Bereavement

 Hello everyone and welcome back!

A lot of us may not be familiar with the term 'Bereavement', and truth be said, I wasn't too until recently. 
This was something I came across on social media and thought of sharing with you all because I realized this is something that takes place through all stages of life, and the earlier you know it, the better.

So, without further ado, let's get to it!
Starting off with the obvious, 

What is Bereavement?

In simple terms, it is the period of grief and mourning after a death or a loss occurs. Grieving is a normal reaction to loss. One may experience it as an emotional reaction which could be either physical or mental. Sometimes, mental reactions can include anger, guilt, anxiety, sadness and despair.

Emotions can be overwhelming after dealing with the loss-not necessarily death. It could be anything that you truly cared about; a job, relationship or change in a person's health. 

This phenomenon is coined as 'Bereavement'.

Moving onto the next subtopic,

What are the stages of Bereavement?

  Research has found that Bereavement typically involves 5 stages:

1. Denial: Typically, our reality has shifted completely in this moment of loss. And in the midst of processing this, you're also trying to regain the reality thus balancing both becomes a mammoth task leading to denial. It's not an attempt to pretend that something did not happen, rather your brain giving you the time to process it.
2. Anger: Phase 2 involves releasing of your pent up emotion. These may be directed towards the situation or a particular person or even themselves. Usually, this is one of the longer phases.
3. Bargaining: This is a conflicting period. When it begins, we are often directing our requests to a higher power such as God, to influence a different outcome. This is you slowly proceeding to the path of awareness that something has happened and you're accepting it.
4. Depression: This is when it actually hits you. And this is the one which can last from weeks to months and in some serious cases even years. Life feels scary and isolated at this period, and most times can be worse because you're unaware of what you're trying to process. 
5. Acceptance: At this point of time, you've completed the other stages. I don't like to use the term that you've 'outgrown' or 'left it behind' rather that you've accepted it as a part of you and learned to overpower it but simultaneously make a part of you. That experience happened. It lasted for a long time. You can't just forget that phase and act like nothing happened. At stage 5, your mind adapts to this thing by itself.

Dealing with loss is never easy. And you can't strategize your feelings like "Okay, day 1: Denial, Day 2: Anger...". These experiences are extremely human and its important to know that you may go through it at some point and someone else around you might too. Be aware and don't think someone is being selfish. 

That was it for today's post! Hope you guys enjoyed reading it. Don't forget to share and comment down below your thoughts and stay tuned for more content, every Friday!

Signing off,

Kuhu :)