Grief swallows you up for the loss of a loved one: These psychological steps help you deal with death

What you should know

Losing a loved one is one of the most painful events that a person may experience in his life, and he may experience it more than once.

It is said that the funeral is held to relieve the family and companions of the deceased, not the deceased himself.

A loved one leaves us and leaves a big scar in our soul.

How do we get through such a catastrophe?

Let us tell you first that there is absolutely no right answer to this question.

Here, we must point out the difference between sadness and depression, as researchers distinguish between symptoms of depression and symptoms of sadness caused by loss or exposure to the calamity of loss and death. However, sadness and depression share a good number of characteristics as shown in the figure below.

Why do we go through a difficult experience when we lose someone?

(The Five Stages of Grief)

Grief is a unique experience, no grief is like another, and no experience of loss is like another.

The researcher and psychiatrist "Elizabeth Kobler-Ross" has spent her whole life studying and writing about death, before and after it, and its impact on the dying and those around him. The guide to living after the loss of a loved one is likened to psychiatrist David Kessler, who followed her in his specialty.

In their book, On Grief and Grieving, they outline the five stages after a loss.

It does not apply to everyone in the same way, and we do not go through it in the same order, nor in a similar period of time, as some may pass it in one month, and others may take years.

However,

denial

And here we do not mean denial in its literal sense, but rather it is a symbolic case.

You won't deny your dad's gone, it just means you go home and don't really believe that your dad won't come back from work as usual.

Your reaction may initially be paralyzing shock or numbness, repeating over and over again: "I can't believe he's gone, I can't believe I'll never see him again."

Reality confirms the event with your final peace on your loved one, or carrying his coffin, or walking in his funeral, or even attending his funeral.

Then make sure that the deceased will not return this time.

You may think that you are not in denial because you completed the funeral affairs with a practical sense, and it is also logical to think that you are in denial because you do not believe that it actually happened.

Both positions are correct and intertwined.

At that point, everything is stripped of meaning, and questions abound.

How do I continue my life?

And if I keep doing it, why am I doing this in the first place?

You try to live day by day, then denial helps you make survival possible.

When denial begins to recede, quality and ask questions Almama start.

how did it happen?

Whether it imperative to happen?

Whether it should happen this way?

In this time?

What if the change will prevent his death?

Little by little, the inevitability of loss touched the door of your reality.

Accept that you will not see and will not hear his voice.

So begins a journey of recovery without knowing.

Fading denial, Vttzll all the emotions that Kpanha on the surface.

anger

At this stage, anger manifests itself in various forms, you may get angry at the one who left because he did not take care of himself enough, angry with yourself because you did not take care of him as you should, angry with the doctors because they did not save his life, angry at your inability to save his life, angry that you did not expect him, You get angry that you don't deserve what happened, you get angry that you continue to live in a world in which you no longer exist, you may get angry that you wasted time in the past that you could have spent with someone you lost, you may get angry at the dead himself, you know that he did not wish for his death and did not seek it, But you're mad that he left you.

Anger rises to the surface when you know that you have survived the shock of loss, the idea that you are still alive after it happened, and you have not been overwhelmed by sadness or pain, nor have you been swallowed up by the void left by those who left.

Anger has no limits, it may extend for a long time, and reach places we are afraid to express, as if we are angry at the same fate, that God chose us specifically, the kind and compassionate, the loving father and the kindest and smartest brother. He used to maintain his health and avoid everything that is harmful, we get angry because fate, or God, summoned those we love in the prime of his youth, and he did not live even half his life, but one may get angry because he thought that he committed a grave sin and his punishment was the departure of his loved ones.

The bottom of the

anger;

Lies the

pain that begins to

spoil your world;

Vngill of your family, and pour your anger on the

bridle around you;

Who in

turn Satvajaon because you promised not natural for your life one expected such an

explosion.

Thus , the

structure of

your anger changed, but it

becomes a

bridge you communicate with people.

Something related to

it, to feel something towards someone better than you

feel Ballashie, Boukoa makes you feel that the

world is

on the

verge of

collapse, and

bargaining

As we mentioned earlier, the five stages do not occur in a linear fashion, as it is not a ladder to climb and reach its top, but rather it is more like pits, jumping from the first to the third, then from the fifth to the fourth, then back to the first, this is a unique “natural” process that varies from person to person.

