Grief - Bargaining
Trauma and loss steal many things from you. Love, joy, security, money, health, relationships, peace, or in some cases all of the above. Like a thief, it will break into your house, find your most cherished items, and leave without you ever knowing it was even there. But worst of all, trauma steals your control. You’ve lost your chance to tip the scales, control the outcome, or influence the decision, hell you weren’t even invited to discuss it.
Once you’ve processed your anger, you find yourself wishing to regain control of the situation again. This is where bargaining comes into play. “Please God, if you help her survive this, I promise I’ll be in church every damn Sunday – and stop saying the word damn”. “Lord, if you let me keep my job, I promise I’ll start donating to charity”. “Listen up universe, If you take my cancer away, I promise to run every marathon and start raising money for the homeless orphan abused starved children with only one arm and three toes”. If, If, If, If…
You’d sell your soul to the devil or make a deal with God if it would just take your pain away. But It’s false hope. False hope is confident feelings in something that is not true – it’s believing grief is avoidable as long as you can negotiate well enough.
“If you change this, I’ll do that”. You want your control back, you need it back. But did you ever have it to begin with? Living in desperation and searching for an alternative way to undo your trauma is just an ill-fated attempt at normality. It teeters on re-entering your preferred reality and if not dealt with soon, will send you two stages backward in your grief.
You may also find yourself struggling with guilt. Guilt is the lowly sidekick to the stage of bargaining. It likes to ask the annoying “what if” questions to gain back the control and power you lost. “What if I asked her to go to counseling eight months ago when I felt her pull away”? “What if I took my son to the doctor when he first mentioned his tummy hurt”? “What if I called an uber instead of thinking I was good enough to drive”? Your guilt is just another ploy at bargaining, but instead of bargaining with a higher power, you are bargaining with yourself.
Trying to undo what is in the past will only send you deeper and deeper into a pit of negative thoughts. While you’re not quite ready for acceptance yet, you need to understand that the past cannot be changed. You can’t alter history but you can change its impact. If trauma has made you feel robbed of the control you had in your life, then it is time to learn more about the power of perspective.
The only thing we ever truly have control of is our perspective. This is why you need to consider the potential for post-traumatic transformation.
Since you have made this far through a traumatic experience, you have undoubtedly discovered various coping methods. This is where you need to take inventory of the resilience that you’re adapting in real time. Being aware of the victories you’ve had – both big and small – means you can acknowledge they were meaningful and significant. It means your trauma can help you better withstand challenges in the future.
Understanding your fears, triggers, and coping methods open you up for more honest communication with yourself, close friends, and family. It also lays the groundwork for implementing a new level of empathy with others facing trauma.
I won't sugarcoat it. Perspective is a hard pill to swallow. And even reframing the situation in your mind won’t erase the sadness in your heart, But With the daunting pain of your trauma looming over you, you inevitably realize the truth. It happened and there is nothing you or anyone else can do to change it. This is the moment where you see the cold wet blanket of despair, that has been waiting for you all along. The next stage. Depression.