The Five Stages of Grief for those in Need Re:Irwin

[symbolman]

There are many ways of dealing with grief, tho many think it's mostly about death, it's also about living our everyday lives. Kubbler-Ross invented these, read "On Death and Dying" by her, it helps everyone Deal.


DENIAL --- What's the first thing you do? You try to start it again! And again. You may check to make sure the radio, heater, lights, etc. are off and then..., try again.

ANGER --- "%$@^##& car!", "I should have junked you years ago." Did you slam your hand on the steering wheel? I have. "I should just leave you out in the rain and let you rust."

BARGAINING --- (realizing that you're going to be late for work)..., "Oh please car, if you will just start one more time I promise I'll buy you a brand new battery, get a tune up, new tires, belts and hoses, and keep you in perfect working condition.

DEPRESSION --- "Oh God, what am I going to do. I'm going to be late for work. I give up. My job is at risk and I don't really care any more. What's the use".

ACCEPTANCE --- "Ok. It's dead. Guess I had better call the Auto Club or find another way to work. Time to get on with my day; I'll deal with this later."


"Notice that the first step of Grief Work is ACCEPTANCE, the last stage of the 5 Stages of Grief. Let's throw out the 5 stages of grief and replace it with a greater understanding of Grief Recognition and Resolution."

http://www.counselingforloss.com/article8.htm

Personally, tho I'm being castigated right now for not having liked the guy, I'm willing to bet within two weeks there will be cartoons, etc posted here that JOKE about him. There's already a thread with Jokes about him. I haven't been joking, I think that's worse, but not letting people speak their minds is worst of all.

Let's chill and let people grieve their own way - I saw a guy hit a woman with his car, not two feet away from me once, she SPUN in the air in front of me and landed on the sidewalk. Her shoe flew OVER a bridge, that's how hard she was hit.. I screamed, "Oh my god, oh my god!" lept out of my car and ran to assist her.

A cop showed up as the driver got out, a young guy. Know what he was doing? He was Laughing, the kid who hit the woman. WHY? Because he was FREAKED OUT, because appropriateness had gone out the window, he was nervous. The cop kept me from punching this guy's lights out, later I realised that people grieve in their own way, sometimes in wierd ways.

Grieve how you will, but try to remember these steps, in the end it's always acceptance.

[knowbody0]

1. my little adopted kids all smile when they are in trouble

On the reservation, you can always hear laughter at funerals.

Tolerance, symbolman, is the pathway to understanding.

love and peace

[symbolman]

2. YOU

I LIKE :)

The Irish laugh at funerals, too.. it's confusing to some people - death is nothing, John Lennon said that death was like "Going from one car to another"..

My kid laughs and runs when he's in trouble, that's what I love about him most, I can see ME in him :)

Thanks, Peace and Love to you too

[knowbody0]

4. Yep,

and I do believe that the laughter speeds them along in their journey to the next world.

I'm Irish and as a child must have attended at least 100 funerals. back then there were these women called "mourners" who were paid to attend. They were old women dressed in black who would moan and weep loudly. I remember my mum explaining to my dad why he had to pay them. Then the wake! Good food, lots of booze, lots of laughter. good times!

How've you been?

[symbolman]

5. Well at 16 I was confused during my mother's death

everyone was in my home having a GOOD TIME. I wanted them all to leave, being a young man and not really having had attended funerals of anyone I knew well I had no experience. My sister saw that I was tweaked about all the laughter (tho at the wake we all sat in the greeting area, laughing and telling stories of my mom's life) at our home after, and gave me some valium, went to my room laid down and relaxed until folks had left.

My brother took pictures of my mom in the casket, one of her eyes had sunk from swelling before she died so they had turned her head to make it less obvious. My brother was saying things like, "Hold still now mom.." CLICK, etc and leaning over her to see the eye thing.

I looked at him and said, "Jesus Bill.. that's not a frog on an inspection plate, that our mother.." He said, "This isn't our mother anymore.." So I fired back, "Then have a little respect for the body that gave you birth.."

