Stages of Grief and Your Wellness Journey

You are probably familiar with the Stages of Grief. And you most likely associate it with the death of a friend or loved one. But what about your health?

The stages of grief as developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross are:

1.     Denial

2.     Anger

3.     Bargaining

4.     Depression

5.     Acceptance

At one time the theory was that you moved through these stages in a linear fashion. If you have ever experienced grief, you know that is not the case. Often it looks like a tangled mess of all the emotions with multiple often experienced at the same time.

For ease, I will use someone (myself) navigating the diagnosis of pre-diabetes or diabetes and apply how the stages of grief might look in that context.

1.     Denial. This can look like not checking blood sugar on a regular basis or not making life changes as needed (exercise, stress management, sleep, and diet).  

2.     Anger can be experienced in multiple ways. Anger at genetics, anger at your body for betraying you, anger at others for being able to eat foods that you now need to limit, and that list can go on and on.

3.     Bargaining. This one is my favorite and the one I think most people stay in the longest. Bargaining is when you don’t want to do something, so you try to do something else that you like more. For me, I didn’t want to count carbohydrates and calories (because fu#@ diet culture) so I decided I could manage my blood sugar by Intuitive Eating and exercising. Then when that wasn’t successful, I decided I would track calories and carbs, but if I did that, I didn’t have the time to exercise. The mental games you can play with yourself, and your health are limitless.  

4.     Depression doesn’t need much more explanation. It is easy to fall into the pool of self-pity and drown. The thing that gets you out is action. Even it is imperfect action.

5.     Acceptance is the point you realize your life will never be the same. You admit that you will need to be more consistent with exercise than most people without pre-diabetes or diabetes, you will need to track your food, and you will need be intentional with what you commit to in your schedule so you can prioritize rest and relaxation as well as food preparation and exercise. Acceptance is also knowing that at some point, even if you do “all the right things,” prescription medication may be necessary at some point.   

How have you experienced the stages of grief in your health journey? What helped you move through the stages?