Bargaining

For those who don't understand the psychological process of grief, I want to touch on the concept of bargaining. Its typically described as the act of offering to do/give/say something in return of your loved one. "I'll never fight with him again if only he would come back!" Got it? The lesser known side of bargaining involves the actual grieving. In the beginning, we barter with God or the world for the return of our loved one. Once some of the acceptance has set in and an amount of the shock has worn off, we begin to see that this isn't going to turn out like we wanted it to. We may begin to say things like "Fine, if I can't be married to him, I just want to be married again," or "my life will never feel good again, but please at least take away the crying part." We are bargaining with reality. We bargain with our own grief, because now its real (on a certain level). I'm still convinced there will always be a small shred of my subconscious that believes Steven is in hiding but can never come home (that's the denial). A concern among many of the grieving is that these feelings come suddenly and without any warning. Being aware of these ahead of time can help the mind prepare to accept these changes. The next step, I feel, is to actually feel it. Numbing your numb feelings of grief doesn't make much sense. We can't rid of the feelings, but we can begin to control them and understand them. We have no control over this life, but we can control how we react to it and manage it. We are tested not in joyous times but in times of despair, agony, and severe feelings of hopelessness. People don't care when we are happy. Anyone can be happy.  There's nothing special about our happiness to other people. However, when we get in to this grief stuff, that's when everyone starts paying attention and focusing on how you're grieving, why you're grieving, if you have a right to be grieving, and whether this matches their perception of what grief should look like. Grief is uncomfortable for others, but that doesn't have anything to do with us. They are uncomfortable because grief is such an intimate part of us. Think about it. What are some of the most taboo topics of discussion among good acquaintances (not best friends...)? Money/finances/debts, sexual relationships, and dysfunction (divorce, affairs, etc.). All very intimate details about our personal lives. Why? Because with these acquaintances we have a very cordial and loose relationship. "Hey! You still liking your job? Heard you guys are going on vacation! Ya, I'm still playing golf about every week." These aren't the people who call you on a daily basis to make sure you're ok. These are the people you run in to at Walmart and, in the case of grief, ask with a frown, "How are you doing?" We have two choices: 1. Make them extremely uncomfortable by discussing truly how you are feeling that day and what issues are bothering you (then they respond, 'oh, well I hope things get better for you!' and scoot off with their shopping cart to avoid further confrontation). 2. Simply say "I'm fine." (Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional). Credit: Healing the Grieving Heart support group. Usually, I choose to make people uncomfortable by divulging intimate information about my grief. My hope is that they learn not to ask me if they don't want a lengthy, detailed, and awkward answer. Other times, I use "I'm fine." This is when people ask me how I'm doing but have other motives. They want to talk to me to get information from me or to validate their own insecurities by hearing about how 'bad' mine are. I'm not about to enable that mess, so I say, "I'm fine" with a smile and they are stuck without a way weasel in their question. Shutting them down in this way often results in a blank and obvious look of defeat on their  face. Sometimes even panic because their nosy plan didn't work, and I won. Beat that!