My Step dad later found those pictures and threatened to hunt down and kill my brother like a wild animal if he ever showed them to anyone.

All Grief, all weird, humans do strange things all the time, even stranger when presented with death, that's why I'm glad I read "On Death and Dying" by Kubbler-Ross, it put a lot of things into perspective, loss of a job, a wife, a girlfriend, in the end, emotionally it's a lot the same.

And there are people who Prey on those at these times, dishonestly, I am not one of them as I see it, but it's happening and it's more disgusting than scaring the shit out of animals. Using cultural conditioning to make people attack each other is a cheap shot, and I'm amazed it's allowed here.

Enough of me, how are you? Adopted kids?! I've always admired that :)

[knowbody0]

7. Loss and Separation

pain and despair. That book was helpful to me too.

Ya know, it's kinda a season of condors lately. Not just here at DU, but everywhere. Me thinks we're living on the edge of a big change and all creatures sense it. Chaos and madness abound. I learned how to "throat sing" a long time ago and do it often. I swear the resonance is unfamiliar lately.

Me? I'm weary as hell.

[symbolman]

38. Do you mean the Tibetan throat sing or Native American?

Too many adopted kids? We've got a 20 month old and he wears us out, I do the night shift, and my wife covers the days, more than one would kill me at 53 :)

Yep, there are a lot of trolls calling people trolls now, it's amazing. The DU in the old days had less people, now I think there's been an influx of instigators who's job is to be constantly indignant, using key words like "Disgraceful", "Vulgar" "Hateful", even when none of that has been offered or only by a few..

Then we get threads that Pit each us against each other, usually, "I can't believe there are Bad People saying Bad things about Good People, and you KNOW who I mean.." :)

Called Crowd Control, I've studied it.. the man with a "moral Rope" is in charge of the lynching.. the rope give him power. Words like "Ethnoeccentricity" and "Culturally Conditioned" spring to mind.

I worked in two mental wards and know a lot about conditioning, and how people can control groups, hence my chastisement for being honest instead of playing games. This thread was meant as a way to lighten it all up, while still teaching Ross's basic mental healing aspects, but some are missing the point I think.

thanks for the positive messages, the universe is turning and the hate will spin out, as Gandi said, Hate has never really won, Good wins in the end.

[darkmaestro019]

3. "not having liked"

I've been biting my tongue for days. I have deep sympathy for his family and I certainly wished him no harm, but he was disrespectful and exploitative towards animals--and himself and his wife and children, from what little I have seen of him on television. He treated wildlife as though it was put here for his and our amusement, and there was too much "Look how tough I am!" in it, for my taste.

I think karma had a hand in what happened to him.

[William769]

6. I hope they use this also for the firing of a certain someone.

[demobabe]

34. What does that mean?

[Beausoir]

8. Oh! Just what we all need! Lessons in respecting the dead from Symbolman

Jesus.

Do you honestly fancy yourself able to offer anything to this discussion? After your despicable display on this board today?

Because we choose not to denigrate a dead guy, you have decided that we all need grief counseling.

The irony here is so thick you could cut it with the barb of a sea ray.

I can see you. You are now trying to cover up the fact that you left your naked bum flapping in the wind with your despicable coffin thumping posts from earlier today.

You disgraced yourself and no matter how hard you try to rehabilitate yourself, you will be remembered, albeit very briefly, as the loser who tried to score political points off the death of a nice man.

(And, just for those who have not had the misfortune to read his previous posts....he's now going to quote, ad nauseum, about his right to free speech and how DU is stifling his rights.)

[symbolman]

10. I'm not even going to alert on this

I want people to see you in all of your glory.

I even laughed at your "joke" where you said, "We're fighting the Rays over there so we don't have to fight them over here.."

Pretty good, what the hell else you are babbling about here is nonsense, but feel free to continue, a lot of people know me here and know all the work I have done, favors, pals, etc. been here a long time kid, so you might want to relax a bit..

