Grief: 8 Months In

Grief is so confusing.

The social worker gave us a pamphlet about the stages of grief and I remember looking at it and thinking 'ok, just get through denial and then you can deal with guilt (and so on a so forth).'

Yeah, no.

Grief is not linear. You don't deal with it one stage at a time. We've gone from guilt to anger to disbelief, back to anger, to acceptance, back to guilt and around and around again. We've jumped ahead stages, taken ten steps back and skipped some of them entirely.

There are weeks now- instead of days- where we feel good. Those are the times I avoid writing here. Those are the times where I just don't want to deal with it. Sometimes it's easier to just keep my head down knowing full well that it's only a matter of time before the sadness hits. When it does, it usually lasts a few days. There are a lot of breakdowns before bed and a few at work.

As far as progress goes, I'd say I no longer feel anger. That one seemed to be short lived. However, I still go back and forth between the rest of them fairly often.

I think trying to rationalize grief or put some sort of process behind it is a bit pointless, if not counterproductive. It's a tricky bastard. The more you try to predict it, the faster it changes.  In our experience, you just feel what you feel and deal with it as it comes.