The five stages of grief: where are you?

[policywonk]

Following on from another thread, and not wishing to hijack; the five stages of grief are, supposedly:

denial
anger
bargaining
depression
acceptance.

They don't necessarily go in that order, and you won't necessarily experience them all, but apparently most people with experience at least two.

My mother died four months ago. I've never been at all angry. I don't think I'm depressed. I certainly haven't accepted it.

What I do seem to be doing is a mixture of denial and bargaining, which is slightly bizarre given that she's long gone. My unconscious mind is constantly burbling something like 'well, you never know what the consultant might say at the next appointment; you never know whether a new drug might become available and change everything.' It's weird (I'm usually pretty rational and literal).

She was ill for a loooong time and defied her prognosis many times over, so I think I got used to this sort of Pollyanna thinking.

The thing is, I don't really want to stop thinking like this. I don't want to accept it.

Anyway... what about you?

I think everyone follows the same path but at a different time scale and not necessarily going tidily from one to the other. It can go back.
I have had 2 major bereavements, my husband and father. In both cases it took about 14 yrs to fully get there. It is difficult to explain, I don't mean that I was grieving for 14 years but that was the first time that I got to the anniversary and didn't realise the date until the end of the day. My DH died in an accident and so I always said that he was killed, the distinction was important to me, but I can now just say that he died. I still sometimes dream about both.

interesting subject, I tell you what I do know, there are no shortcuts or quick fixes in grief, you just have to wade throu it really, mostly I feel stunned and deep sadness thou the wanker bloke at the bank is helping me to find anger. I think the stages are vaugely right, I probably did most of the stages whilst Steve was ill but am doing some again, do you think drinking to excess comes under denial?
Sorry to see other people having to deal with this stuff thou it is strangly comforting to know I am "normal"

yes, some really bizarre little things just come and grip you - for me it was Waitrose doing half price fresh figs now - so figs are in season again. A year ago I'd always take some figs to eat for breakfast on the plane whenever I was going to see my mum.
I saw those bloody figs in the shop and could have cried.

totally normal OJ how are the kids?

Oh policywonk, poor you, I'm sorry about your mum.

I'm definitely at acceptance, my dad died 7 years ago. It does get better. I think it's different for everyone.

I think we brace ourselves for the big stuff but the other stuff sneaks up on us and knocks us over, I call it grief by stealth, well I call it lots of other things too.

I still sometimes think "oh, I'll ring dad" only for a split second though and then realise I can't. Bundle, I didn't realise your dad had died so recently, I am sorry, and for everyone on this thread who's lost someone they loved. I do think it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

www my brother says he has no fear anymore because the worst thing that could happen to him has already happened. I kind of get that.

I think that ,unelss god forbid, something happens to my dc, I will never feel pain like that ever again.

In an odd way it is comforting.

and because the time of his death was so awful, the dreaful time now isn't so bad. It couldn't possibly be as bad as that. Nothing in my life (other than harm to my children) ever could be.

No one has mentioned the "searching" part of grief. Going through old photos etc.

I remember just after my mum died looking and searching for her everywhere. Just looking and looking at the sky and in the garden wondering where she had gone to.

Still think about ringing her, or visiting her 2 1/2 years after she has gone. Drove past her house the other day, and there was a Dyson in the window, and I was thinking ".but Mum hasn't got a Dyson...."

fizzbuzz, I still do that sometimes, I look for mentions of him, I google photos of places he lived, and things that remind me of him. I only have about 3 photos, my sister has all the rest as we did a photo montage at his dying party (he died 4 days later but at least managed a party to say goodbye to everyone) and she ended up taking them home. I think if he were here he'd say I don't need photos, all the memories are inside me.

I think at 'least' with a parent it is the natural order of things to survive your parents, with a husband or child it isn't. All are awful though, grief is.

Yes still think about ringing her but not as much as I did. Whenever I came in from anywhere I always thought there was something I should be doing - it was ringing my Mum to see if she was ok . Still do it a bit. Also driving past her house (was my house for 20 years) and not believing I will never need to go in again.

