A year ago today, my divorce was finalized. It was the oddest feeling of relief, terror, and sadness all rolled in to one. Looking back now, I wonder what in the world I was expecting once that was behind me. Because, even though I was expecting sweet relief and sunny skies from then on, that wasn't to be.
It seemed like everything was going to be fine. The kids and I had a new apartment that had a nice setup outside where we could still play (but I didn't have to mow!), I finally started a job after being out of work for seven months; and working from home meant I didn't have to put the kids in daycare. School started a few weeks later and Isaiah got involved in scouts. I met some great people through that!
Most importantly, I was no longer afraid of what would happen with the divorce. I wasn't worried that my ex would suddenly stop being so accommodating and everything would get ugly. I was no longer terrified he'd make good on his passing threats to take the kids or keep "his money" from us. Finally, everything was over, done, and we could start to put all the ugliness behind us.
We fell in to a routine. As time went on that routine wore me down. The kids were only with their dad sixteen hours a week. Isaiah was in school and Micah had half-day preschool but Esther was still with me the other 527 hours a week (at least, that's what it felt like). The day-and-a-half the kids were gone I had a giant to do list filled with things for work, volunteering, scouts and cleaning. There was never, ever, ever, ever a break. Never.
I kept hearing "you need to have time for you" and "you can't take care of your kids if you don't take care of yourself". I could have taken a break, but something would have been dropped and I would have fallen behind. Trying to catch-up on cleaning or work when the kids were home was.......difficult to impossible.
Over time I started to sink. Slowly, life unraveled. I took those breaks, but I never tried that hard to catch up on everything. I was always behind on something. Trying to catch up on cleaning put me behind on work. Catching up on work put me behind on planning for scouts. Always something was left undone. That feeling made me sink further, so I did less. It was a mess. My attitude was awful. I yelled at the kids all. the. time. I think there were days were a kind were didn't pass my lips. They just wanted to connect with me, but I had sunken in to this fog that I didn't even realize I was in. There were days that I went to bed and had no idea what I had done that day.
Then we had to move from that apartment I was initally so excited about. I could not take the cigarette smoke anymore. Isaiah was having headaches. Esther was coughing all the time. I had to make the decision to uproot us, once again, and get out of an unhealthy environment.
After that decision was made, I found a place, started packing and planning, and I just plummeted. I couldn't do more than one thing at a time. My work started to get sloppy. My home started to get sloppy. My diet started to get sloppy. I can't even describe what I was doing. Just barely going through the motions. This was the proverbial straw that broke me.
Then....I started having passing thoughts about ending it all. About just being done with it because all this was so hard. Thinking about driving in to oncoming traffic with the kids in the back seat so they wouldn't be left without a mother. One day I just broke in to gut wrenching sobs and felt like there was nothing good left in the world and I didn't want to be in it anymore
That day, before I even really had a hold of myself, I called the county mental health department. The guy who did my intake interview said I was "severely, severely depressed" and had generalized anxiety. Instead of waiting another 2 months to see their psychiatrist, I was referred somewhere else for medication, and that place referred me to a third party for counseling. It was sort of a drawn out fight to keep going, to get the help I realized I needed so very, very badly. But this was the first thing in months I put much effort in to. I kept going because I knew I needed to. Because I knew there wasn't an alternative I was willing to accept.
I think I'm at the beginning of a really long road. One where I'm trying to find my way out of this deep, twisting cave I somehow gotten lost in. And I realized I've actually been depressed for a long time. At least a couple years. That's how long I can remember feeling this knot of anger inside. That's how it all started. A little anger that grew in to more and morphed in to complete despair.
So, while I wish I could write about how amazing my life has been since my divorce and how much healing I've done in the past year....I actually feel like I'm worse of now than I was. And while I can't regret ending my relationship, it sure destroyed a lot more of me than I thought it was going to.
No comments:
Post a Comment