Claire Smith in her book (Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief) argues that
"While many people experience anxiety for a variety of reasons — divorce, moving, illness, a genetic predisposition — the kind of anxiety that is brought on as result of losing someone close to you is its own breed. While grief anxiety maintains many of the same characteristics as generalized anxiety, there is an underlying situational cause. So when we can allow ourselves to grieve and truly explore the impact of the loss, we are better able to ease and manage the anxiety that accompanies it."
Do you think that there is a correlation between grief and other mental disorders? Do you think that anxiety could be considered the sixth step of grief or do you think that there is a different step entirely?
I would have thought anxiety would have been acknowledged as central to grief of all types because the loss of someone through death reminds us about our own finitude, and as Heidegger suggested, the angst about being finite is a part of the human condition and a fundamental driving force in human consciousness. Imagine if we lived forever: There would be no need to do anything today because we can always reach our goals in an infinite number of tomorrows.