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?

Been 3 months since Mum died.
Have been through acceptance and Deppression stages. I still experience the anger. NOT at Mum, at the fucking cancer.
I miss her a lot.

I find the run-up to Christmas really difficult. My exh (father of my dd) committed suicide 4 years ago in December and my dad died the following December. My ex's suicide came a month before ds (by my second husband) was born. So I had a new baby, a distraught six year old and a dying dad. I've been stuck in the angry phase for 4 years and have just started counselling. (In that same horrible year my MIL also died and the following year my younger BIL) I thinks it's driven me a bit mad, tbh.

After 5 years and I still try and get through most days, telling myself my mum is on holiday, visiting family, and thats why i hav'ent seen her, still pick up the phone to tell her things, still buy little things for her that she would have liked, the only reason people think I am dealing with it / getting over it, is because I don't talk about her anymore/as much, but luckly you's lot dont count - you know waht I mean

denial.

mum died 10wks ago, a week before dd3 was born. I spent the last few wks of my pregnancy in the hospice watching her go. Two days before dd3 was born, I buried my mum, she was only 69. I haven't been home since and I've been so busy with the 3 girls, who are 5,2 and 9wks that I worry its all going to hit m at some point.

I think I'll just stay in denial

There are worse places to be, dizzy

Wheredowegofromhere - my mum told me once that even years after her mum had died she would still think of things to tell her, then realise she couldn't.

Dizzywitches - my mum died a week after my dd was born - it's meant to be such a happy time and it just becomes overtaken by grief.

I think i've been at acceptance for a couple of years now since my mum died in 1995. She was my rock after she split up with my dad. We were so close.

I hit a bumpy patch when I was orphaned when my dad died 4 years ago... I'd call it realisation or growing up, particularly as I'm an only child.

But I've come to realise that whilst its unbelievably hard... its part and parcel of life....

It is so sad reading all these posts, but comforting, in a horrid sort of way, to know that other's are going through it. Often you feel so lonely in RL going through grief, and so it is helpful to come and read other people sharing their emotions. So, thank you.

WSS - I'm not doing ok, really, but then you know that! I have a 'I'm fine, thank you' attitude with most of the people around me, cos I just can't be bothered to go into the ins and outs of how I really feel with every person who asks me. And then who really wants to hear that I'm awful, I hate this, it gets harder and harder etc etc etc. I sometimes even get bored of myself...

I seem to be going into depression. Work has been dreadful the last week or so. I've just wanted to crawl into my bed and stay there in the dark all day. I crave Wednesday-Sunday nights so I know I can get drunk(so know where you're at oj!), and I find it so hard communicating with anyone except my counsellor and my parents.

We haven't had any anniversaries yet. Had my birthday which was sad, and I'm dreadng Christmas but I guess everone's right - we'll be somehow prepared for it. What got me the most was on my first night out in 4 months, dancing in a cheesy club with a friend and The Killers Mr Brightside came on. It was the last gig I went to with my little brother. I just broke down in tears on the dancefloor . My friend had to half-carry me out. I was so not ready for it, and the shock of being so unprepared still shocks me, iykwim!!

My condolences to all those who mentioned a loss.
My Mom died a few weeks ago. I have been angry depressed accepting... what are the other stages again???
mostly I find I am letting my daughter watch a lot of TV, which I don't encourage, and I don't want to turn into a BAD mummy while grieving...
any ideas?

kama, I'm sorry for you. really am. Have you someone you can talk to about it?

I'm going backwards and frowards through these so called stages. Hit a big cloud of depression today. Again want to crawl into bed. Again crying at work.

I wish it would all just go away

I dont really recognise many of the stages listed.

My best friend died in March and to be honest I just feel sad and cry a lot.

I miss her like mad - I dont have many friends and never have so my relationship with her was very valuable to me.

I am still invovlved with her kids and her dh which really helps but I just feel incredibly sad basically all the time.

At first I rang her mobile several times a day - sometimes 10 times in a row- just to hear her voice on the answer machine.

I then managed to record it onto my phone and save it so that I will always be able to hear her - silly thing I know but it makes her alive again to me even just for a moment.

Acceptance mostly ----It will be 10 years in two weeks since our dd died.

Anger if I think about the circs too much .

Depression --once or twice a year when I am a bitch to dp all day then find myself wailing like a madwoman at bedtime and him hugging me and not having to say anything because he knows I just need to cry for 10 mins .

Sorry to everone else who has lost someone to .

Aw, someone revived the incredibly sad thread.

numum - I found that my parenting declined a great deal in the weeks after my mother died - there was a lot of benign neglect and also a lot of shouting (on my part and later on their part). I found that it passed within a couple of months - partly because I knew it would really upset her to think that I was being short-tempered with the children because of her!

You can only do what you can do.

Actually it's six months tomorrow that mam died. So it's a crappy day for me...

