Lobo
Your friend is quoting or rather misquoting the work of E Kubler Ross on the stages of grief. Dr. Kubler Ross later stated that she had never meant for the stages of grief to "help tuck messy emotions into neat packages". There is no single pathway or progression through loss, no one path and that is the main fault of any attempt to stage responses like this.

What was written as a description based on observation sadly to some has become prescriptive of the right way to respond to grief or loss.

To say you are in denial because you are not responding how the other person thinks you should is just wrong!