Is Separation about "Grief and Loss" as well?

How does Grief and Loss fit in?

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote On Death and Dying. Within that context, she described her "Stage Theory" which delineates five stages a person may go through before actual death, or in our circumstances, separation, occurs. The theory goes by the acronym, DABDA, which stands for: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. One may also use this sequence to describe the process gone through with grief and loss.

Now here's the idea: Don't we progress, or not, through the grief and loss medium when we are in abusive relationships? Think about it? We had a relationship with someone we thought we were in love with. We gave everything we had to the person we trusted the most. Then, through a process that is all too familiar to all of us...after the fact...we began to loose something we never really had in the first place. I'm not speaking about our ID, or esteem, or even self-worth. We'll get to that in a moment. What I am thinking of right now is the relationship we dreamt we were involved in.

The denial and isolation occurs when we find ourselves in one acute situation after another, bouncing back and forth through the cycle of violence, never knowing from one moment to the next what to feel, or what to say. We know what is happening intellectually, but emotionally we are in such denial about the abuse we begin to believe that it’s the norm rather than the exception. We may come out of denial for a moment, but slip back into it over and over again.

Anger manifests itself in different way as well. It might be anger at God. We may think: “Why me?” We may feel envious of others who seem to be in better circumstances. Why are others enjoying life and I’m not being allowed to? We might feel anger towards our families for trying to assist us in getting out of our denial. We may think it’s none of anyone’s business and that we can handle the situation ourselves.

Bargaining may occur with thinking that if God isn’t able to handle the situation, may be if we were being “good”…may be that would work. Then there are the constant attempts to postpone the separation; rationalizing and justifying reasons why we cannot leave. They’re all rational reasons, aren’t they? I have no money. What will happen to the children? He/she will kill me if I even suggest leaving. We have allowed ourselves to be used, abused and confused.

Depression is also part of the schematic. There’s reactive depression where we are mourning past losses like our esteem and self-worth, including our God given right to have the freedom to think and choose. Then, of course there is preparatory depression. This includes losses yet to come, like the loss of our family units. There’s denial once again. Did we actually have family unity to start with?

Acceptance is the final stage of the process. This is when we finally come to the realization that if we don’t do something soon; we are going to wind up terribly hurt, or even dead. Ending up miserable for the remainder of our lives may be even worse than dying.

You may agree, or chose to disagree with this theory. The reality is that you have a choice to do something. You may not go through all the stages, or may be not even in the construct I’ve proposed, but you will feel some of these. The bottom line is that we must get out of denial and into the reality of life and wreak from existentialism. Make your choices based on solid and sound information. Do not stay in ignorance! Get informed and be responsible for the choices you make. We all deserve to live in freedom, don’t we?