Farewell, sadness: Why there is no "wrong" reaction to death
It is difficult to find a more universal topic than death: Each of us will have to not only meet our own, but also survive the loss of our close ones - friends, relatives, partners, acquaintances. But it seems that few people censor such as someone else’s reaction to death: it may seem redundant to others, but more often it is not enough. We understand why no "right" feelings in this situation can not be.
The most famous theory that describes people's feelings when confronted with death is the five stages of grief described by the American psychologist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. You've probably heard about her - they regularly beat her in pop culture, from the Simpsons to the Robotsyp. Much of the work of Kubler-Ross was dedicated to dying patients and the sensations that people are waiting for death. Kubler-Ross believed that patients often realized that they were dying, and it was easier for them to cope with this when they and the people around them recognized the terrible and inevitable. In her opinion, before death a person goes through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Later, Kübler-Ross came to the conclusion that relatives of dying people undergo the same processes - and after the book "On Death and Dying", which was released in the late sixties, in 2005 she published the book "On Grief and Mourning." By this time, the idea of the five stages was finally consolidated in the mass consciousness. This is a simple and understandable theory - we can all imagine and negation when we first hear that a person dear to us is dying and bargaining is stormy discussions about how it will work out and anger at the fact that a person leaves us too soon depression, and finally adoption, which should help to live on.
The stages of Kübler-Ross make the loss of an expensive person a more universal experience - but therein lies the snag. Critics of the theory insist that what we experience after the death of a loved one is a little like a clear plan or map where we go from one point to another. And although Kubler-Ross described a large range of emotions that we may experience when confronted with grief, there is no guarantee that one will necessarily follow the other, that we will not encounter several at once, or that we will not get stuck on one of them.
In the Indonesian district of Tana-Toraja, the body is assigned a special room in the house, and the rest of the family communicate with him almost as if he were alive — even symbolically fed.
Nevertheless, the idea that there is a “right” way to survive death is still popular. We know that sooner or later we must accept the fact that there is no longer a dear person with us - and the theory of stages makes this path more clear and direct. For many, the range of emotions that seem permissible in such a situation comes down to one - grief. It seems that the more we loved a person in life, the less room for other feelings after his death - and the depth of anguish should be directly proportional to our affection.
In reality, everything is more complicated: death, like any other significant event, can cause us a variety of emotions. The image that arises before our eyes when we think of a funeral - weeping guests in black clothes, sad music, if desired, a church ceremony - seems universal, but in fact it is very much connected with European cultural attitudes. Recall the funeral of a Hawaiian musician, Israel Camacavivo, from which he can be seen in his posthumously released clip "Somewhere over the rainbow". Least of all they look like a traditional long and hard parting: a crowd of fans of Camacavivoola was glad when his ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean. In American New Orleans, where African and European traditions mingled together, jazz funerals were popular for a long time: the orchestra accompanied the deceased, who accompanied the orchestra on the way to the cemetery, played joyful music, and the mourning procession turned into parade.
In some countries there are traditions that seem unthinkable altogether: for example, in the Indonesian district of Tana Toraja, a person is considered dead only when relatives accumulate enough money for the necessary funeral rituals. It can take months and even years: at this time, the body is given a special room in the house, and the rest of the family communicate with him almost as if he were alive — even symbolically fed. Madagascar has a tradition of famadihan - "turning over the bones": once every few years, relatives dig up the bodies of deceased loved ones, wrap them in a new silk shroud, communicate and dance with them, and then put them back into the grave.
Of course, all this does not mean that these rituals should be followed (famadhihan, for example, is associated with the spread of the plague in Madagascar, which in other countries has long been exclusively a disease of the Middle Ages) - but they show how different the attitude to death can be and how it can be felt human presence after it. But even if we do not take into account the countries where death is considered part of the life cycle and are treated more calmly, the feelings that we feel towards it are more complicated than just grief.
“In connection with the death of a loved one and loved one, people will have to experience the whole range of emotions, not only sadness and sadness,” notes clinical and Jungian psychologist Maria Dolgopolova. “And it also happens that in this mixture of feelings you can feel bright sadness in literature and culture a person does not "get" (this is an unfavorable option). And this is all connected not with the degree of love or dislike for the dead, but with his own psychological well-being and habits of dealing with his emotions. " The National Health Service of England, in a guide on how to cope with the loss, says that a person can experience a variety of feelings after hearing about death - not only an all-consuming melancholy, but also fatigue and anger (for someone who died led to this, and even to God and higher powers), and guilt because he did not have time to tell the dead, or that he could not prevent death.
