The Grief Cycle as Applied to 9/11

The 5 stages of coping with grief are:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

We can view our country's collective consciousness as we all experienced the events of 9/11. It has acutely affected us with nearly identical reactions, primarily because the television coverage showed the entire spectacle to everyone almost simultaneously. Similar to the collective reaction our country had when President Kennedy was assassinated or the first Shuttle explosion. In the case of 9/11, we immediately united as a people at the shock of the event. This translated into a unified nationalism. New York City had an abrupt change in personality after that day.

I noticed in myself a sense of defeat in terms of how the terrorist attack broke the peace of our secure US mainland. Hijackings were a thing of the past, the social compact was now broken. People feared to visit their local grocery store, unsure where the hidden enemy would pounce. The fear has finally subsided as no notable acts of terror have occurred on US soil for over 5 years. Along with letting go of the fear, these recognisable signs of coping with 9/11 are evident:

Denial. This can be displayed by the ongoing conspiracy theories about 9/11. These include claims that a missile hit United 93, or a missile hit the pentagon, or that the World Trade Center was felled by explosives planted within the building. Also, the Bush Administration was also in denial that they were warned very strongly to take action on the threat of Bin Laden striking within the US. Bush and Cheney continue to this day to be in denial that invading Iraq was "The Right Thing To Do". This is also evident with the title of Bob Woodward's book "State of Denial".

Anger. This was displayed by the swift entry into Afghanistan, and more prominently in Iraq. Most soldiers in Iraq have been indoctrinated with the idea that they are in Iraq because it was involved with 9/11. There were also instances of angry passengers refusing to fly with a group of Arabs onboard. This anger also found it's way into bitter partisanship during the 2004 election cycle.

Bargaining. This is the willingness of some Americans to give up their rights for protection against another terrorist attack. The support for controversial measures such as warrant-less wiretapping, removal of habeus corpus, and torturing suspects, was in part because of this rationalisation.

Depression. This is what has been occurring lately since 2005. Since the government's poor response to the Katrina hurricane, there has been a steady loss of support for the President's agenda. The slow realisation began to include the poor effort in stabilising Iraq, and finding Bin Laden. This turnabout of support for the President is all the more striking because of the quick collapse from his re-election just months earlier.
Update 1/30/2007: Another sign that our country is in a general state of depression is the increased weight size of our population. Obesity has been on the rise, and a possible source is depression over the fear of terror. One way people avoid depressing situations is to focus on food. Binging on chocolate or the like is a chance to make your stomach happy while you are depressed about life.


Acceptance. This was illustrated by the mid-term election of 2006, where the majority of our country has come to terms with the fact that we have lost thousands of Americans in the last few years without any victory. We don't have Bin Laden, we have lost the war in Iraq, and our country's integrity has been lost because of poor foreign policy. This acceptance means that all the hatred directed at Democrats has passed, and the misguided views of the neo-cons have been rejected.