By: Afrah Imran
At some point in life, you seem that someone is feeling depressed or perhaps you might also feel this at some point in life. Having loss of interest in different life activities, hobbies, or even in work. A person feels extreme sadness, feeling hopelessness, tearful and loss of interest in different activities. This sadness may be for days or weeks or even years then this sadness is referred to as clinical depression. Most of our thoughts are negative and repetitive by nature which distracts our mind and sometimes you might feel that you are distracted with your thoughts during an important meeting or discussion or distracted with your thoughts in gathering with family and friends or when your friend was telling you what happened to him the other day and you suddenly catch yourself thinking that you missed an important chunk what your friend was saying or when you are reading a book you realize that you forgot a whole page and you start reading it again. These negative thoughts can be treated with some techniques such as avoidance, suppression, replacement with positive thoughts but these may often don’t work. These techniques may help in the short run but after two hours you feel that you are suffering from that negative thoughts or issue again. According to the well-known writer, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, it was identified that we have five stages of grief. These may be applied to anyone, any country or culture, or any religion. Grief comes to asthe result of the death of loved ones, loss of someone in relationships, breakup, or perhaps when you failed in achieving something. The first stage of grief is called ‘DENIAL’. In this stage, a person is unable to accept what just happened. This usually happens when any tragic event occurs such as an accident, a person can’t believe that his beloved one can’t live anymore. This may be applied in relationships when there is no way to communicate with your love or he/she might disappear. The second stage is ‘’ANGER’. In this stage, a person feels anger toward anyone or anything such as ‘how dare you, ‘I can’t believe you could that thing to me’ etc. This may be applied to any relationship such as separation. The third stage is called ‘BARGAINING’. In this stage, a person saying ‘I will do anything to return that person, or I will leave negative or bad habits or drug abuse. I just want to return that person in my life. The fourth stage of grief is ‘DEPRESSION’. It lasts for days, weeks, months, or even years. In this stage, a person feels extreme sadness, hopelessness. Such people trying to accept that what happened to them is inevitable but still they are unable to cope with their sadness. They are unable to feel joy in anything. They feel difficulty in sleeping and appetite. The last stage is ‘ACCEPTANCE’. In this stage, people accept what is happened to them. They realize that they will still feel sad but they realize that they need to move on in their life. These stages of grief don’t necessarily to apply anyone in any situation or the same order. Every person feels different stages during their life challenges. One day, a person might feel extreme sadness but on the other day, he may feel hopeful. These stages of grief vary from person to person or situation to situation. Thoughts are our internal dialogues but negative thoughts may result in depression. To cope with such situations people might want to go on some trips, want to spend much time with family and friends, and avoid not to spent time at home as negative thoughts hurt them more in loneliness. Most people trying to laugh more to ease their pain but it varies from person to person and in some cases it is reversible.
