Starting Over – The Healing Process (Stage One)
Adapted from the book Starting Over
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by Tom Whiteman
Butterflies don’t start off as gorgeous winged creatures. They begin as caterpillars, fuzzy worms that crawl around and eat dust. A stunning transformation occrs, turning some of the earth’s lowest beings into some of its highest. You probably knew that already.
But what ou might have forgotten is that the transformation happens in stages. The fairy godmother of insects doesn’t wave a wand and the caterpillar doesn’t magically spout wings. No, the little thing curls up, spins a cocoon, changes inside the cocoon, and then breaks out of it.
That’s a fitting picture of recovery from divorce. After the initial breakup, you’re eating dust. You feel like you’re crawling through life. Then things start to change, and it usually seems that they’re not changing for the better. Just as the caterpillar goes through a kind of death, wrapping itself in a coffin-like cocoon, in the same way a grieving person sinks deeper and deeper into depression. But that’s not the end of it. Ultimately you can burse from your cocoon and fly free. However, you have to go through the stages.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. We first began that collection of terms about twenty-five years ago, as Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and others did research among the terminally ill and their loved ones. How did people deal with the loss of life? In these five predictable ways. It seems to be a pattern hardwired into the human psyche.
In our work with divorced people, we’ve seen the same pattern. Apparently, we deal with any loss this way, not just death. It’s not always clockwork. Often, people slip back and forth among the stages. But people facing the breakup of their closets relationship regularly report feelings of denial followed by anger, bargaining, and depression. A healthy progression leads them to a point of acceptance, usually within a few years.
Stage One: Denial
Let’s say you break your arm. What do you feel? Nothing. Oh, there’s the initial pain of the break, and that can be excruciating, but soon thereafter your body rushes to protect you. The injured area begins to feel num. In fact, you might even go into shock, as your body and mind conspire together to shut you down temporarily.
Our emotions do the same sort of thing. We call it denial. After a traumatic emotional experience, we like to pretend it never happened. Or we seriously downplay its importance. “No problem. I can handle it.”
Some people deny that a painful event happened at all. This kind of denial is usually short-lived, like the physical numbness that follows an injury. People might go a day or two, even a week, denying the entire trauma, but eventually it sinks in.
Some people deny the magnitude of a painful event. It’s quite common to see this kind of denial and it can last quite longer. People might acknowledge that something happened to them. But then they go for years without accepting the full scope of the event.
Some people deny their own role in the event. This kind of denial helps people protect themselves from adding insult to injury. They willfully ignore their own role in a tragic event. That way they won’t have to feel guilty on top of the pain.
In my experience with divorce recovery, six months is a reasonable period for denial. We’re not holding a stopwatch to you, but if it’s eight or nine months after the fact and you’re still pretending that nothing serious happened, you’re probably stuck in the denial stage. You might want to see a counselor to get unstuck.
Why do people get stuck in denial?
- They can’t take the pain.
- They can’t deal with the anger.
- They have no alternate vision of the future.
- They can’t adjust their image of their ex-spouse.
- They can’t adjust their image of themselves.
Recovery requires a redefinition of yourself. Eventually you must begin to see yourself as someone who has been through a difficult breakup, is growing through it, and will emerge stronger and wise. But constructing a new self-images involves some heavy lifting. It’s easier to stay in denial for a while.
Denial is the calm before the storm, a chance to catch your breath before the roller coaster ride begins. But the longer you stay in denial, the further out of touch with reality you become. Within a few months of your initial shock you need to move forward, into the stages of anger, bargaining, and depression. When it’s time let the roller coaster begin.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the next stage…. Anger
Adapted from material © 2001 by Thomas Whiteman and Randy Petersen
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