“I bet you know what the stages of grief are, even if you don't think of yourself as much of a psychology-type person.
The stages of grief were developed by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in the 1960s, as she listened to and observed people living with terminal diagnoses. What began as a way to understand the emotions of the dying became a way to strategize grief.
The griever is expected to move through a series of clearly delineated stages: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, eventually arriving at "acceptance," at which time their "grief work" is complete.
This widespread interpretation of the stages model suggests that there is a right way and a wrong way to grieve, that there is an orderly and predictable pattern that everyone will go through.
In her later years, Kübler-Ross wrote that she regretted writing the stages the way that she did, that people mistook that as being both linear and universal.
The
#StagesOfGrief were not meant to tell you what you should feel, and when exactly you should feel it. They were not meant to dictate whether you are doing your grief "correctly" or not. Her stages, whether applied to the dying or those left living, were meant to normalize and validate what someone MIGHT experience in the swirl of chaos that is loss and death and grief. They were meant to give comfort, not create a cage.
The truth is, you can't force an order on pain. You can't make grief tidy or predictable. Grief is as individual as love: every life, every path, is unique. There is no pattern, and no linear progression. Despite what many "experts" believe, there are no stages of grief.
To do grief well depends solely on individual experience. It means listening to your own reality. It means acknowledging pain and love and loss. It means allowing the truth of these things the space to exist without any artificial tethers or stages or requirements.
Grief is part of love, and love evolves. Your love, and your grief, are bigger than any stage could ever be. The only way to contain it is to let it be free.
You'll find ways to live inside your grief, and in doing so, it will find its own right place.” megan devine
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