There are many models of the grieving process. Most include the standard denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Sometimes they will use different terms for these stages.
The model my DBT therapist likes – and I like as well – includes denial, protest, bargaining, grief proper, acceptance, and another one – reinvestment. Replacing the anger stage with the protest stage encompasses more that the stage entails, such as: “This is so unfair,” “This shouldn’t have happened,” etc.. These thoughts are not necessarily angry, but they are the sorts of thoughts that come in the protest stage.
The grieving process does not stop at acceptance and is not commonly linear; one day you might wake up in grief proper, then find yourself in protest the next. Sometimes it can jump across more than one stage. The natural process tends to move further in the stages as time goes on, and stays in the first stages for less time as you move through the grieving process.
Once you have reached acceptance, there comes a point to move past that to reinvestment. In this stage, you start to rebuild and truly move on. I haven’t consistently reached this stage in my currently primary grieving process.
I grieve over the life that was stolen from me by my mental illness. Before the major psychotic episode, I was one of the top students in my class and I had many talents and skills in other areas. This was all taken from me within a year because I could barely get out of bed because of the severe depression and terrifying hallucinations, as well as the occasional panic attacks. Not only did I lose that life, but I also lost myself. I have yet to recover even a fraction of the self-confidence I once had.
I have tried to reinvest in my life as a writer, instead of everything else I had wanted to do before. Some days are easier than others. I must remind myself that I am not a shell of the person I was or could have been; I am simply a different person who has grown through different experiences.
Rory's Write Place 