DUE to the economic crisis created by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, people are struggling with various kinds of grief and loss.
According to Megan Hosking, a psychiatric intake clinician at private in-patient mental health facilities, Akeso, people who have gone through a break up or retrenchment can also go through grief.
What’s more, she says people can also experience loss in various ways.
However, in dealing with loss people generally move through five universal stages:
- Denial
Many people experience denial as their first response to loss. Denial is connected to being in a state of shock. Things may not feel real or make any sense.
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People in denial might seem to be carrying on with life as though the loss has not happened and often they don’t show the emotions people expect to accompany grief.
2. Anger
One may feel angry with themselves, the circumstances, a person including one who has died, and a wide variety of other elements surrounding the event they are grieving.
Feelings of regret and guilt, whether they are real, or just perceived, often are vented as anger against others who one thinks may have contributed to, or caused, the loss they are suffering.
3. Bargaining
Many people try to make a deal with whomever or whatever they feel has any control to change the loss.
This can be made up of promises or bargains with others or even a higher power to try and ‘reverse’ the loss.
4. Depression
This stage is often where reality starts to set in and a person moves their attention to the present situation.
One may feel intense sadness, want to withdraw from others, or feel like doing nothing. It is important to realise the depression suffered as a stage of grief is not the same as depression as a mental health illness, so cannot necessarily be treated the same way.
5. Acceptance
Acceptance does not mean that everything suddenly feels right again, or that you are completely healed or ‘okay’ with the loss you have suffered.
This stage is more about learning to live without your loved one and the changes in one’s life.
Hosking said while it is perfectly normal to experience shock after a loss, anyone who feels overwhelmed by their emotions or find the emotions persist for a long time should seek professional assistance.
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