate or style, and they do not always come in the same order. But this is the generalized pattern, though you'll hear a variety of versions of it. Hang loose. The video "all that jazz" is a clever portrayal of the phenomenon.
Grief is not something that is a phenomenon in itself so much as "the initial phases of adjustment to a new situation"...with a phasing in of the "bites" one has to eat so as to be able to deal with things, rather than eating the whole "meal" in one gulp.
It is most easily understood as "progressive disclosure" i.e. a blanket covering over everything at first and being pulled back slowly (over 2 years) to reveal the death to us a bite at a time, so we don't overload. The brain with its emotional component can cope with a lot but not all at once.
So stage one is "shock" and is the complete cover over stage... numbed out, walking around but often little memory of things later. Generally 20 min to 3 days. Happens when the death becomes a possibility rather than a general fact of life for people. In general low appetite, low sleep, are also common.
Stage two is where we can see everything except the loss. Called "denial" but it is a poor term, because we are not denying anything, we just don't see it. Typified by setting a place at the table for the person, turning to speak to them etc. It allows us to resume life and get our steam up before having to deal with the loss. It can vary in its length.
"Bargaining" is third stage and it’s where we can see the loss but not its finality. Typical of this stage is searching for lost people (maybe they are not lost permanently), trying new treatments (maybe there is still hope). It is a very important step in that often the loss is not final, and these last flings at efforts to deal with the situation often do bring good results. Sometimes you will hear "God if you just give me 2 weeks until such and such a thing can happen..." etc.
"Anger" is the fourth stage...the finality is now seen but you don't like it. It usually takes a focus on a target (e.g. a cause for the situation) which is "plausible" but frequently not true...just convenient, and it serves as a place to dump the anger. God, doctors, bystanders, firemen, ministers, etc are very common ones (if he had just gotten there sooner" etc.)
Fifth stage is "depression". There are a lot of reasons for depression, but this is a very good one, and very common. Anger is seen as not making any difference to the situation, so it turns inward like a huge whirlpool that sucks one down into depression. Apathy, and "can't get one's ass in gear" are typical. What's really going on here is the readjustment internally of the "furniture" in the mental living room, now that the sofa is gone, and the hole left needs to be filled up again. It takes a lot of emotional energy, and so there is little left to do much external stuff with...so it looks like apathy.
Finally there is "peace" or "acceptance", in which the adjustment to the new life situation is complete and life resumes as before. Energy returns and life broadens out its scope to a wider range of topics. You just wake up one day and find yourself talking about it in the past tense.
When dad died it was, to me, like a huge tree had been pulled out by the roots leaving a big gaping hole. Over time it did not fill in, but it did grass over so the ugliness was gone, and there is still a nice dip in the landscape that was dad, and the good memories endure.
"Pre-grief" is where the 2 year process gets a head start during extended illness. Same amount of time, just an earlier start than with a sudden and unexpected death. e.g. someone lives with 3 years of treatments is 75+ and had been given a few months back at the first... his death was is not nice, but everyone has a chance to make peace with it. On the other hand, if someone dies suddenly at a much younger age it is different. Now that is raw, and there is usually a lot of stage one and two stuff around at the funeral...(and if the doctors are being silly, a lot of Valium too...which just prolongs the initial stage stuff till all the support folks have gone home and the person is left to come down with a thud…alone…I get sick of mopping those ones up.)
Strange situations where people get married 6 weeks after nursing a long spousal illness are examples of pre-grief having run its course, and all that is left is the wrap-ups...setting the partner free to get on with life.
"Unresolved grief" is a term that refers to tears that go on beyond 2 years or so. The toughest loss for us is death of a close person, and that resolves in more or less 2 years if it's a clean death. Anything else should by definition take less time.
When it goes on longer it is generally because there has been some "unfinished business" in the relationship, and the process stalls out at one stage or other (generally anger or depression, though sometimes bargaining, ...and rarely the first two, although you hear of them occasionally.)
Typical are the questions "why are you angry all the time?" or "why are you so depressed all the time?"
The trick is to focus on the unfinished business that caused the stall out not the particular stage at which it stalled out (because that is irrelevant really).
Once a person identifies the thing that wasn't able to be said or done in relation to the dead person, things are half way through to being resolved, and all that is left is to find some thing that would work for that person to finish up the unfinished business, which would be possible today given the realities of the new and changed situation.
If the loss is ancient, then the results are often swift and spectacular in terms of energy boost...it's like "taking a power pellet", once things are underway to getting the business resolved...note that.... underway, not finished.... the snag is blown and the rest starts to wash down the river right away. I used to use it as a stress-dropping technique with AA types who have multiple ancient unresolved grief reactions...so much so that they were no longer functioning.... get the old ones dealt with and clean up any from the more recent past so as not to unnecessarily prolong them...i.e., if there is still time on the 2-year clock to run out.
I also recommend to people that they keep their "accounts with people short" so if sudden loss happens, there is less garbage to contend with for everybody.
That’s the basics.
Cheers,
Stu.
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