Are you grieving? Do you feel like everything you know has been turned inside out? Have you heard of the Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle? Well now you have.

A smarty-pants once said ‘time heals all wounds’, a phrase that has since been repeatedly quoted to the grief-stricken. Life has proven that there is truth in this (at least for me) but, having recently suffered a loss, I find myself unable to comprehend the end of my grief

. Experience and rationality tells me that my mind will eventually come to terms with the loss and that I will be ok, but in my current state, I feel like a schizophrenic with unpredictable emotions. In my attempt to be objective about my state of mind, I Googled grief and came across the Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross was a Swiss doctor who spent a lot of her time comforting and studying the terminally ill. She created a blueprint of the emotional cycle of a person experiencing grief- this blueprint has since been used to understand the grieving process.

Not everyone will follow the exact path displayed in the diagram. Some people will skip, move backwards or get stuck in one stage of the cycle. For example, some of us may skip the anger stage and get stuck in the depression stage, where they spend weeks not wanting to leave their bed or see people. They might finally come out of the depression and enter the anger stage, or return to a stage that they have already experienced. Everyone grieves differently and this can vary between cultures and what a person is grieving over.

No matter what the grief is, it takes patience and time by both the grief-stricken and their loved ones. For those dealing with the process, remember that ‘this too shall pass’. As clichéd as it may sound, time is the best healer, and if you are willing to be patient, she will get you through anything.

Graphics designed by Tamsyn Esterhuizen

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