Ten Stages of Mourning for Our Childhood @ The Ten Stages

1. SHOCK: We have Anaesthetised ourselves against overwhelming loss. We have Not been able to comprehend, to face the full magnitude of emotional alienation as the child within.We become elated and despondent our belief systems start to crumble and we become thirsty for the studies. There is only so much physical or psychic pain which can be endured by the child within, and when that limit is reached, our mental/emotional system shuts down. We have been often in a state of repressed denial for a very long time. We have expressed this as “numbness,” or as a sense of unreality, a sense of disassociation.

2 EMOTIONAL RELEASE: We start to return to a full on realistic world. At this time we begin to quantify the extent of our loss and realise how dreadful the loss has been. We tend to healthily vent this releases of pent-up emotions is better than our battle to constantly repress them, but we start to feel and express strong emotions. As the shock wears off, we feel the need to release all the emotions that have been building up. Our release may be verbal or physical, and while this is healthy, care should be taken to ensure our safety, others, or personal property. We have to recognised this stage and need to provided “screaming places” where these powerful emotions can be safely vented.

3. DEPRESSION, LONELINESS AND UTTER ISOLATION: Our pent-up feelings break threw the carefully constructed dam of denial.Releasing the feeling of “Their is No help for me.” We descend down in the depths of despair. We identify and realise this is a NORMAL feeling. At this stage we needed to be quietly aided by EXPRESSED CONCERN in our recovery and its goals. A response to loss is for childhood is to experience vivid dreams, so vivid that we believe we have actually seen or heard our specific abuse or a moment from the past as it expresses itself in our sub-conscious. Another manifestation is that the we will mistake another person for the person from our past, usually on the street or in a store. This will sometimes cause us great embarrassment as we may address the stranger, only to realise our mistake.

4.WE CAN DEVELOP PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS OF DISTRESS: “Ill” with symptoms related to the loss, weight loss, alienation. Our best help is to understand the Stages process and press onwards even though we wish to once more escape.

5. PANIC: We can become convinced “something is wrong with us” as a survivor. we suffer survivor remorse, we can concentrate on little else. We may fear a further loss of our sanity.In effect we are regaining our sanity

6. GUILT FEELINGS: May recall our own past neglect, mistreatment, or wrong to the abuser. Wrongs may be imaginary or exaggerated. But they may be REAL wrongs with REAL guilt. Sharing and unburdening of real guilt gives best relief. “Forgiveness” of real wrongs, done to us as if they were imaginary, is no adequate solution.

7. HOSTILITY: Feeling better leads us to expressing self more actively. Hostile expressions toward those who “caused” our losses. Such hostility is normal and blameless becoming part of the healing process.

8. WE HAVE AN INABILITY TO RENEW NORMAL ACTIVITIES: We feel we cannot get back to “business as usual.” We must bear loss alone, since others are back to normal activities. We Need encouragement to face new realities, not to be sheltered from them.We start to move away from old friends and associates as we recognise we have little in common with them.We pick up the support from The Stages Guides. The HEALING OF OUR MEMORIES: There is a slow realisation that the painful memories are part of the healing process and must be integrated into the life of the recovering. It is a time of reaching out, however tentatively, to embrace fully all that has happened and to accept that life must change if it is to continue. The memories become less frightening, and the sky a bit brighter as the recovering begins to face the world with more and more confidence.

9. WE GRADUAL OVERCOME OUR GRIEF FOR OUR CHILDHOOD: Our emotional balance returns little by little, like healing of a physical wound. The Rate and severity can varies with each of us.We start to acknowledge our similarity of hurt and loss.There is a slow realisation that the painful memories are part of the healing process and must be integrated into the life of the recovering. It is a time of reaching out, however tentatively, to embrace fully all that has happened and to accept that life must change if it is to continue. The memories become less frightening, and the sky a bit brighter as we begin to face the world with more and more confidence.Loss brings about changes. We begin to mature it is in the resumption of the adult life and going on through the years without a parent, that we must come to the realisation that a new role is to be accepted and lived, and our period of grief for ourselves is over. The Renewed cycle of our life continues, and our bereaved self can finally shed the cloak of grief and take on the robe of peace and renewal.

10. WE HAVE TO MAKE A READJUSTMENT TO THE NEW REALITIES OF OUR RECOVERED LIFE: We are Not our “old self again,” because there is now a new situation a new form of reality. We feel the freedom of our grief process . We feel Stronger, deeper, better for having faced and overcome some of our dysfunctional childhood.We realise that this is a life time changing event and we practice the ten stages studying our past history in the light of our new reality.