My 5 stages

Psychologists have identified five stages of grief:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Here's my take on my five stages:

1. Denial. Wow was I in that stage a long time, probably about two years. At one point my counselor at the time (a true genius who helped me in ways I'm only beginning to understand) told me I should inform my health care professionals that I am doing denial so they would take everything I reported to them with that in mind. "How are you feeling today?" "Super, thanks for asking!" "Okay, she's clearly an unreliable witness to her own life."

2. Anger. This one has been a recurring theme. These stages don't work in a linear fashion. This confounds and annoys a concrete, sequential, linear, analytical person such as myself. Throughout this process I've been angry at everything and everyone, especially myself. I crashed the car. I did this.

3. Bargaining. I did this with my attempts at treatment. "Okay, I'll go through these torturous injections and then I'll get better." Bargaining doesn't work, so then we get to...

4. Depression. This has been the longest lasting stage of all. Mixing in with other stages, defying therapy and pharmaceuticals. I'm still in depression.

5. Acceptance. I might be getting here. My new outlook and attitude on my life seems to have lead to this. But it's a tenuous situation.

So here I am. I feel the most alone and isolated that I've ever felt in my life. I know you all are there for me. But I'm still alone, trapped in my own personal hell. But, "When you're alone And life is making you lonely, You can always go downtown."

Click on the post title for Petula Clark singing a song that always seems to make me feel better.