Yesterday I wrote the first in a series of posts describing the stages of grief that many people experience after an epic breakup. Today I will describe the experience of denial. And in the coming days, we’ll look at seven more stages that I believe are helpful in orienting you to where you are in the grieving process.
2. Denial
Nope. It’s not possible. This did not happen. Your ex doesn’t mean it. He or she couldn’t. Life without your ex is too unfathomable, so you don’t believe it. You just can’t. You’ve put everything into your relationship. It’s been your world, your identity. Every last vestige of hope is invested in the viability and durability of your relationship. This must be a stage, it’s temporary, you think. No matter how remote the possibility, you’re continuing to carry on as if you’re still in a viable relationship, because then it hasn’t ended. That’s you postponing your grief because you are not currently equipped to acknowledge that there is anything to grieve about. It’s your primal way of trying to keep yourself regulated. You can’t tolerate the loss and so you don’t.
Denial is complicated to pinpoint, however. Because it can be too scary to face your epic breakup, you may deny its end without even realizing that’s what you’re doing. There’s a critical distinction to be made between overloading, short-circuiting, and just being completely unable to fathom the loss, and knowing you can’t fathom it so intentionally protecting yourself from the reality of breakup.
When you are deliberately denying, that’s no longer denial, that’s avoidance. Avoidance is different. In this stage of shock after an epic breakup, shock is primal and right now there may not be anything you can do about it except exist with your feelings knowing that when you’re ready, a path forward does exist.