Might have a coronary or stroke with all this sliming :)

There are many paths, opinions, and uh, in case you didn't read any of this other thread, I was talking about my own dead mother and a personal grieving over someone who MATTERS, not some celebrity, and others were posting about tolerance, where's your's?

Never seen someone so angry.

[Beausoir]

13. Go ahead...I dare ya. Alert.

Let's see what happens.

[demobabe]

17. What's your beef with Symbolman?

He talks about his dead mother, and you come and piss all over the thread?

[LostInAnomie]

25. Read the crap he has been spewing in the other Irwin threads.

I definitely wouldn't want to play the apologist for him.

[Beausoir]

27. A fool's errand if I ever saw one.

Playing the apologist for that kind of bile.

[symbolman]

29. Not til you

double dog dare me :)

Starting a fight to shut the thread down?

I think Kubbler-Ross is a service to the community, gave a copy to my cousin dying of prostate cancer.

And I'm not going to answer you anymore, it serves no purpose.

Bye Bye now.

[demobabe]

12. No, no, no...

Do you honestly fancy yourself able to offer anything to this discussion? After your despicable display on this board today?

Because we choose not to denigrate a dead guy, you have decided that we all need grief counseling.

Okay, you "choose not to denigrate a dead guy"...

...but it's okay to openly attack Symbolman?

Either you respect humans or you don't. Period.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

You tell me what makes you so above everybody else that you have a right to post this kind of crap.

There is only one guy who has the power to cast judgment, and you're not it...

[Beausoir]

15. Who would be the "guy that has the right" to cast judgement?

Waiting your specific reply.

[demobabe]

23. GOD

[Beausoir]

30. Oh! GOD!! You are on a misson from GOD!!!! Which GOD do you mean?

Jesus...why doesn't this surprise me?

[demobabe]

49. Pick one...

BTW, It's not very nice to take Jesus's name in vain.

[pitohui]

9. now you're just deliberately being disrespectful of people's feelings

give it a rest for the love of all that's decent

[demobabe]

14. Symbolman is offering this in all sincerity

He is not trying to mock or be disrespectful of other people's feelings.

[Beausoir]

18. You are delusional.

Read what symbolman has posted today and then get back to us about how wonderful he is.

[demobabe]

20. He is wonderful

But you are very judgmental.

Take your HATE elsewhere.

[Beausoir]

24. Nope. I am staying right here, babe. Been here a very long time and I

am SICK of people shitting all over this board.

You don't like it? Then scram. Or learn to live with it. Your choice.

[demobabe]

26. So Symbolman is shitting all over this board

...and you're not?

Who made you god?

[A-Schwarzenegger]

47. Are you Symbolman's mom?

[Beausoir]

44. Oh! Just realized that you are his wife, DemoBabe. Admirable job of

defending him, I must say.

All husbands should be so lucky as to have a wife who is so devoted to protecting his honor.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

48. Seriously?

The incomprehensible is becoming semi-comprehensible.

[Beausoir]

51. Yep. Seriously.

It all makes alot more sense now.

[ForrestGump]

21. No he's not

Not at all.

[demobabe]

22. You're not Symbolman

Don't speak for him.

[ForrestGump]

37. I was speaking OF him, based upon observation of his behavior

It's what naturalists do.

[Beausoir]

41. It's kinda sweet that you, his wife, would leap to his defense.

Goodnight.

[pitohui]

28. oh please give me credit for having some intelligence

it is perfectly clear that he is not sincere and he doesn't give a damn about anyone hurt by this

don't call me stupid on top of everything else

[demobabe]

32. Pitohui - you've always had wonderful postings and are very intelligent

And I would never call you stupid as you suggest I have.

ASCII text doesn't come across with feeling or inflection or the look in a person's eyes or their charm.

