I think a lot of people, at some point, have encountered information about the 5 Stages of Grief, outlined by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in the her 1970-something book, On Death and Dying: 1) Shock/Denial, 2) Bargaining, 3) Anger, 4) Depression, 5) Acceptance. There are other theories of grief and many of them are excellent resources, but hers seems to be the one that is most commonly dispersed in funeral homes, through hospices, in the self-help section of the book store. I admire her work so much - she was one of the pioneers of the hospice movement in the U.S.
Anyway, it is commonly thought that there is some kind of order to these and that a grieving person should proceed through one after the other and end up in the place of healing and wholeness - acceptance. But anyone who's ever endured a great loss knows that even if these are the stages, they don't go in any order and you can move in and out and through these stages sometimes in one day and you might end out at the end of that day in shock and denial. This is no failure. It just is.
This week, I've been thinking about the bargaining stage of grief, in part because of an exercise I am working on for myself - a grief timeline. If you are in a self-reflective phase, for whatever reason, you might get something out of this too. Just create a timeline, like you did in grade school, and hashmark your line with a date/year and small notation like, "June 1979, pet fish died." Anything that you want can count as a loss - car accident, loss of job, moving, being diagnosed with asthma. It can be big or small and there's no 'right' thing to include on your timeline. Sometimes it's helpful to see patterns or gain a big picture understanding of where grief has fallen in your life.
When I was working on mine, and I got to my high school years, I reflected on the way I grieved the breakup with a high school boyfriend (a lot of tears and U2 songs being played over and over on my "boombox". Damn the rewind button.) A large part of my grieving was what I now consider "BARGAINING" in the stages of grief and all of it awesomely high school style - "Maybe if I wear this outfit to the party, he'll realize he likes me again", "maybe if I flirt with this other guy at the party, he'll realize he likes me again", "maybe if I ignore him totally, he'll realize he likes me again". I held an unconscious belief that something I did would have control over his actions and reactions. It's not even humiliating to think of it now (though maybe it should be), because I see how we all bargain in grief even when the stakes are much higher.
I've worked with so many people over the years who bargain even long after the person they loved so deeply has died. "Maybe I should have insisted he go to the doctor sooner", "maybe I should have stayed home that day instead of going to work", "Maybe I should have pushed her harder to try that one experimental chemo."
Bargaining is futile and so human. I think people who normally feel a great degree of control in their lives are more susceptible to bargaining because the cold, hard fact that something so important is out of our control seems nearly unthinkable. I also see bargaining as being related to feelings of guilt and responsibilit, i.e., if only I could do something different, if only I had done something other than I had, if I am better, more, different, I could have or will prevent this loss. It's a terrible place to be.
About a year ago I went to a grief training in St. Louis, given by David Kessler, who co-wrote Elizabeth Kubler Ross's last book with her, On Grief and Grieving. He said, that if we had any control over the life of the person who died, they would still be with us. I just want to repeat that - "If we had any control over the life of the person we love who died, they would still be with us."
It is difficult in this life to discern when we have control over something and when we don't. It is difficult to know whether the thing we think we want would ensure a good outcome for all. How much difference does one decision make? Would the experimental chemo have cured mom's cancer? Would she have gotten 3 more good months, or 3 more months more sick than ever?
An expression that gets used a lot these days is, "It is what it is." I think that's a mantra of letting go. But in a wise and gentle way, one of my young clients had something else to say about how she is, at times, able to let go of her bargaining and second guessing and at times of the pain of her grief. She said, "When I go to a dark place, there are a lot of questions. There are only questions. I have to look for solace. I look for that in my friends and family who are living. And I find it."
Like I said, bargaining is natural and more natural to some of us control freaks than others, but if you are stuck in that painful place right now, I encourage you to reach out to someone who cares about you and let your connection to them be a light out of the cold and dark.
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