Grief doesn't have stages – and that's OK
I know the five stages are everywhere. But after twenty-two years of working with bereaved people, I can tell you – grief doesn't follow a map.
You might feel acceptance on a Tuesday and raw anger on a Wednesday. You might feel fine for weeks and then fall apart in a supermarket because you saw their favourite biscuits.
All of this is normal. Grief is not something you move through and come out the other side of. It's something you learn to live alongside – and some days it takes up more room than others.
If your grief doesn't look like the textbook version, I promise you: there is no textbook version. There's just your version, and it's valid.
Comments (12)
thank you for writing this. i spent so long thinking i was doing grief wrong because i wasn't moving neatly through the stages. i'd feel acceptance one day and then be right back in anger the next and it made me feel broken. knowing it's not supposed to be linear honestly takes some pressure off
margaret you're absolutely not broken. honestly the number of people i've worked with over the years who come in feeling exactly like that – like they've failed at grief because they circled back – it's heartbreaking. grief isn't a test you can fail. it's just what love looks like when the person isn't here anymore
this is real. no one tells you grief just kind of stays. it's not something you get over.
it really does stay, david. and i think that's one of the hardest truths to sit with – that it doesn't leave, it just changes shape. but there's something strangely comforting in that too, eventually. it means the connection is still there
i've read some of the research on this – Bonanno's work especially – and he found that most people don't follow any predictable trajectory at all. some people are resilient almost immediately, some go through prolonged grief, and most are somewhere in between with these unpredictable waves. the stages model was never really backed by evidence, it was based on observations of people who were dying, not people who were bereaved. totally different context
yes! bonanno's work is so important. i think the stages model stuck around because it gave people something to hold onto when everything felt chaotic. and i get that – chaos is terrifying. but the truth is so much kinder than the model. you're not failing. you're just human
didn't know that about it being about dying not grieving. that changes things
i needed to hear this. been beating myself up because some days i feel totally fine and then other days it hits like a wall. felt like i was going backwards
the fine days used to make me feel guilty too. like if i was really grieving i shouldn't be laughing at something. but you can hold both. you can miss someone desperately and still have a good afternoon
yeah. the guilt on good days is its own kind of grief honestly
jamie, those wall days aren't you going backwards. grief doesn't work on a line. it's more like weather – some days are clear and some days a storm rolls in and neither one means you're doing it wrong. you're just living with it, which is all any of us can do
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Long-term grief, meaning-making, and continuing bonds with those we've lost. Not about 'moving on' – about learning to live alongside loss with honesty and connection.