WAW Hired a Divorce Coach (Cont6.)

[DonH]

On the stages of grief-- I found another version that went denial-bargaining-anger-depression-acceptance, and that was a lot closer to my own path (bargaining before anger)

As a paramedic for nearly 25 years I’ve seen this play out right In Front of me, at least the first three. The different versions or order they occur may well relate to the different types of grief. A divorce versus death of a loved one perhaps.

Take suicide as an example. The person is found and 911 is called. We may attempt a resuscitation or may have determined the person has been dead for hours. As we help process the scene and wait for the medical examiner, family members often arrive. It was sometimes my job to greet them and deliver the often unbelievable news. Upon telling them their daughter, or fill in the blank, has died, the first stages would often take place, sometimes within minutes. It would often start with “no, no, no you’re lying to me.” Ive actually had people say that, or, are you sure maybe he’s just passed out. This is the denial. It can sometimes be quickly followed by bargaining, “Please God no, bring him back and I’ll do anything you want. Or even with us “please try to save her, can’t you shock her or do CPR or something?” With in minutes more they may begin screaming, throwing things, slamming doors, hitting the wall. They may say “why would you do this John, I hate you, I hate you for leaving us.” This is the anger. Again, it all sometimes happened over 10 minutes and would repeat back to denial or ebb and flow. We very often never saw the depression and of course never saw the acceptance, unless a long time later if our paths crossed.

Anyhow my point in all this is it’s not the same for everyone and also different for different types of grief. However it is amazing how accurate it is with and for many.