Seven Stages of Healing.

When I hear the word “grief” my mind starts thinking about losing a loved one. I think about someone losing all they have because of a natural disaster ripping their world apart or a single mom losing her job and not having the means to support her family. Luckily, I have never had to experience anything close to something so tragic, but I have come to know grief very well. I haven’t lost a parent in the dying sense but I did lose both my biological parents, as in they are not present in my life anymore. I was seven years old when I first went through the seven stages of grief. I was seventeen when I began the grieving process all over again. We all deal with things differently when something terrible happens; but I think often times the road to healing has the “same” beginning and the “same” end result. Instead of going through the seven stages of grieving according to someone else I am going to share what I believe are the seven stages of healing.

Step one- Shock and Denial: My mother chose to remove herself from my life when I was seven years old and even at seven I was in shock and major denial. She often shared with us the idea of signing over her parental rights but I never actually believed she would do it. Even when I found out she did exactly that, I still didn’t believe it. Little Pamela kept telling herself, “Momma will come back.” I told myself that for years. When my father pushed me to remove myself from his life I, again, was in shock and denying the whole thing happened. Obviously, I knew what was going on but I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to think that even though things were different they would still be the same.

Step two- Pain and Guilt: Eventually the denial wears off and the shock goes away. All of sudden pretending things are still the same becomes impossible to do. Reality sets in. I often thought about the things I should have done, things I shouldn’t have done, things I should have said, and things I wished I had never said. With guilt comes hurt and pain. I hurt because maybe if I had not said “I hate you” there would be a completely different outcome. I hurt because I felt like everything that had went wrong was on my shoulders.

Step three- Anger and Bargaining: Anger became the only emotion I felt for a long time. I was not only mad at the people who hurt me I was mad at everyone. I was angry with people who hadn’t did a thing to me. I lashed out on the people who were here for me, loving me unconditionally, because I couldn’t take it out on the ones I was really angry with. My anger almost cost me a very valuable relationship with the only person who has been here holding my hand through all of this.

Step four- Depression, Reflection, Loneliness: Just when I thought I was getting my life back together, here comes the pity party. I felt like I was no good for anyone and I couldn’t do anything and I would never be anything. I got depressed because I started looking behind me instead of ahead of me. I was reflecting on what once was and I stopped looking at what I have now. I became lonely even though I was surrounded with love and people. I had gotten to the middle of the mountain and I didn’t have the will to climb the rest of the way up, I only wanted to walk the easy steps back down.

Step five- The Upward Turn: I began the upward turn when I finally stopped looking behind me and looked at what was right in front of me. I was such an idiot to not just open my eyes and look around. I am surrounded by love and I know it. Why couldn’t I have just seen that from the beginning?

Step six- Reconstruction and Working Through: When you finally get through all the sickening emotions you can finally start seeing things clearly. Once I realized I am loved and I have a great thing were I am at, I was able to think about what I needed to do to get rid of the baggage. I literally woke up one morning and said, “I can’t do this anymore. I can not let someone else live my life for me.” Although I had been told all along that I was the only one being hurt by all of this I never saw that until I figured it out for myself. I had finally had my Aha! Moment.

Step seven- Acceptance and Hope: This is the stage I am in now. I have to accept the fact that I can’t change people or the decisions they make. I have accepted the fact that if someone can’t love me for who I am than they don’t need to be a part of my life, birth parents or not. I have learned that even though I made mistakes I didn’t cause my parents to walk out of my life and I will not fight for them to be around if they don’t want to be. I have also came to the conclusion that if they ever do come around I will not be here. I will not allow myself to have to go through these seven stages because of them again. I had hope before I went through all this and I have hope again. I have dreams as big as the sky and I won’t ever stop believing in myself. I know exactly what I am capable of and nothing can stop me.

This is how I dealt with what I like to call, the “Seven Stages of Healing.” Anyone can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad. Anyone can be a mother but it takes someone special to be a mom. I found that special someone before I went through all of this and she has stuck with me during the whole process. I call this person Mom because she is shown me what a mother’s love is, come to think of it she has taken my father’s place and gave me “his” love too. Grieving is no longer an option for me because I am loved. My life may not have went the way I would have thought but that is because there was an unknowingly better life waiting for me. My eyes are finally wide open and my heart is full.