I know Symbolman very well, and believe me, his intentions are not to patronize anybody here. He posted the stages of grief to remind people of all that goes on when a person suffers a loss, be it death or loss of a job or situation. Symbolman has been through more hurt, more grief, than practically anybody else I know, and his world view may appear rough at times. He has been more empathic than anybody I know, has worked in two VA hospitals caring for the mentally infirm, and genuinely is a loving person.

I respect you, but think you've got Sym wrong. I know Sym, and his intentions are good.

[pitohui]

39. well i now have a new theory

to be honest i haven't been able to put these threads today w/ the symbolman we know from these forums and from bartcop

so my new theory is that he's on holiday and someone has broken into his account while he's away

i mean there is just no way to read the original post above without feeling the sarcasm drip all over :-( agreed it wasn't what i would usu. expect from the symbolman

but you don't tell people who are grieving that it just a mechanical process and you should work thru the steps, that was ugly in the 70s or the 80s or whenever they started w. that crap, and it's just as ugly now

grief is messy, it is not about "steps"

[demobabe]

46. Grief is messy

And sometimes you have Denial Anger Acceptance Denial Bargaining Depression Anger Depression Acceptance Bargaining etc...

Everything is like that in life - you eventually get over it, but it comes back at times...

Whether it's that job you wanted and didn't get or someone who was close to you that died...

Recently I was sad about my grandmother who died when I was six...

That's just how humans work - that's why we're humans and not robots. ;)

Symbolman isn't being sarcastic. He may not be saying the things that people want him to say, but he's not the guy who's saying 'hooray, steve irwin is dead' either.

[The Straight Story]

11. You missed the step on mocking them and those grieving

In this case, should be step 1 from what I have seen....

[symbolman]

16. Who did I mock

other than to say that I thought this guy was a clown, which I said before he was dead and still believe, even watching him on Larry King drumming up Biz for his VEGAS SHOW..

One person suggested that some of us are making observations and opinions. Mine is known. You disagree, fine

You want to attack me, fine,

But that's YOUR problem.

Trying to shut down a thread about Grieving, that's amazing.

[Beausoir]

19. Nobody is trying to shut down your "grieving" thread.

It's just that after the bile you have barfed all over this board since this morning, nobody is really feeling all that sympathetic to you and your losses.

Talk about exploitation. Shameful.

[demobabe]

36. So you're not trying to shut down his thread

But you're posting over and over and over ad nauseum nothing that adds to the conversation.

Come on...

[pitohui]

31. this isn't a thread about grieving

it's a thread about common courtesy and etiquette and how some people ain't got none

i suppose kubler-ross had to make a living like anybody else but shoving some book telling me the steps to take when i'm grieving is like really, really, really insulting -- always was when this crap came out in the 80s, always will be

and just copying her stupid "steps" into the forum when people are heart-broken -- that is just plain mean-spirited

when someone you know dies, do you tell the wife to go read kubler-ross, not if you have a damn heart you don't!

i honestly wonder if someone hasn't hacked into symbolman's account while he's away for the labor day holiday -- it's the only explanation that makes any sense to me!

[symbolman]

42. Some things are classic

and Kubblar-Ross is. Like I mentioned above I just gave a copy to my cousin who's dying of prostate cancer, same age as me.. I gave a copy to my dad when he was dying, and many others. They've all thanked me.

I thought it was time to MENTION some healing since I'm over this guy like last week (just me, sorry), and others who KNEW might want things to lighten up a bit, nothing meant to be mean spirited. Oddly enough I believe both, that this guy was someone I didn't like and Kubblar-Ross is more of a help right now than the direction this guy's pontification was going...

I'm more worried about my cousin than a guy that got killed by a ray, when I live in Hawaii and people get eaten by SHARKS all the time. Can you see my view? This is not important to me, and sort of silly as we're surrounded by death in the waters here. Like one guy said, Irwin was so cartoonish that some are reacting to it like a cartoonish event, along with the irony, I still can believe how dumb it all is.

