The Curious Case of Reverse Grief Response.

Kϋbler Ross gave the classic Response to Grief sequence as:

Denial > Anger > Bargain > Depression > Acceptance. 

It is believed to be the stops in the mind's passage through the dark tunnel of knowing to the light at the other end, where it can learn to live with the fact.

It is believed to explain the process of dealing with loss, from the most minor, like a child realizing they can't have their favorite toy anymore, to the terminal patient planning out the numbered days of their life.

Here is a case where the sequence was reversed giving rise to its own peculiarities.

Acceptance: 

There could be no doubt about it.

If something cannot be possessed, isn't their implied loss?

The mind was ready to pay the price. 

What can be the price of something that cannot be bought? 

Priceless. There was beguiled security in this matter of fact.

Depression:

The problem is "Priceless" is an oxymoron. It is too high a price to pay. 

When depression set it in, the illusion was shattered. Accepting the emotion as depression was also acceptance, but of another kind. It was acceptance that there had been something that had been possessed and a price was being paid. 

A price so high it could not be fathomed.

Bargain:

This didn't last long. 

What's to offer in return for Priceless?

What do you bargain pure joy with? 

Then there was this other issue.

How do you cross a wall with no doors or windows?

Anger:

This has been the longest. It refuses to go away.

It is born of the false acceptance.

It wouldn't go away because the next stage cannot set in.

Denial:

What is there to deny?

Deny that it was there? Then there can be no loss. What isn't found cannot be lost. 

Yet, what has already come to pass cannot be erased from history. That it was, is undeniable. 

It's credibility cannot be questioned just like that of your breath which is self evident in the fact that you are still alive.

Deny the loss? Then the whole argument is pointless. Then there is no response, let alone a reversal.

The loss is undeniable. It was the one natural course. 

It was Inevitable.It was accepted even before it was acknowledged.

Unless we come to terms with what needs to be denied, the anger is going to burn. Since it has nowhere else to go, it will burn inwards.

The logic of Kϋbler Ross's sequence hits home. The sequence cannot make sense if the order is reversed. 

Ultimately, it has to go full circle from Denial to Acceptance.

However, that will have to wait till the paradox of the Denial can be dealt with.