The Five Stages

It is hard for anyone to lose someone for whom they care and any real loss will usually result in the five stages of grieving, especially when that loss is due to rejection. Whether the relationship lasted for twenty years (or indeed twenty minutes), people will often start with denial and move through depression, bargaining and anger as they aim for acceptance. Or as I like to think about it, navigate their way through neurotic city on their way to post-breakup land.

Denial is really your first port of call and is also known as ‘There Must Be Some Mistake Street’ or ‘There Will Be A Rational Explanation Avenue’. If you can’t quite figure out which end is which and really believe that you shouldn’t be here then you probably are. Signs that you may be here could be feeling alone whilst in your partners presence, when you continually make up excuses to explain their neglect or when stalking becomes your new favourite pass time. If you find yourself by any of these signposts however, they pretty much all point to Depression.

Depression itself is a pretty big place. It’s the whole suburb of ‘What’s Wrong With Me??’. Its surrounded by a moat and the roads within tend to curve in on themselves so you may find yourself going round in circles. The weather here is terrible wherever you happen to be and even though misery loves company, the people are not always helpful. Occasionally though, you may meet someone who can inspire you to jump across the border into new territory.

If you haven’t got a long enough stride, you may land on the little bargaining island of ‘If Only…’. Here, you promise all sorts of things if you can just make it the whole way across. You may also imagine all the ways things could have worked out differently. You do need to be careful however, not to lose your confidence or you might end up back where you came from. If you have a long stride on the other hand, you’ll end up in the zone of Anger which is made up of ‘What’s Wrong With Him!’, and just north of that, ‘What’s Wrong With Them!!’.

Its not a very hard place to recognise as here you’re likely to feel that boiling oil followed by drawing and quartering would be too light a sentence for your ex. You may methodically deface every picture of the two of you and then burn them and you may hope you are around when someone breaks their heart so you can laugh and rub it in. Of course you may also choose to just studiously avoid any and all meetings with them and refuse to even mention their name. Whichever route you choose, it’s these things that you will need to get over to truly arrive at forgiveness and acceptance.

Also known as the post-breakup land of ‘What’s His Name Again?’, this is where you will have stopped reading their horoscope and no longer need to have conversations with their memory. It is also where you will be truly glad to know they are happy with someone else. For some of us however, it definitely takes a while to get here and I think we would all agree that we wish it wasn’t easier said than done!