Totally sincere on both counts, maybe posting the 5 steps with someone complaining about a CAR was a bad idea, for that I apologise.

No, it's still me, I just Disagree, too bad I'm not allowed that, or ignored.

This guy is Not MY FAMILY, he's a Nobody to me, at least I'm honest when I say I didn't like him before and I don't like him in death, and I ALWAYS posted that I had sympathy for HIS family.

[idgiehkt]

33. o.k.

Don't ask us to attend
cos we're not all there
Oh don't pretend
cos I don't care
I don't believe illusions
cos too much is real
so stop your cheap comment
cos we know what we feel

[Lisa0825]

35. Poor taste...

symbolman, I have really enjoyed so many of your posts over the years. I have lost a bit of respect for you today, however. Many people here appreciated the work that Irwin did, and are expressing a sincere sadness about his passing. You have spouted a lot of negativity tonight, like pouring salt on a fresh wound, and now you post this, supposedly in support, but most likely a veiled attempt at dark humor.

Don't pretend to be sensitive after you've already done your damage.

I need to learn not to expect so much from liberals in general so I won't be so disappointed when confronted with crap like I have seen today.

[demobabe]

40. He offers this in sincerity and also to lighten up the mood

Did you know Steve Irwin?

How many people here on the DU were personal friends of Steve Irwin?

People here are acting like Symbolman killed their mother!

Yes, people are sad he died. I'm sad he died.

Steve Irwin was a celebrity. He was controversial. Not everyone approved of him.

But it is a loss, and people here are CLEARLY experiencing a grief reaction, and everyone experiences steps in grieving. In one week, this board will be filled with Steve Irwin jokes - watch it happen.

Maybe Symbolman's description of the steps seemed to make light of the situation, but I know for a fact he offered them in all sincerity in a light way as to not lecture. He knows about pain; he's been through more of it than most people can ever imagine, and is truly a beautiful soul.

I'm sorry you're feeling pain over this, but don't direct your ANGER towards Symbolman.

I send you healing vibes. :)

[Lisa0825]

43. His vitriol betrays his faux sincerity.

I do not believe he flipped a switch and suddenly cared, as opposed to the negativity he was spewing earlier. You apparently have blind faith in him. I do not.

[symbolman]

45. I think you're mistaking vitriol

for my rough way of dealing with death, life, whatever.. I spent a lot of time in Alaska, where people live in a true frontier, a lot of people up there are short and sweet about things..

Like when a Moose was shot and rendered in a Car Wash in Fairbanks by my Brother in Law.. the raw dead parts were hanging all over the place dripping blood, nothing like saran wrapped meat you didn't kill yourself in the stores, when my two nieces walk in and view this horror.

Most people might have rushed the kids out, but my brother in law instead said to them, with their wide eyed stare,

"See, that's what happens when you don't look both ways before you cross the street.."

All the men laughed. That's life in the North, surrounded by animals that we kill to eat and wear.

It was there that I discovered a new respect for Nature tho and couldn't kill anymore, so I'm rough around the edges, and that's why people enjoy my Flash animations because I'm SO DIRECT, but in some cases, I'm just as asshole for being brusk.

As demobabe said, I've dedicated my life to helping MANY people, clinically insane Veterans after I got released during Nam, wheelchair folks, headstart, environmental movements, fighting Bush FOR Veterans, etc.

Being straight and honest rubs some the wrong way, sorry I don't feel sympathy for this man, I didn't like him, anymore than Sigfried and Roy, I don't like Zoos, they look like Jails to me, and Circuses where Elephants (maybe the third smartest animals on the planet) are routinely abused.

Won't take the kids to one.

Like I posted above, I'm sincere in both threads, hard as that is to believe, maybe the car analogy was silly, but I thought it would sneak a healing process into the game, and whether people believe in steps or not, these are part of the process.

Thanks for your previous support at least :)

[idgiehkt]

50. .

