What Is "Acceptance"?

What is "acceptance"?  It is not, for most of us, an immediate and instantaneous embrace of the notion that the whole world has changed for us when someone dies.  That rarely happens for anyone.  Sometimes we can perhaps confuse our initial numbness and shock with a kind of immediate acceptance.  When the shock goes away (sort of like an initial swelling goes down), then we begin to experience our loss more fully.

Nor is it some sort of intellectual affirmation that a death has taken place and the loved one will not return.  We can make that sort of conscious affirmation, but that choice does not assure us that the pain will go away as well.

Acceptance is not merely a move from disbelief to belief in a particular state of affairs.  Rather, acceptance is the process of moving from a fairly constant and frequent yearning for the loved one toward an episodic and rather infrequent sense of that yearning.  Acceptance is more about living with a loss rather than existing after a loss.

That yearning for the loved one is, in fact, "the most frequently endorse initial reaction" to loss, as reported by bereaved people in studies (Handbook of Bereavement Research and Practice, page 168).  The sense of shock and disbelief may have more pronounced in the first two months after loss. The study picks up reports from folks two to twenty-four months after loss, after the sense of shock and disbelief typically has subsided somewhat.

There is an inverse relationship between yearning for the loved one and acceptance of the loved one's death.  As that yearning wanes in both strength and frequency, acceptance of the loss becomes more common and stable.  It is clear from personal experience as well as research studies that particular episodes of yearning and sadness may be just as intense some time after our losses.  Those episodes are not signs of "failure" or dysfunction.  Those episodes typically don't last as long and are not as frequent over time.

We've noted before how the pain of loss is a kind of neural starvation.  Those familiar pathways in our brains and in our lives that we associated with our loved ones are no longer being used.  It hurts as those pathways fade from lack of use and are gradually recycled back into the generally available brain resources we have.  It takes six months or so for most of us to come to a level of comfort with the yearning/acceptance process.

"...by 6 months postloss, most bereaved individuals reach some sense of acceptance, see the future as holding some potential for satisfying relationships and endeavors, are able to engage in productive work, and enjoy leisure activities...By 6 months postloss, the majority of bereaved individuals are capable of finding some meaning and purpose in their lives, maintaining connections with others, and developing new relationships. (Handbook of Bereavement Research and Practice, page 170).

Those who may have steady or even increasing yearning more than six months after loss might be suffering from a form of prolonged grief and should certainly seek professional outside help to deal with these struggles.  

There are indications that reductions in yearning experiences are somewhat gender-based. Overall, men may have fewer long-term yearning/acceptance problems than women.  None of us, however, is truly "average."  All of our very individual experiences combine to create a typical picture, but that picture will not capture any one of us completely.

"Acceptance" is not so much a matter of belief as it is a matter of integration.  I gradually take in as part of my identity the fact that I have lost a particular loved one.  Can I embrace that revised identity and live out of that identity in healthy and productive ways?  Can I continue (as Freud would say)  to "live and work" in the light of my loss?  

It would seem that most of us can do that after a time.