DIVORCE AND MENTAL HEALTH

 It is a beautiful hot day outside.  Texas weather in the summers are not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.  But it is truly beautiful.  We've had a good amount of rain through June so the grass is still green, which doesn't usually happen by July.  

I don't blog often.  I unintentionally hurt someones feelings with a blog post and I don't want to do that again so I am very nervous blogging about anything.  I created this blog page to try and heal myself and maybe help anyone else who might be going through the same circumstances.  I have depression that has been my constant companion for a good part of my life.   So most of my blog posts are my way of working through my depression.  I have a hard time feeling safe in many situations.  A good amount of that was because of how our home felt when I was young.  I had precious parents that weren't good at communication.  I don't think they knew how to be any other way than what they were.  We are all imperfect and I believe we are all put here on this Earth to learn.  I learned from their mistakes and my mother used to say she learned from her mother's mistakes.

When I was almost 36 years old my mom took me aside and told me that she was in love with another man.  My dad had just gone into retirement only a couple of years or so before and she was not used to him being at their home so often which pushed her to visit my grandmother at the nursing home a lot just to get out of the house.  Long story short, she was in a situation that made her feel alive again after being married for, I think, 48 years.  By June my dad and the rest of the family found out and she decided she wanted to start this new life.  It was not a pretty situation and she was not acting like herself.  Her words and actions were not kind and neither were my dads, although I was so surprised that he spoke about her, to me, as well as he did.  

Things did not go well and she thought I would be able to drop everything and become a part of her new family, but I was losing my mind.  I went into a shut down of life.  I curled up in bed for months and cried.  She wanted to have a relationship with me but I was consumed with fear any time I was around her.  Fear!  I would have a panic attack and feel like I was going to die.  Even now, typing this, I can feel that fear rising up in me just from the memory. For many years I could not be in the same room as her because of this horrible debilitating fear.  When I did finally force myself to talk to her she would say things that made me cry uncontrollably.  She wanted to get even with me for not being what she wanted me to be, so she punished me out of her pain.  As a result, I lost many family friends and even family members would not speak to me anymore.  So, not only did I lose the mother who loved me, because at this time in her life she only thought about herself, but I also lost most of our family and friends.  With divorce everyone ends up paying a huge price.  Both people want to keep the people they love and will say anything and do anything not to lose them.  So they each go from person to person and play their cards of tales to keep the other person on their side.  But the tales they tell are full of exaggeration and untruths in and effort to keep that person's love.  So I lost my family unit and most of the friends and family connected to that family unit.  

When a person goes through pain because of loss, it creates this huge fear.  It is a fear of more loss, a fear of loss of who they were before the loss and a fear of what will happen after the loss.  My fear was unimaginable.  My fear consumed me and destroyed my health.  Afterwards I ended up losing my church family, and more family because of my mental heath.  My mom ended up dying of cancer seven years later, which I think was caused by her mental health.  Even though she and I were speaking at the time, she was still punishing me for how she felt I was hurting her.  She could not see how I was hurting, because of her own pain.  She was consumed in her own feelings and couldn't see the pain of anyone else.  She was never the same mom I had before the divorce.  She had become a different person.  I felt very sorry for her.  It broke my heart how much we all lost.  

Mental health destroys lives and relationships.  It kills bodies and minds.  And I don't think we see how often fear is behind depression.  If someone is no longer speaking to you, it is probably due to fear.  I know that my mental health has cost me dearly in the loss of people I love.  They can't deal with you due to fear.  You become too much work for them or you make them feel uncomfortable.  It is easier to walk away.  I am very fortunate to have people who love me unconditionally.  But there are so many people out there who have lost so much due to their brokenness even when it is just a temporary brokenness.  The world has become very closed off to people out of survival of their own mental health, understandably.  However, we all need to keep in mind what we are doing by not loving and showing kindness to people who are suffering.  And the ones who are suffering should know that sometimes people are afraid, not cruel. 

WITH KNOWLEDGE THERE IS POWER

WITH KNOWLEDGE THERE IS UNDERSTANDING

WITH UNDERSTANDING THERE IS HEALING

WITH UNDERSTANDING THERE IS LOVE

Love to you

Shannon