The Five Stages of Grief for Survivors of Abuse
By: Indie Courtney
Tags: Metoo, Relationships, Mental Health, Abuse

Grief is an emotional state of being when an individual faces loss. Though it is commonly associated with the state of mourning when a loved one dies, grief can occur in other circumstances as well. Sometimes we grieve periods of our lives when we change from one season to the next. Other times it can be versions of ourselves that we no longer are. Grief, simply a state of deep sorrow, can also happen to individuals who experience great hardship such as abuse. Coupled with symptoms of post traumatic stress, this is an insidious factor of learning to cope after surviving an abusive situation. And because grief is most commonly associated with death, many survivors are not given the space to grieve. In many cases, all efforts are targeted towards getting a survivor out of an abusive situation, but once they are safe they are often left to deal with the grief and trauma on their own. It was the “after” that actually felt the most painful for me the year after I left my abuser.

The five stages of grief are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The year after I left, I went through these stages. And like many people who go through these stages of grief, I wasn’t aware I was going through them until I had gone through them. It wasn’t until I looked back at the wreckage did I see what I was dealing with. A therapist told me when I was in the thick of it that what I was describing to her sounded like grief. I didn’t understand. What would I be grieving? I made it out. I survived. And still, there was anger and depression, bargaining and acceptance.

For me, I was in denial for most of the relationship and a few weeks after. But coming out of that relationship was like detoxing from a drug I was addicted to. It wasn’t until all of the toxins were out of my blood that I was able to see what they did to me. I was in denial because I was being injected with manipulation, gaslighting, and codependency for a year and a half. Any time I even suspected abuse, it was like I was hooked up to an IV telling me to doubt myself, my reality. And doubt turned to denial, that caused me to even defend my abuser to doctors and therapists, family and friends. But going cold turkey and clearing my system after I left, allowed me to reclaim my truth. I believe that the reason anger comes after denial, at least in my situation, was because I couldn’t believe I had actually been treated that way. Even worse, that I didn’t see it, I refused to see it, and I allowed it to go on for so long.

Outbursts of anger can be a symptom of post traumatic stress, even independent of the stages of grief. I think my grief fueled these outbursts. The months after leaving, returning home to live with my parents, were some of the most difficult months of my life. One defense that I used while I was in the relationship in addition to denial was simply to numb myself to the pain I was feeling. However, numbing these feelings did not make them go away. And during these few months they all came back at once. Anger is believed to be a secondary emotion, one that covers up another deeply seeded emotion such as sadness, hurt, helplessness. For me anger came as the culmination of a year and a half of hurt, helplessness, violation, depression, confusion, silencing, dissociation, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, desperation, feeling like I am another person walking around in my body. Feeling like someone killed me. Feeling like I had been brought down so low that it would be impossible for me to ever be brought back up again. Feeling overwhelmed with the idea of having to bring myself back up again. Anger for me was also impulsivity and avoidance. Acting out sexually, storming out of rooms instead of having difficult conversations, and binge drinking all in a desperate attempt to release the pile up of all these emotions. But I soon found out that I couldn’t continue living with these things vibrating inside of me. Sometimes they come out and impact the people around me. Out of shame and embarrassment rather than true acceptance, I began to bargain with others.

My reality was denied to me throughout this abusive relationship. Because of that, it was very important to me to have acknowledgement from others to validate what I had experienced. And although this was very important in the beginning, sharing my story with others who had experienced similar things so that I could better understand what I had been through was helpful for me to make the first steps out of the relationship and on my own. But I know now that true acceptance has to be validated from within me. I needed to trust myself again. At the time, however, I put my reality in the hands of my abuser again by asking for acknowledgement and accountability from them. Those who grieve the loss of a loved one do not get closure more often than not, but I thought could. No one else was there in the room when these things happened to me, and so I felt I could only feel safe trusting myself if the other person in the room could hold themselves accountable.

I am not a stranger to depression. This depression, however, felt belligerent. It was disappointment. It was procrastination. It was self indulgent. It was victimhood. I knew that I couldn’t continue this way for much longer. Every day was a war in my head trying to fight off flashbacks, intrusive memories, insomnia, nightmares, self-hatred, shame and doubt. By the end of the day I was exhausted and slept fourteen hours at a time. I knew something had to change. I was too tired to do it myself, stability, contentment, love, all felt too far away. It felt like I had failed. The only thing that electrocuted life back into me was the possibility that I might flunk my classes and lose my financial aid. I had dropped out of too many schools because of this, I wasn’t going to let my abuser take this one away from me. I asked my doctor for antidepressants, talked to my teachers, lessened my course load and it was alright. But it was only when the antidepressants kicked in and the makeup work was completed did I understand that the real work hadn’t begun yet.

Putting the fate of my healing in the hands of the person who did the harm only led me backwards. I put the fate of my healing in everything but my own hands. And it wasn’t until everything else failed me that I was able to see I had no choice but to lift myself back up. The flashbacks and intrusive memories, bad dreams and rumination, sweaty palms and panic, they have not gone away, just as someone who has lost a loved one may still dream about them or think they see them crossing the street. I tell myself that one day I won’t think of this at all and every day gets easier. What I have learned in this past year is that the goal isn’t to live like I don’t care about it, like it hasn’t affected me profoundly. People who lose loved ones may not ever go a day without thinking of them. The goal isn’t to forget. It’s to learn how to remember in a way that doesn’t derail me. It’s to acknowledge that I am not the same, and perhaps I will never be the same. There were points in that relationship when I thought that I was not going to survive it. I think I know what I was grieving when my therapist told me she saw it. I was grieving the person I was who may have died in that relationship. And it was like I was left behind, having to learn how to live my life again. Then there came days when I saw parts of me. And a few weeks passed and I saw more parts that I had forgotten. Learning to be myself again and accepting that I was also not the same was like learning to speak again after a traumatic brain injury or learning to walk after an amputation. Learning to set the table with one less place, learning how to spend the day not having to visit the hospital. It does seem impossible from the other side, from someone who has no trouble speaking or walking or has everyone they love around them. Or even at the beginning when they’re gone. There is a saying that has been said to me many times this year and that’s “the only way out is through”. Trauma and grief alike: the only way out is through.