I feel I haven't had time to grieve properly - life gets in the way. And I think that losing a parent who is sort of elderly anyway is not really taken seriously as a loss - I think my friends stopped asking me about it within a few months of my mum dying. And I don't really talk to my brothers - we all have such different views of our childhood.
I think I have a lot of anger, especially with my dad for surviving. And he has a habit of rewriting history which I find very upsetting. He is very much 'stiff upper lip' and get on with things, so I feel as though he has hardly noticed mum isn't there (although I'm sure that can't be true, but its what comes across on the surface). I can't talk about it with him at all.
I just feel very sad and miss her. For the first few months I had a lot of flashbacks to the awful time of her dying (cancer). now I think about her much less but still can't really believe that she's not there. And I am angry that I can't ask her about things and so much about my childhood will remain unclear to me.
I suspect my feelings will really blow up when my dad dies. I don't know how I will make sense of it all then.

Didn't notice this was an old thread. Policywonk, I'm really sorry for your loss. Its two and a half years for me and not nearly as preoccupying now as it was. I still don't like going home though.

Thanks elliott. I'm sorry about your loss too.

It's hard to restructure the relationship with the remaining parent, isn't it? My dad is fantastic, but I still find it painful to re-negotiate a relationship with him on this new basis. And I dread anything happening to him.

I agree with you about this sort of loss being perceived as not-so-bad by a lot of people.

Hmm. Its good taht you have a good relationship with your dad. In our family it rather feels as though the heart has disappeared out of it and we are left a collection of disparate individuals with little to keep us together. I think me and my brothers harbour a lot of resentment towards my dad and we all rather wish we had had more time with my mum rather than being left looking after him. I sometimes think I could do with some counselling to work it all out but don't really know where I would start to find a good one.

And because I only have sons, I feel really worried that my own family is going to become the same - they will leave home and never look behind them. Though dh is a lot more involved and affectionate with the boys than my dad ever was, so perhaps there is hope.

Oh gosh. That does sound like a hard situation. I know what you mean about the heart being ripped out of the family and the collection of disparate individuals - I feel a bit like that too - I'm just lucky that I do get on very well with my dad, even though the relationship with him is a lot more effortful than my relationship with my mother was (she was the sort of person who knew what you were thinking before you knew yourself, whereas Dad's a lot less intuitive).

I'm sure my brother, who isn't very close to me or to my dad, feels very much as you do.

I know what you mean about being adrift in a sea of men too - I've got two boys and a brother also. I keep thinking about that old rhyme - 'your son's your son 'til he finds him a wife, but your daughter's your daughter for the rest of her life'

I've been feeling weird for the last couple of weeks because I've realised I haven't got a single girl/woman relative to buy a present for (I've got aunts/cousins but I'm not close to them).

On the plus side, my mother was a bitch to buy for - very expensive tastes! More than once I was tactfully told to take something back to the shop and spend the money on something nice for the children instead.

Funny how you find these tiny silver linings...

policywonk, it'l be 6 months for us on Sunday. Feel for you. Ttoally agree with the bad parenting thing, too. In the first txo or so months, I was a bitch to ds. Couldn't stand to be around him and he played up because he obviously felt it. I, and I am embarrassed about this now, wished I could swap him for my brother . But the same, my brother would hav been so shocked to hear me say that. Things are better now, but I do still sometimes wish I was all by myself.

tullytwo, I still do the same thing with my brother's phone. He has a rubbish voicemail message though "leave a message", that's it! But I still never tire of hearing it. We're lucky that he was doing an acting degree so we have a few dvds of him in various things. Difficult to watch, I cried all the way through a 2 hours play a few weeks ago, but something that we'll treasure, and it keeps him alive somehow.

five, your post made me cry. One of the tings I'm really worried about is never crying about my loss again. That I 'get over it', when I don't want to at all. I can picture myself in ten years time doing the same thing you've described.

elliott, that does sound hard. I would really consider contacting Cruse, they have some great counsellors. And it's helped me to talk through stuff with mine.

Hi everlong, my denial went on for ages. I think especially when it's a sudden death it seems to take a long time for it to settle in. Plus with a sudden death I think you can add an extra stage - shock. It probably took me weeks to just get over the shock, then weeks again to get past denial. Even now it's still hard to believe that he's never coming back.

I am so sorry for everyone's losses. Sending you all big hugs xx

thanks for your kind thoughts pw and evansmummy.
Yes, I really feel the absence of female confidantes - last christmas it was me and 6 males...I have a SIL (elder brothers wife) but she, sadly, keeps me at arm's length (a bit of a missed opportunity for both of us imo) and a niece who I rather over indulge at christmas, but that's it.
Never mind, my sons think I'm the bees knees at the moment, so I guess I just have to enjoy it while it lasts!
I find the renegotiation of the family dynamic very hard - I try to keep in touch with my brothers, but I think that actually we all find it too painful to talk to each other as I think we are all too close to it - so for example I find it very upsetting when my brothers say negative things about my dad, even though I may share their feelings, and find myself leaping to his defence.