The 5 Stages Of Grief

Posted: 19:38 hrs (GMT+8)

I’ve been looking for this for a while. It started when I randomly thought of Mason from the TV series “Dead Like Me” and remembered the 5 stages were talked about in the first episode. I find it interesting and rather accurate. I bolded some main points.

Why paste it here? Just because I can. Also in case I need to find it really quickly again.

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(Quoted from Wikipedia)

The Kübler-Ross model first introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying”, describes, in five discrete stages, a process by which people allegedly deal with grief and tragedy, especially when diagnosed with a terminal illness. The stages are known as the Five Stages of Grief.

Stages

The stages are:

1. Denial:
   • Example – “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me!”
2. Anger:
   • Example – “Why me? It’s not fair!” “NO! NO! How can this happen!”
3. Bargaining:
   • Example – “Just let me live to see my children graduate.”; “I’ll do anything, can’t you stretch it out? A few more years.”
4. Depression:
   • Example – “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die . . . What’s the point?”
5. Acceptance:
   • Example – “It’s going to be OK.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”

Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom). This also includes the death of a loved one, divorce, drug addiction, or infertility. Kübler-Ross also claimed these steps do not necessarily come in the order noted above, nor are all steps experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two.

Others have noticed that any significant personal change can elicit these stages. For example, experienced criminal defense attorneys are aware that defendants who are facing stiff sentences, yet have no defenses or mitigating factors to lessen their sentences, often experience the stages. Accordingly, they must get to the acceptance stage before they are prepared to plead guilty.

Additionally, the change in circumstances does not always have to be a negative one, just significant enough to cause a grief response to the loss (Scire, 2007). Accepting a new work position, for example, causes one to lose their routine, workplace friendships, familiar drive to work, or even customary lunch sources.

The most common factor is when the person doesn’t have the capacity to change their situation, at least not without considerable loss to themselves, thus a person who would go through these stages would not need to continue if they found a way out of the situation: e.g., If a person losing their house was at the bargaining stage but then somehow found a way out of the situation, then they’d have no reason to become depressed. So the ’stages of grief’ could be linked to a lack of control or ability, e.g., people who have lost limbs, people on the bad end of an ultimatum, people under threat, and so on.

 

Black and white cat

Posted: 22:11 hrs (GMT+8)

There was A DEAD RAT, no wait, make that 3/4 of A DEAD RAT slumped next to one of the potted plants at my neighbour’s house. Its butt and one of its legs had been torn off. I suspect the culprit was a black and white cat that I’d seen hanging around the past few days.

…Every time I say “black and white cat”, I keep thinking of Postman Pat.

“Postman Pat, Postman Pat,
Postman Pat and his black and white cat,……”

Those are the only lines of the song I know. They have a new Postman Pat now, who’s trying to be more like James Bond apparently.

Anyway, back to the dead rodent.

I wondered if I should have just left it there for my neighbours to discover but I figured the last thing anyone wants after coming home from a nice vacation is to find a decomposing carcass.

Despite feeling kind of squeamish, I found a broom and dustpan to get rid of it. Its body was still soft and squishy. The second I moved it to the dustpan, a multitude of ants appeared from underneath it. It reminded me of the killer ant scene from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Eee. As I dumped it on the grass outside, it flipped over and I could see its hollowed out insides. UGH.

If during my childhood, I ever said that I wanted to be a cat, I take that back.

Edit: (3 Nov 2008, 20:38hrs)

My neighbour called today. He found the remaining 1/4 behind his washing machine. Eww. Wish I had noticed it earlier so he wouldn’t have had to deal with it.

 

Not all friends are forever

Posted: 15:07 hrs (GMT+8)

Even while I’m spending my time alone being busy, I’ve recently been reminded of one fact about people.

Everyone has a limit to the number of friends they keep close to themselves.

You may have been very close friends with someone at one point in time and then subsequently both of you replace each other with a new friend when walking down different paths.

Friendships that last through time are precious as it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain. It may not be that you don’t like a particular person anymore, just that you don’t find a need to maintain the friendship. If someone is important to you, you’ll work hard at keeping the friendship alive. That’s why we try especially hard for partners or best friends even when it may seem like the dumbest idea on earth.

For most of us, we choose a few friends to keep close no matter what. Another few are temporary and replaceable and may enter and exit our life multiple times. Everyone else beyond that is considered meaningless.

I miss some of my lost friendships. I wonder how they are, what they’re doing, and why I’m not being invited to their parties. Am I forgotten, just not that important, or being cut off on purpose?

At least… I still have those few who continue to keep me close to their hearts.

They say only you yourself can make the first move. But it’s hard when you wonder if you dial the phone, will the person on the other end care like they used to?

Is a friendship lost so easily worth trying to keep?

