The Five Stages of Grief Redefined

Disclaimer: This post isn't intended to make light of the five stages. The few brief points of humor that are thrown in are only because I feel sassy today.... and I have a friend out there who needs more words than I can type in a text and so this post is mostly for that person.....aaaaaaaand I can't care(cuz I like the way Demi says it) what other people think or how some of my writings make them feel....it is what is...and I'm the boss of myself.

Okay because I find myself writing random thoughts....this is how I prefer to look at the five stages of grief.

Denial= WTF....This is the stage where you assume that someone has spun you into an alternate reality known as 'Not my Frickin life.' I lived here, in this stage for a long ass time...I rented a space and unpacked my things and settled into Denialville for a good little stay. This is also the stage....and I didn't know this back then but I know it now....where God protects you....saves you from yourself in ways until you are strong enough to deal with all the feelings and emotions that are going to come your way....thank God it was done that way because clearly I needed a little bit of time to be able to cope with my life.

Anger=MF(which stands for Mother Fawker...keeping it clean so as not to offend)...That little two letter abbreviation to the left needs no explanation....clearly this is the stage where all hell breaks loose and honestly the person who wronged you should be lucky that they have the title of MF...it means you still care even if it's ever so slightly. Honestly I could have come up with at least eight abbreviations for this stage...and I think that I struggled in this stage...I didn't know how to process how I felt, I couldn't recongnize how to understand it and what to do with the anger and since sadness and hurt is the emotion that rises quickest to the surface for me that is what happened. There was no raging, no breaking things, no seeing red....there was instead sitting in side myself with quiet, crying buckets, and living in walk in closets and bathtubs. Ok and I'm laughing now at the 'I think I struggled' part....since setting up a dwelling in a walk in closet isn't really common place for a lot of people.

Bargaining=WE(Whatever) This is the stage where I was willing to offer almost anything to create a different outcome...I considered sacrificing almost all moral and ethical reasoning. I was willing to derail all the growth that I had made in myself and make promises that I would inevitably not be able to keep because no one is perfect. I think I loathed this place the most, especially when I look back at it now....that I would be okay with turning away from all I knew myself to be in the hopes of saving something that maybe shoulnd't be saved.

Depression= FML....Those three letters that spell out a swear word phrase...yeah that phrase ruled my life for months....I loathed my life...I loathed the human race...I loved my children and like five other people(don't ask me if you are one of the five...you should know the answer to that...:) but that is almost where it began and ended for me. I believed that almost all people were shitty...that at the end of the day I was not the exception to the rules in anyones life, I believed that most if not all people were selfish, and that everything is always done with a self serving attitude where their own personal gain is the number one concern. I was sadder than I have ever been....like in my entire life....this was the stage where I remember so many nights of laying in bed and saying "Dear God, if you love me at all, please take me tonight so that I don't have to do one more day of this." It absolutely was during this phase where I genuinely felt the breaking in my spirit, though I know that the ultimate breaking had happened months prior. During this period of time, I felt fragile and damaged and completely lost...but I knew that creating quiet....within myself...and crying more tears than one human being should shed....I knew that it was during this period where the rebuilding within myself would happen.

Acceptance= TTCO....Time To Carry On......Some sites say that the fifth stage of grief is resignation....I don't prefer that word....resignation sounds different to me than acceptance....Acceptance says that at the end of the day, you still get to be the one that gets to decide how this chapter is going to end. Resignation gives the indication that you have no choice....I chose to move into acceptance so that I could move on....and so that we could all move on....living in a certain place of limbo where no one is making choices and just going through the motions of day to day existence is no way for anyone to live....This is the stage where I felt the most scattered, restless, unsettled, unnerved and irritated because I just wanted some sense of normal back in my life....I had to accept that the choices were all things that couldn't be undone, I accepted that people were sorry, and deeply remorseful and understood that people make mistakes. I accepted that this was not part of my perfect plan and that I had no control over anything that came before but that I had all the control in how things would play out from here. That this would be MY moment where I would get to be the one to write the next chapter....and so I chose to say....there is no undoing what has been done and I can accept that but I am different now and stepping back from here seems like the only reasonable option at this point.

So there you have it....I can easliy look back now and see exactly what stage I was at and when that was....I'm kind of thankful now, that I can look back there and see how far I've come in 670 days(though when I write the number of days...it kinda makes me wanna throw up a little in my mouth...but instead I'll say....not one day too soon...and not one day too late. It was absolutely the hardest walk of my life so far, but I survived and I am better than I was, and I am so so grateful for that.