In the case of bargaining, you are not completely in front of a "phase", but rather a mechanism that helps you relieve your feelings in exchange for offering one thing in return for another. Perhaps before a loss, when a loved one suffers an accident or illness, you immediately think that you will do anything to make the sorrow pass peacefully. But when the loss occurs, whether expected or sudden, the bargaining takes the form of a truce in exchange for not being sad. “I will volunteer to help the poor every month, I will pray the obligatory prayers on time and add the Sunnahs to it, so that all this may become a dream, or perhaps my mother will be satisfied with me in her grave.”

Bargaining is sometimes accompanied by guilt and endless “what if” questions

: What if we called the doctor early?

What if I took her to a better hospital?

You may find that you misbehaved in a certain way, or if two events differed, things would not have come to this end.

At this point, we live most of our time in the past, negotiating circumstances in such a way that we avoid the pain we feel.

But the answers to the questions will lead to the same conclusion: the one we love will be dead forever.

After death, bargaining may move from the past to the future.

It manifests itself most clearly in the belief that we will see our loved ones in heaven, or in praying that the tragedy will not be repeated in the family.

Sometimes bargaining helps us move from a state of loss to a different state, as if it is a resting station that gives us time and space to adapt.

Bargaining may fill in the gaps that our strong feelings control, keeping intense suffering out until we can bear it.

It helps us believe that we can impose order on the chaos that has occurred after the departure of loved ones.

Bargaining changes like the rest of the stages, we may start begging and bargaining to save his life, and then we bargain to die instead.

After death, bargaining may move from the past to the future.

It is manifested in the belief that we will see our loved ones in heaven, or praying that the tragedy will not be repeated in the family, and the feeling that one loss is enough, for example, if a child dies, bargaining with his mother and father by making sure that the rest of their children live in a safe and affectionate environment, and this compensation helps mitigate the impact of the tragedy.

Depression

Although depression is difficult to bear, it helps the time of bereavement, slows down the impact of life around us, and invites all loss to be absorbed.

When we return to reality, empty feelings present themselves and are the most present, this depression stage makes us feel that it will remain with us all the time.

It is worth noting here that this depression is not a sign or evidence of a psychological illness, but rather a "natural response" to our heavy loss.

We withdraw from life, wondering what the purpose and meaning are while our loved ones suddenly leave us alone in this dreadful mist.

Morning comes, night falls, and you may not want to get out of bed and do the simplest of your daily tasks.

You feel heavy, as if you are tied by your leg to an invisible wall that you cannot drag with you.

Even if you manage to complete your daily routine, you wonder what it all means, and you don't find it.

What is the difference between to eat or starve?

What will change if you brush your teeth and take a shower?

Those around you worry about you and want to bring happiness to your heart and free you from your depression.

What is the purpose of all this sadness?

Although depression is difficult to bear, it helps the time of bereavement, slows down the impact of life around us, invites all loss to be absorbed, makes us rebuild ourselves from the beginning as if it cleans the place, and takes us to a place deeper in our souls that we would not be able to explore under normal circumstances.

receptiveness

Recovery takes the form of remembering, recalling and chewing tirelessly. Even if we cannot comprehend it, we may realize the rationale behind our loss.

Acceptance is mistakenly understood as returning everything to the way it was before, including your feelings and your life, but this is not true, life will never be the same again.

This stage is the stage of accepting and understanding the reality of eternal departure.

We will not find a replacement, and no one will fill his place.

We won't like this fact, but we eventually accept it,

.

Here we reach an advanced stage of recovery and adaptation, although it may seem an impossible situation.

Recovery takes the form of remembering, tirelessly recalling what happened.

Perhaps our anger ends with our destiny and our destiny, we may realize the rationale behind our loss, even if we cannot comprehend it.

We begin to accept that it is not personal, and that the time of our deceased is destined to end.

During this journey,

Acceptance is a process that we experience, not a final stage with an end line.

Sometimes, after spending a fun day, we may feel that we have betrayed the deceased, betrayed him with our happiness, but we are unable to retrieve or save the one we love, but we can create new connections and relationships.

What can I do to relieve myself during these stages?

In the first year after the loss, the grief is deep and intense and covers everything, then it will seem that your grief is changing, you may feel that it is diminishing.