 

I have a whole box at home, thanks

Posted: 20:12 hrs (GMT+8)

Who are these weird people and why do they keep trying to sell me a single paperclip? I don’t know where they’re from, what game they’re participating in or what charity (if any, but apparently there isn’t) that they’re supporting.

I bought one for a dollar (you can give any amount you want) to see if it was magical. It was bent into a rounded “y” shape but otherwise was ordinary.

 

Sunned and dried

Posted: 21:00 hrs (GMT+8)

I disappear for a few weeks and WordPress changes it’s admin layout completely. I feel lost.

So yeah, I just came back from my trip yesterday morning. Went to San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. You’d think that would be a lot of luggage but it’s not. You just have to be willing to wear the same shirt more than once and wash a few things.

I’m too lazy to unpack completely. There’s now a small pile of clothes and other assorted souvenirs on my bed. As usual, I’ll have to shove them somewhere else so I can sleep, then shove them back onto my bed when I wake up. My room really is that small.

I still feel a bit tired. Travelling takes a lot of energy. In America, everyone drives everywhere, even if it’s just for a few minutes. It feels funny to walk now.

I got both sunburnt and dry skin from the cold weather. The skin on the back of my hands is very damaged. The cracks have scarred so it looks as if I rolled down a hill and scratched myself against thorny bushes.

I have sunglasses now! It’s so damn sunny over there, it’s impossible to live without a pair. I’m wondering if I’ll carry on the habit here.

Ming Yang had given me a plushie to keep me company during my trip. I brought it back safely and he’s now plotting its demise in case I get a little too attached to it. Haha.

Did I mention I’m really tired?

* * * * *

I’ve confirmed my course for mass communications at MDIS. I’ll be starting next month. I’m nervous as I have zero background mass comm. I will have to study very hard during the next 2 years or so just to be on par with the others.

We’re almost 1/3 through the year, everyone. What does the rest of 2008 have in store? I don’t really want to be surprised.

 

Parallel and alternate dream universe

Posted: 14:51 hours (GMT+8)

Sometimes, you get those dreams where you find yourself in an alternate universe. I had one such dream last night.

My dream self was at a school. A few people that I knew from online were there, even if all I had ever seen of them was just a photograph. Another part of my dream sent me to a hangar at a fairground. I was with some people I knew from SPDJ. The weird part about it was that my dream self repeated that part of the dream but as a second me, hiding from the first dream self, which explained all the suspicious noises the first dream self had noticed at the beginning.

When I woke up, I felt as if I had just acted in a sci-fi show.

I wonder if writers get their ideas in their sleep from their wandering imaginations.

Maybe I’ll try writing out my dream properly, hmm. Might be fun.

 

How to deal with office psychos

Posted: 02:35 hours (GMT+8)

I thought this would be useful to everyone since most of you folks who read my blog are my classmates about to start work. Had someone steal credit for your work? Twist your words to make their screw-up at work seem like your fault? Save yourself some potential agony and frustration and give the following links a click.

Dealing with the office psycho

Don’t waste time negotiating with psychos

Okay, I’m finally going to sleep now…

 

Cup of tea (aka I shouldn’t really blog at 2am)

Posted: 02:06 hours (GMT+8)

(Edit, 02:11 hours: Damn, I know I’m going to attract flaming now.)

Getting quite irritated with people who muse so much about love. “Why isn’t my relationship working out boohoo. Why doesn’t she like me WHY?! We’re perfect for each other. I don’t want to live anymore~!” etc.

I wonder if I was like that in the past. Doubt it was to that extent at any rate.

Maybe now that I’ve finally found a very decent guy who’s open to talking about this kind of stuff with me that I’ve finally wised up to the whole thing.

Quit over-complicating things. It’s really simple.

Love is a load of chemical reactions. That’s it. That’s ALL. This especially applies to those people who love someone… But can’t give you a real reason why. You don’t need to know someone to fall in love with them.

Go and look for the person who understands you and will put in effort to meet your needs. That comes on your part too. There’s that old saying that says it takes 2 hands to clap and whatever. You can’t force anyone (or yourself for that matter) to “save” a relationship if it isn’t work out.

You want complicated? All right, fine…

 

It’s nobody’s fault

Posted: 18:56 hours (GMT+8)

Why does it seem that when it’s not our fault, we tend to blame everything on ourselves but when it is our fault, we tend to push the blame away?

 

Nothing but hard work

PSLE results are out today. Turns out the top student is from my old school (St. Hilda’s Primary) with a record-breaking 294 out of 300 points.

Read more here.

Great. Nice to see people get what they deserve for their hard work.

I got my results back today for my weakest module. As expected, I failed it again. One last chance coming up in the form of my final exam in January.

Don’t **** up, Ruby.