Steve Case - F**k Death: An Honest Guide to Getting through Grief without the Condolences, Sympathy, and Other BS

CHAPTER 1

FUCK SYMPATHY CARDS. FUCK RAINBOWS.

(AND WHILE WERE AT IT)

Fuck. Death.

You can say it. Go ahead: FUCK. DEATH.

If you cant say it, dont worry, well say it for you. What else does this book have? Well, lets start with what it doesnt have:

There are no rainbows in this book.

No birds flying over the mountains.

No silhouettes of people standing alone on the beach.

No scripturewell, maybe a littlebut that will come later, and well still put some profanity in that chapter.

Youve probably already realized, but this is not that kind of grief book.

So, lets talk about grief for a second. Right now, your brain is giving you a chemical thats kind of like Novocain at the dentist. Novocain does not STOP pain. It prolongs it. You arent going to feel the full effects of this until you are well down the road. At the moment, thats probably a good thing. This is your bodys coping mechanism.

When someone you are very close to dies, you think, This is the worst day of my life. And then you come to find out there are worse days.

Yes, there are worse days to come. Yes, we know, thats not very encouraging.

Soon enough, the Novocain wears off. You are going to be at the grocery store and put their favorite breakfast cereal in your cart and just feel like sobbing. You might even buy the cereal even though you hate Cocoa-Os and will never eat Cocoa-Os. You might not even understand why you want to buy it. Buy it anyway. Let it sit in the cupboard until its past the expiration date.

Thats how grief works.

So again, lets just say it one more
time to get it out there:

FUCK DEATH.

Repeat as necessary.

Heres the thing. You cant fuck over grief. Death and grief: well, that shit fucks you. Grief feels like the flu. You are going to react to it physically. You are going to sob. Your shoulders will shake. Your brain will go numb. Your chest will heave, and you will feel like you want to throw up and are empty all at the same time.

One thing I can promise you: you will want to feel nothing instead.

However, thats not an option. Nothing may feel like the better option, but nothing iswell, nothing. Even if you start pretending to feel nothing, even if you disconnect from the world around you and turn those feelings off, at some point youll have to address your buried emotions again. And then grief is going to turn right back around and bite you in the ass.

So lets get this over with now. Lets confront your griefall of it.

THE STAGES OF GRIEF

Theres a process called the Stages of Grief. Youve probably heard of it before.

Its the most recognized framework for grief developed by a psychiatrist to explain the emotional landscape people experience when they suffer loss. The stages of grief are basically as close as anyone has come to saying This is how its all going to go down. Throughout this book, were going to go through those stages. If at any point in time you think to yourself This is horseshit, just put the book down. Pick it back up again when youre ready. You can start from the beginning. You can jump around the different stages. You can revisit them again and again. Your grieving process is uniqueso how you use this book is completely up to you. So, without further ado

The Five Stages and What They Actually Mean

DENIAL: No Fucking Way.

ANGER: Fuck. This.

BARGAINING: Lets Make a Fucking Deal.

DEPRESSION: Leave Me the Fuck Alone.

ACCEPTANCE: Embrace the Suckage.

Now, look at that list of five above. Understand this part because this is important.

This is NOT a to-do list. You dont have to follow it consecutively. You may go back and visit one stage. You may spend more time in one stage than another. You may experience the same stage again and again.

THERE ARE NO RULES.

But there is that basic framework to use as a guide, and you will most likely encounter them all. So, lets get started on the journey through grief, loss, and all the fucking bad shit youre dealing with right now.

And just one more timewith feeling:

FUCK. DEATH.

A BRIEF CHECKLIST OF SHIT YOU CAN DO TO MAYBE FEEL BETTER

Dont hold anything in. Feel everything. Cry. Laugh. Let the emotions out and let them be loud. Itll be terrible but also really fucking soothing in the end.

Dont push it. Dont try to ram your way through one stage of grief to get to the next. Be patient with yourself. And while were at it

Be patient with others around you. They have no more idea what the fuck they are doing than you do. Cut them, and yourself, some slack.

Dont compare your grief to someone elses. If they look like they have it all together and are dealing with griefits probably an act. Eventually, the mask slips.

Talk to someone. Talk to a minister. Talk to a therapist. Talk to your dog. (They listen better than most humans.)

Avoid alcohol. Dont do drugs. You can slow your process and cause all sorts of new problems you dont need right now.

As much as possible, keep a normal lifestyle. Go to movies. Go grocery shopping. These routines will help you during the first year. Yes, we said YEAR.

Its okay if you mark anniversaries. Raise a glass on their birthday or the anniversary of the day they died. There will come a time when you dont remember. Thats okay too. Decide which traditions you want to keep and which ones to let go.

Take. Your. Time.

CHAPTER 2

DENIAL

(NO FUCKING WAY)

The sun rises, and the sun sets.

Okay, you can go and be a dick about it and say the earth is orbiting the sun at nineteen miles a second and rotating every twenty-four hours. The whole sunrise/sunset thing is an illusion.

You can say that.

But ultimately, the sun rises and the sun sets. Its an undeniable truth.

Here are some other things that are undeniably true:

Friendship, love, and connection are basic human desires.

When we lose those things, we often feel broken and alone.

Not knowing what happens next is scary shit.

We all die.

And because of that, we all grieve.

Grief fucking sucks.

Ultimately, the biggest truth were going to focus on is this:

The sun rises, and the sun sets, and the person who died is not coming back.

Remember what we said about blunt honesty? This is part of that.

Its time to talk about denial. Denial is a coping mechanism when the truth feels too painful for us to comprehend. Its what happens when were presented with an undeniable truth and, instead of accepting it, we rationalize the scenario to ourselves, attempting to convince us that it simply isnt true. It couldnt be true. This is the feeling of No way, this cant be happening. It didnt happen. Someone must have gotten it wrong.

Im sorry to say thisbut no one has gotten it wrong.

Someone close to you has died.

No, they are not alive somewhere else.

No, they are not coming back.

No, it doesnt make any fucking sense.