"...so I'm rough around the edges, and that's why people enjoy my Flash animations because I'm SO DIRECT, but in some cases, I'm just as asshole for being brusk."



FOOTNOTE TO THE AMNESTY REPORT ON TORTURE
Margaret Atwood

"...The man who works here
is losing his sense of smell.
He’s glad to have this job, because
there are few others.
He isn’t a torturer, he only
cleans the floor:
every morning the same vomit,
the same shed teeth, the same
piss and liquid shit, the same panic.

Some have courage, others
don’t; those who do what he thinks of
as the real work, and who are
bored, since minor bureaucrats
are always bored, tell them
it doesn’t matter, who
will ever know they were brave, they might
as well talk now
and get it over.

Some have nothing to say, which also
doesn’t matter. Their
warped bodies too, with the torn
fingers and ragged tongues, are thrown
over the spiked iron fence onto
the Consul’s lawn, along with
the bodies of children
burned to make their mothers talk.

The man who cleans the floors
is glad it isn’t him.
It will be if he ever says
what he knows. He works long hours,
submits to the searches, eats
a meal he brings from home, which tastes
of old blood and the sawdust
he cleans the floor with. His wife
is pleased he brings her money
for the food, has been told
not to ask questions.

As he sweeps, he tries
not to listen; he tries
to make himself into a wall,
a thick wall, a wall
soft and without echoes. He thinks
of nothing but the walk back
to his hot shed of a house,
of the door
opening and his children
with their unmarked skin and flawless eyes
running to meet him.

He is afraid of
what he might do
if he were told to,
he is afraid of the door,

he is afraid, not
of the door but of the door
opening; sometimes, no matter
how hard he tries,
his children are not there.

[Missy Vixen]

52. A woman had a psychotic break in front of me

about four months ago. I was so stunned by what happened that my first impulse, unbelievably, was to laugh.

>Because he was FREAKED OUT, because appropriateness had gone out the window, he was nervous.<

I was upbraided for my "inappropriate reaction" by another person in the building later. I talked to a therapist afterwards; she said that I was frightened, I was stunned, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do -- she said I didn't do anything wrong. The other woman in the room told me days later it took her several hours to stop shaking and asked for the phone number for the therapist I talked to. It was that upsetting.

Nobody knows what they will do when confronted with something like this. They also can't be responsible for anyone else's feelings but their own. IMHO, YMMV.

My thoughts go out to Mrs. Irwin and their family during what must be a time of searing grief and pain.

Julie

[symbolman]

53. thanks for that JulieRB

I hope you recovered well, glad the shrink gave you good advice - I would have done the same thing, a lot of people do.. comedy is interesting psychologically.. it's all about THREAT and then SAFETY.. the story contains the threat, then the resolution so we Laugh..

Sanity is decided by the group, if the group is convinced that something is GOOD (as in Hitler getting his brownshirts along for the ride) then those in power can Force others to "toe the line", and that becomes "appropriate behavior" ie burning poor Jewish people to death..

Not preaching at you, just observations..

I'm glad it was only One person that upbraided you instead of the whole village with pitchforks and torches :)

The folks in charge however DO know what we will do, and that's why terror, a threat that can't be located, no concrete boogieman, lots of fear, keep people at each other's throats over anything, divide and conquer while they clean out the treasury.

And the left is the most scattered of all, there's no lockstepping here, except for outrage about being NICE, and I believe that's why we lose so much, I'm not nice and so I BLAST them with my flash's and usually people say, "Man, I wish I'd said that.."

Anyone notice that the other team ain't NICE? That's why you use people who aren't AFRAID to speak their minds to fight them.

I've been glad to do that with my work, and let's go after THEM for being CRAZY and KILLING People..

Best to you :)

[Annces]

54. I don't really have a strong opinion about Irwin

but the opinion I do have gets me bombed here. I do have strong opinion about animals and respect for their own life on this planet.

Anyway, Kudos to you, for being able to put your opinion out there and sticking with it.