Understanding the Stages of Grief

If a loved one passes away, the family members are left in grief, and many people cannot deal with this grief. The recovery process becomes tough for many, and you may not be able to get the thought of that loved one out of your mind. 

Whenever you are enveloped in grief, it can impact your health mentally and physically. Every person deals with sorrow differently, and it also manifests itself uniquely. There are specific stages of grief which are considered standard, and here we discuss what they are:

1. The first stage is DENIAL. Every person who has lost someone goes through a phase of denial and cannot come to terms with the fact that their loved one has passed. It can be a very overpowering feeling, but this stage does not last for a long time.
    
2. The stage right after denial is ANGER, and this is when people realize that the person is not in their lives any longer. Whenever someone is grieving, the frustration and the fact that they cannot do something about that person's death frustrates them. They feel that they would not be able to function normally and that everyone around them should also grieve with them. 
    
3. During the BARGAINING stage, people start second-guessing everything that they encounter. They keep asking themselves how they could have done things differently to prevent the death from occurring. This transitional phase is when people start to move a little bit from the initial pain, they keep constantly feeling.
    
4. The DEPRESSION stage can last for quite a long time. It happens when the person has now accepted that they have lost their loved one. Nothing else distracts them from the feeling of pain at that point, and they cannot overcome it.
    
5. The next stage is ACCEPTANCE, where the grieving person has reached a point that they don't feel the loss is very overpowering. They can cope with it in a better way and move forward from their grief while keeping the memories of that person intact.

 If you want information about our services here at Thomas M. Gallagher Funeral Home, contact us or give us a call at 318-640-1375 today.