Contrary to popular belief, immediately after the death of a loved one, we often experience not sadness and pain, but shock and stupor. So it was with designer Kate: “My very close friend died ten years ago, quite by accident and unexpectedly. An accident,” she says. “When they called me and said this, I thought it was a joke, then I became hysterical, and then I called all the morgues because I didn’t believe that it was true. I found the morgue where he was listed, and then I already believed. " According to Katy, in the first days after her friend’s death, she was wound up and discussed what had happened with everyone who surrounded her, even with taxi drivers. "Then I started to stupor, as if my soul and insides were taken out of me. It’s a very empty and quiet feeling, like when all the tears are already crying out and there is nothing more to cry," she says. "The state of shock, when all emotions turn off and it just becomes I think this is a defensive reaction to dull the pain. " According to Katy, the strongest pain came in a few months when the shock passed. Finally, she came to herself only eight years later.
Many feel guilty about being happy or having fun during the mourning period, but joy is needed to experience the loss - it helps to feel gratitude towards the deceased.
But if a stupor, like an all-consuming melancholy, seems to be a natural reaction to a stressful event (especially if death was sudden), then other emotions are said less often. According to Maria Dolgopolova, the hardest thing is to survive constructively and realize anger - for yourself (when a person thinks that he is involved in death, that he did not care enough about the dead, did not do enough to prevent a tragedy, or did not tell him what he thought). . The housewife Polina experienced similar feelings: her father died a week before her fourteenth birthday, and before that she had been sick for about half a year, almost never getting out of bed. “All this time, we barely spoke or even saw each other, even though he was in the next room, and I knew almost nothing about what was happening,” she said. “His death caused mixed feelings for me - to grief a shameful sense of relief was added (since the uncomfortable situation and the background anxious wait were finally resolved) and resentment for the deceased. I felt very sorry for myself and my mother, it seemed that my father acted irresponsibly, leaving us alone in such a situation, and my future is now threatened " .
Polina says that surviving the loss of these complex feelings did not help: “It was assumed that we would not sit and cry for weeks, but immediately begin to“ live on ”- naturally, this didn’t lead to anything good, and then the process of mourning had to be restarted and survive with the help of a psychotherapist. " According to Maria Dolgopolova, if the sorrow flows harmoniously, the person eventually calms down a feeling of guilt or forgives the deceased for his misdeeds. "The second is especially important when a person died because of obvious self-negligence or self-destructiveness. In this case, his family will need to recognize their anger towards him to complete the sorrowful process," she adds.
Another feeling, which is not customary to talk about, is relief that can be experienced when a loved one dies after a long illness. It seems that it contradicts the very idea of love - those who dare to talk about him, shamefully add that they did not want another person to die and did not expect it. Experts believe that in this situation we experience complex emotions. The feeling of relief does not mean that a person does not experience a loss - but with it there arises a whole complex of ambiguous emotions. A seriously ill family member requires constant and often long care - often in order to help him, a person abandons his own goals, plans and free time, and after death can return to them again, having experienced that same relief. The days, months and years spent in tension (will he not become worse? Does he or she hurt himself because of dementia?) Are exhausting, like any other long and hard work - it is not surprising that a person feels relieved when it comes to a logical ending. One may also be glad that the sufferings of a loved one are over, - all this does not mean that the deceased has been forgotten or that his memory is being betrayed.
Finally, another emotion that seems inappropriate when talking about death is joy: it seems that it can be experienced only if we did not like the deceased. In fact, everything is more complicated: Maria Dolgopolova emphasizes that a person feels not only what she wants to feel. "For example, if a loved one, despite the fact that he was greatly loved, caused both pain or discomfort during his life, after his death among his relatives, there will be some joy in relieving pain and discomfort (love does not negate)," she says. .
Many feel guilty about being happy or having fun during the period of mourning, but Maria Dolgopolova notes that joy is needed to experience the loss - it helps to feel gratitude towards the deceased. “The attitude to death in our family has always been not from the category“ How bad that a man left ”, but rather“ How many good moments we remember about a person ”, says social network producer Alik.“ All the relatives are going to the funeral, and for me it is always a laugh. All uncles and aunts begin to remember childhood, how they climbed trees together, patroled a dead pigeon (this is a family legend) or tried to get home through snowdrifts. It turned out that previous generations in our family grew together, in fact at grandma's house with grandfather ". Alik says that, remembering the good that was associated with the person, it is easier to cope with the loss: "Plus, I have developed a clear attitude towards life and death - it is important that you leave behind me. Not sadness, but lightness and laughter. It seems to me it's great".
It is difficult to imagine that all relationships between people can fit in one “convenient” scheme (although many try) - but with relationships with deceased relatives (which do not end after they die) this happens regularly. The topic of death still remains taboo, they are afraid to discuss it - which means that instead of real stories we hear about socially acceptable clichés. The truth is that the only "relevant" way to experience grief does not exist - just as there is no only "relevant" way to cope with difficulties and difficult events in life. We all have the right to experience pain and loss as it is easier and more comfortable - sometimes it is useful to remember that there is no standard recipe.
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