When I was going through my divorce I remember feeling like I had felt every emotion in the book in a matter of days. One minute I would feel relief, the next I was angry, hurt, frustrated, confused, depressed, and then I would start all over again. I was on an emotional rollercoaster that I couldn’t get off of. I’d start to deal with one emotion and then before I knew it I was on to the next even before I had begun to deal with the first. I was so overwhelmed with all of the feelings I was feeling that I started to just push them away.
My parents tried to get me to go see a counselor so that I could start to work through things, but I didn’t want to deal with any of it. I didn’t want to talk to anybody about it. It was too painful and I was embarrassed about the situation I had found myself in, even though everybody knew it wasn’t really my fault. I buried all of the emotions because I just didn’t want to feel the pain anymore. I figured if I just ignored them they would go away. At first it seemed to work. I was moving on with my life. I was happier than I had been in a long time. Things were moving in the right direction, then every once in a while something would pop up. Something tiny would set me off and all of the emotions would come pouring out. I didn’t know how to deal with them and truth be told I really didn’t want to deal with them. Dealing with them meant I had to face the reality of what had happened and I wasn’t ready to do that. I was starting to think I was doing pretty well and then out of the blue I was a mess again.
I was lucky enough that I had an empathetic mother who had been through so many of the same things. I had a father who was willing to talk to me whenever I found myself breaking down. Not everyone is so lucky. Don’t be afraid to talk to people about how you are feeling. It takes time to work through all of the emotion of everything. You don’t have to do it on your own. Give yourself the time you need to heal. Ignoring it only prolongs the process. The sooner you deal with the feelings the sooner you are able to move on and the more available you will be for your children in their time of need.