Oh Polgara recognise that so much

Horrible isn't it fizzbuzz

I agree with what MB and OJ have said. You know the big things like anniversaries and birthdays are coming and, grim as they are, you're prepared. It's the way something comes out of the blue that gets me. Like today I took the DSs out for the day. I sat with a coffee while they played in a soft play are and it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that every other time we'd done that, I'd texted DH while I had my coffee. I had an overwhelming urge to text him and was utterly devastated to know I could never do that. Then, just now I've been listening to the radio while doing my ironing and they played 'Your My Best Friend' by Queen which is the song I chose to play for him at his funeral. Again, it got to me.

I think I'm far more accepting even at this early stage (just over a month since he died) because I started grieving on the day he was diagnosed. We knew he had no chance of making it and went through all the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, etc over the past 18 months. The big thing for me at the moment is overwhelming regret for all the things he didn't get to do or see. Every time the boys and I do something or go somewhere, it breaks my heart to know that DH didn't get to do it or see it with us.

Angry and depressed right now. My mother died last month and I still have times when I think 'I'll tell her that when I call her...' and at the same time, as a single child, I have to deal with all the paperwork of it, and that's grim.
Good luck, xx

The Maddest place that I have been 'caught out' was in the Orbital Milking Parlour in DairyLand, while we were on holidays. This is a farm with lots of indoor play stuff, and we were there on a rainy day.

they have a huge orbital milking parlour, and we were watching the cows walking round, being milked.

And then, for god alone knows what reason, the 'backing music' was 'I vow to thee my country', which we sang at DHs funeral.

Music is the worst thing for getting to you, isn't it? Poor DS2 burst into tears during Harvest Festival assembly when they played 'All Things Bright and Beautiful'. I don't think the song meant anything special, it just set him off.

Oh yes music gets me every single time.

'Pump up the jam' for my 7yr old DS
He so loved that song.

'Two little boys' for 7 month old DTwinS for obvious reasons

Oh my word I miss them.....

sorry that should have DTwinS xx

Oh god yes music. The amount of times I am driving home from somewhere and a song will set me off crying again. The neighbours must fear for my sanity as I am always sniffling when I come in!

I really have lost my marbles - Darling Twin Son

WDWGFH - I do feel for you. The one thing that made me cross with my Dad after his death last year was asking me to do the probate work without paying a solicitor. If I'd known how upsetting all the bureaucracy (sp?) was I would have just paid. Good luck with it - it's very hard, I think.

Such a lot of thought-provoking posts.

BodenGroupie - the passage of time is so bizarre. I've lived longer without my mum than with her in my life. I can't even really remember what it was like to have a mum, and in a way that makes me feel like she doesn't or didn't exist.

MartianBishop, re. the comfort of knowing you've felt the worst. Definitely recognise that - it's one of the things that makes my brother's death so completely unbearable for me. Stupidly I felt 'protected' by having lost my mum in such a traumatic manner - I thought the worst had come and gone, and we'd got through it. To have my brother, the dearest person in the world to me, tortured and killed by a disease that has no explanation just feels like the cruellest punishment for something I don't even know about.

This is why I'm nowhere near acceptance with him, and why like policywonk I almost don't want to reach it. I don't want to accept that he's gone - why should I? I don't want to be serene, I'm fucking angry. The night my mum died I knew something was happening and I spent the whole night repeating to myself 'please don't let something have happened to mum or Simon...but if it has, please please don't let it be Simon'. That was a rich vein of guilt for at least a decade after her death, that I had put one above the other. And then he was taken from me anyway, in the most painful and degrading manner. What is there to accept?

But there is nowhere to direct my anger to. I am finally angry at mum for killing herself, after being serene and accepting for years; she made that choice for all of us. But there's no human agency in Simon's death, just cells that have no mind, just biology. So all my anger goes nowhere, it just builds up and poisons me.

I thought I was doing well and was on the road to acceptance (DS2 was stillborn at 36 weeks) until I recently miscarried at 14 weeks.

Feels like I'm right back at anger. I feel angry with the whole world. Mostly myself though. I could have saved them. Even if medically I couldn't I feel like I should have been able to! Mummy's are meant to take care of their babies.

Totally failed at that