• First: grief does not have an expiration date

David Kessler says he answers people's question about how long their grief will last with another question: "How long will he be dead? That's how long you're grieving."

It does not mean that we will suffer forever, but we will never forget those we have lost, we will not be able to fill the unique hole that the deceased left in our hearts.

There are people who believe in the one-year sadness myth, which is a common and wrong myth.

In the first year after the loss, the sadness is deep and intense and covers everything, then your sadness will seem to change, you may feel that it is shrinking, and then something happens to bring it back to its first strength, then time passes, the cycle repeats,

Therefore, it is important to be aware of this fact and reject any ridicule of it from yourself or your surroundings.

• Second: Depression is a heavy guest that you must honor

Depression after a loss is not an anomaly, it is a feeling of its own, not a condition that needs correction or escape.

The question you should ask yourself is whether what you are going through right now is really sad and depressing?

In death the answer is inevitably “yes,” so depression is a natural reaction, not experiencing it is the strange or the unusual.

Our nervous system shuts down so we can adapt and adapt to something that is beyond our control.

Perhaps when you realize that you are depressed, or when a number of your friends tell you that what you are going through is an obvious depression, your first reaction may be to want to find an outlet for it.

If sadness in itself is a gradual process of recovery, depression is one of the important steps in the path, getting out of it is like burying an elephant under a carpet and pretending it doesn't exist.

• Third: Cry as you wish

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Tears are one of the means of expressing our feelings, and one of the mechanisms of recovery.

Sometimes we voluntarily seek to disrupt this process, so we curb it by stubbornness.

Our choice of crying as a means of expression is related to the way we grew up. We may feel comfortable crying in closed rooms, or we may find no objection to crying in public.

But no matter how we're raised, losing someone we love can break our standards and surprise our ability to cry.

After a time after your loss, you may start to cry without warning.

Tears may be portrayed as dramatic or emotional, but they are in fact an expression of the enormity of the loss.

• Fourth: Express in creative and practical ways

Perhaps you are not one who likes to talk too much about their feelings, and you are not used to crying, all this does not mean that there is no other way to express, write to those who have lost letters expressing how you feel, telling them things that did not occur to you to say in his life, this will help you to Process and process your grief.

Design an album or memorial record for the deceased, in which you collect pictures from his life, his friends, and the things he likes to do and say, perhaps adding to it some of his funny situations he went through, or what distinguishes him, this will create a unique relationship from a new starting point for those who passed away.

If, for example, your friend dies of a terminal illness such as cancer, it may help you in your recovery journey by joining an organization that spreads awareness about it, or helps the injured in alleviating them.

Even if your loved one did not leave because of an illness, you can volunteer or get involved in a cause or organization that was of interest to the person who passed.

Tools that will help you

• Model:

Psychologist and Professor of Psychology "J. William Worden" suggests in his model of grief and loss that when we are exposed to grief resulting from loss, loss and death, we have "tasks" that we must work on, and that we keep in mind all the time, which are simple and direct, and we must remember We are committed to it throughout the period of grief, and by committing to it and reminding ourselves of it, we are on the path of recovery and healing, which are as follows:

Instrument

Talk with a psychiatrist helps you to understand what is going through, and to speak without fear of throwing judgments on your feelings.

In the case of non-availability of psychiatrists in your area or do not want to go out, the application platform "loungers" provides you with sessions with a specialist professional manner that ensures your privacy and convenience.

The site also provides cards to waddle by someone you may see that talk with a specialist will help his condition.

Book: The magical thinking - Joan Didion

These memoirs are not guidelines for dealing with the bereavement of death, but rather the subjective experience of a prominent journalist who has framed her mourning in a book.

John Didion lost her husband at the end of 2003, two months later she lost her daughter, who was hospitalized with mild pneumonia, then died two years later, mostly in hospitals.

During the whole year she recounts here, she tries to cleanse herself of the bereavement by drowning in every detail, feeling, and statistic about death and heart attacks.

In the autobiographies we may find salvation because we know we are not alone. In Didion's story we see a simple example of her dealing with trauma by refusing to give up her husband's shoes for so long in the conviction that he will come back and need them, and we may find comfort and light in the experiences and sorrows of others.

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