Grief Cycle or Grief Position?
July 18, 2009 by Anna Farmery
Filed under Grief
The grief cycle is often talked about and I was talking to someone yesterday about the various stages of grief. During the conversation we started to think that there is also a different way of looking at the bereavement process – the grief position!
- Stillness – you are so numb that you cannot move without really thinking about it.
- Constant movement – this is when you have to plan the funeral and you are almost in a state of constant movement.
- Laying down - when all the calls have stopped and you are on your own, you just lie there and cry.
- Curled up – as the grief strikes you just cannot face the world, you lie like a baby seeking that love that you miss so much.
- Huddled up like an old lady. This is when you are dragged out and about by people who want you to rejoin life. You don’t want to, you do it because you think you should or to please them. You can’t stand up straight as you feel naked to the world – naked to all the emotion and often pity.
- Stand up tall – this is when you have learned to cope a little better, you know that you can never change what has happened and are starting to face the world again.
- Dancing – you have made it…through the grief and back to happiness!
I wonder whether our conversation strikes a chord with any widows or widowers out there!
Yes Anna I think you are correct, those are different descriptions of the stages of grief but I think we often backstep to the prior positions and I guess that is normal and okay, I often now seem to be standing but there are times when the old positions are more comfortable but usually only when alone.
Deb
Having just gone through another funeral this week I can completely agree with these grief positions. I was at the funeral of my husband’s cousin who left us all too soon at 62. His widow is definitely in the position of Constant Movement. It was almost as if she still doesn’t believe it. I can certainly relate. The Huddled Up position is one I know very well. You put it so perfectly when you wrote that we go places because we want to please others and then, when there, feel completely naked and exposed. I have so often wanted to find a corner and hide in it in a crowd because I feel that everyone is looking at me and pitying me. I just hate that feeling. But, happily, I find that mostly I am in the Stand Up Tall position these days. I am certainly looking forward to the Dancing position as I haven’t experienced that one yet but I know it will come.
The “positions” idea is a good description. But, I agree with the other comments. There is no “progression”. I may wake up “huddled up”, and go through several positions as the day progresses.
What I have found is my ability to “mask” which ever position I’m in to try to conform to the situation and people around me.
Thanks to you all for commenting…I love to hear your thoughts as it makes me feel that I am not “abnormal” in thinking these things!!
I agree that it is a rollercoaster…we do move back and forth between them, I think the one that seems to creep up on me is the huddled position. It seems as though that is the default position for protecting my heart?
Leslie – I hope that the funeral wasn’t too painful, I assume a few tears?