Saturday, October 25, 2008

Stages of Grief and Loss

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross stated there are five stages that people go through when faced with grief and loss. This can be related to death or even break-ups i suppose. Basically, the five stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Final Acceptance. The thing is, i thing I got my stages mixed up when I broke up recently. Let me explain.

The first stage I went through when I dumped her was Bargaining. It was only a few hours after the incident, but I've already started to plead and beg her to take me back. Of course, she didn't give me a straight answer until 4-5 days after that so I went through the Denial stage. I kept telling myself that there is a chance to get back in the relationship, but I was wrong, so wrong. I'm going through Anger right now, because I feel like she toyed with my emotions and simply left me cold and bloody by the roadside. I feel betrayed, and I keep on having visions of bad things, really bad things happening to her friends. I'm sure that I haven't gone through the Final Acceptance stage yet, because I still feel as though this whole breaking up business is wrong. I'm not saying that I shouldn't have broken up with her, I'm only saying that I was made to believe something fake and things wouldn't be this painful if only she was honest to me.

Another reason why I feel like I got my stages mixed up is because of the Depression stage. For me, I didn't go through one single stage where I was constantly depressed. Depression was like a constant for me, because it existed throughout the other stages as well. I haven't had a single day since I've broken up where I didn't think about her and felt depressed. It goes to show that Kubler-Ross' theory isn't exactly perfect yet, but I don't really care about that. All I know is, I'm enraged and depressed and (oh please God) I hope I can go smack the hell out of her right now. If it wasn't for my "no violence against women" policy, she'll be going back to her friends with cuts and bruises. Argh...

While dealing with this depression, I kept on reminding myself that I've still got basketball, friends, family and my Koala. To tell you the truth, I'm glad because my friends and Koala has been there to support me throughout the whole break-up. Thanks Cerak, Khalis, Jean, Adam, and anyone else I forgot to mention. I would've gone crazy if it wasn't for you guys.

Oh, and Koala, if you're reading this, thanks a lot for being here for me throughout this hard time, and thanks for everything. I really appreciate it.

No comments: