SOCIAL SCIENCES
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Introduction- Eva-Marie Saunders
Eva-Marie Saunders, a 27-year-old woman from Lincoln, contracted HIV 4 years ago due to her relationship with a guy she fell for. She had an on and off relationship with a guy named Gordon. She was not ready to have sex. All her friends were having sex with their boyfriends and she felt pressured to do so. She knew HIV was a fatal disease. She knew the consequences of contracting the disease. Yet she thought that her boyfriend had been careful with his other girlfriends. She did not like bringing up the topic of using protection with Gordon as she loved and trusted him.
With the passage of time, she would get tired easily and would stay on the bed for hours. Her best friend got worried and convinced her to go a doctor. She finally visited a doctor and was tested for HIV. The results came back as positive. What factors influenced her decision not to use condoms, how she felt at the beginning of finding out about her illness and how she coped during the treatment process using different theories, models and concepts is described below.
Stages of Grief Theory
There are five stages of grief according to the Kubler Ross model. The five stages, in chronological order, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 2014).
In the denial stage, the individuals go in denial mode. They cannot accept the fact that they have lost a loved one or have been diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease. They try to find false logic to prove otherwise. They try to hold on to a false reality (Santrock, 2017), (Anon., n.d.). Eva Marie, however, did not go in denial when she found out that she was HIV positive. In fact, she recalled all the symptoms of HIV she was going through and could not deduce that she had HIV positive.
The anger stage mostly revolves around frustration and irritation. When the individuals realize they cannot cling to false hopes and remain in denial mode, they become irritated. Several questions such as ‘why me’ start to arise. If they are of religious nature, they start to lose faith and start questioning the existence of God (Santrock, 2017), (Christina Gregory, n.d.). Some try to vent out their anger on people close to them such as friends, family members and/or colleagues. This stage of the theory also does not fit with the case of Eva. She did not get angry at God. She did not ask ‘why me’ or sulked that ‘life is not fair’. She did not blame her boyfriend for refusing to use protection.
During the negotiation stage, they try to avoid the cause of grief by bargaining or being willing to sacrifice something else to avoid the cause of grief. For example, a smoker finds out that he has lung cancer. He prays to God that he would quit smoking if he fights his cancer successfully (Santrock, 2017). Nowhere in the case study quotes that Eva tried to negotiate by trading off her illness with something else.
Depression is defined as a feeling of continuous sadness and helplessness. It is also defined as a loss of interest in activities which were previously enjoyable (Parekh, 2017). During this stage, the individuals are usually withdrawn from almost all activities. When she found out about her illness, during the depressive phase, she lost her appetite. She started feeling “worthless and useless”. She was not able to envision as to how could life go on with the tag of HIV positive. She started avoiding all social contact even when friends were willing to help her. She only talked to her mother and that too after a long time.
The last stage, acceptance involves coming to terms with reality. The individuals finally accept what has happened to them and try to move on. They realize that life will never be the same again and hence they start to tweak their life according to the current circumstances. They adjust and readjust. They try to live with whatever has happened with them. They start to come back to life gradually and start meeting and going out again. This does not mean that they have gotten over the grief. The grief is still there, but they start to emotionally manage their grief (Santrock, 2017), (Christina Gregory, n.d.). Eva also finally came to terms with her illness after being depressed for several weeks. After refusing to go to the GP, she finally decided to go. She accepted the fact that life would be different from then on, but still, she needed to be in control of her life. She knew she had to adapt to the new lifestyle. Eva Marie also pointed out the role of faith and religion in helping her in moving forward. She says she realized that although she may not have family or friends with her, she “still had God and that she believed that her suffering was for His greater good”.
Since the Stages of Grief Theory does not take into account her decision to not use condoms and only describes her behaviour after she found out about the disease, so let us look at alternative theories.
The second theory is the Cognitive Distortions of Depression. When individuals are suffering from depression, they have a habit of thinking negatively. These are cognitive distortions. For example, due to a bad event, one starts to think that they are no good and they will never be successful in life etc. Cognitive distortions further escalate depression (Schimelpfening, 2018). When Eva found out about her illness and went into a depressive state, she also started having negative thoughts. She started feeling “worthless and useless”. She thought that life could not be continued while being HIV positive. She thought it was impossible to live a “good and happy life while being HIV positive”. However, this theory also does not take into account her decision of not using protection….
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