There is one process in our psyche, ignoring which can destroy our entire life in a short time. This is grief. If lost, it starts automatically. This process is needed to let go of the old and adapt to the new. Grieving is painful. Therefore, many of us have learned to extinguish it, to push it into the unconscious. This is called complicated grief. Like a chronic disease. Grief occurs in five stages. And at each stage you can refuse to experience grief. First stage. Shock, denial. The person denies that loss could befall him. The psyche is placed in a cocoon of insensibility. All emotions are dulled. This is necessary so that the psyche is preserved and the person does not go crazy from grief. If grief is pushed into the unconscious at this stage, the person remains insensitive for many years. I worked with a woman who was in a cocoon of insensibility for 25 years after her mother died. She could not build a relationship with her daughter, or with a man, or at work. Second phase. Anger. Insensibility passes and aggression begins. It arises due to the fact that a loved one is not available to us. We cannot satisfy our need to interact with him. anger can be directed at other people, a lost person, or oneself. If grief is repressed at this stage, a person will react to any situation in his life with anger. And the intensity of this experience will not be adequate to the current situation. Third stage. Negotiation. The grieving person begins to think under what conditions the loss would not have occurred. If we are talking about separation, then the partners think about restoring the relationship. At this point, a person plunges into illusions and hopes. If grief is repressed at this stage, the person will remain in illusions and hopes about the lost relationship. So I myself remained for 16 years in illusions and hopes that my ex-husband would return. This stage is characterized by the experience of guilt. Fourth stage. Depression. You can move to this stage if you accept the fact of loss. As you already understand, not everyone is so lucky. There is a lot of pain at this stage. A person closes off from the world and experiences loss. For those who are stuck at this stage, it is harder than all the previous ones. The previous stages have their own charms and pain relief. There is only pain here. I met a woman who was at this stage for 20 years, her life turned into ruins - no job, no partner and her relationship with her daughter was completely destroyed. Fifth stage. Adaptation. Its meaning is to take all the experience from the relationship with the departed, thank him and learn to live without him. You can also get stuck at this stage. A person who is stuck on adaptation either refuses to talk about experience or only talks about it. A sign that adaptation is coming to an end is that a person is making real plans for his future life. And in these plans there is no departed person. Signs of complicated grief: insensibility, anger, inadequate in the current situation, illusions and hopes, mental pain, talking about experiences from a relationship with the deceased without acceptance. If you are interested in this information, then you can read the article https://www.b17.ru /article/esli_bol_ne_uhodit/ In it you will find a description of the most common reasons why a person can refuse to experience grief and exercises to start the grief process. I would like to share an exercise that arose from practice. It consists of five drawings. It is best to draw drawings on A4 sheets with paints. We start with the first stage of grief and draw all the stages. Then we lay out the drawings on the floor and stand on each one. You can write down answers to the questions: “What do you feel physically?”, “What emotions do you experience?”, “What thoughts arise?” You can answer these questions without notes. This exercise should be done for 7 days. The purpose of the exercise is to trigger complicated grief and help it go process.