I am starting therapy next week. I am anxious, but I am hopeful.
You see, I am hurting. Some days it is a lot. Some days just a little. And some days I feel pretty good. But the good days don't last, and even then, the good days are always tempered. I am not a playful person. I don't radiate fun, love, or acceptance. I do experience these feelings, but they are always in the midst of a dark, choking mist, that never quite goes away.
Depression is hard stuff to shake. In the past decade, just a few bad things have happened in my life that has truly been full of really good things. But the bad often outweighs the good in my daily battle to keep perspective and keep my spirits up.
Seven years ago I got married, and then divorced (in April, people!!). I had married the person I had been in love with and living with for ten years. Two weeks after the wedding, he told me that he no longer loved me and that he wanted a divorce. He took some of his stuff and left. I looked over the pile of wedding gifts that covered the entire kitchen and living room, and felt like the biggest fool on Earth. Over the next few weeks/months, I had to pack up the rest of his stuff (because he left it and I wanted him gone). In doing so, I discovered the real explanation for his departure, in the back of his dresser drawer. A Christmas present, with a card signed, "Terri". Before the ink was even dry on the divorce papers in August, Terri was pregnant with twins. Joy.
It is my sincere hope that none of you can relate to the kind of pain that this particular scenario can bring. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Well, okay, one person. My former sister-in-law because she told me I deserved it because I was so stupid for not seeing it coming. You can't even fathom the kind of pain and humiliation this kind of experience brings about. To have to explain to everyone that just attended your wedding that you are now getting a divorce? Nu-huh. You can't. Here's the kicker: He left me. I still loved him. He was my life for almost eleven years - you can't just extinguish you feelings overnight. In this instance, divorce was worse than death. In death, if the person that you loved in life is now gone, that's it. They're gone. You can even rest-assured that they are gone from your life because death made it so. With divorce it's different (at least in my case). The person I loved, who I considered my best friend was gone. He still walked this Earth. He went about his day, but without me, because he didn't want me to be a part of his life. It is so difficult to reconcile your feelings - you are angry as hell, but what about the feelings of love? They die a slow, tortuous death. Every photo ever taken during the time you were together bears some sort of memory. Every song. Every restaurant you ever went to. Every concert/sporting event/party/holiday something-or-other/birthday/anniversary/funeral/birth. Every *thing* holds a memory. I've spent the last seven years sifting through memories. It's difficult when you remain in the same town as when you were with this person. Let alone the same house. Over the years, the *stuff* has made it's way somewhere...else.
Wedding dress? At the local consignment shop for the last two years. Maybe they forgot about me.
Photos? Most have been hacked up. I can't quite bring myself to do them all - because the other people in the photos were friends, too.
Cards? Gone. Made a good fire.
Wedding video? I haven't watched it in six years. Yet I can't destroy it. Again - there are family members in it - especially my grandma, who just passed away.
Furniture? Most of it is gone. What remains was mine before we even got together.
Clothing? This didn't hit me until last summer. I went on a tizzy in the closet and removed everything that I still had. Besides - if it was six years old, it was outdated anyway!
Paperwork. Next January I get to shred 2004. Can't wait.
It's all of the other, intangible stuff that is hard. I drive past a certain place, and (totally unbidden) a memory comes flooding back. Sometimes it is there and then gone. Other times, for whatever reason, it puts me in a complete funk. This is why I need help. It is not about missing him. That was over a long time ago - before I met Dean. It is more about the pain that is conjured up. The giant soccer-ball-to-the-gut feeling that has never quite gone away. The feeling that my fragile world, at any moment, will crumble apart. If you have ever been hit with bad news that was completely unexpected, then you know what I mean. There is a certain part of you that will always live in fear - that the horrible feeling of being blindsided will happen again. There is also the question of forgiveness. I have yet to forgive. I don't know if I ever can. I can forgive the action he took in leaving. He knew what he wanted, and what he didn't want. Good for him. He just made a very poor choice in how he went about it - and that part I can't forgive. And then, the most difficult part. Forgetting. There is a giant boot print on my heart. How do you forget when someone just tosses you aside? Somehow, you don't let yourself forget, because self-preservation gets in the way. You say to yourself, "Always remember the pain! Don't make the same mistake again!".
Now we get to the good stuff. I met with a wonderful lady in the months after the divorce. She is the minister of the Unity Church here. She had lived with an alcoholic husband for years before she eventually got divorced. She knew the struggles I was having with co-dependency (he was an alcoholic). We met countless times, to help me through my stuff. It felt good to talk. I read books. I felt like I was making progress. Months went by and I felt too lonely to let any more time go by, so I decided to do something about it. Miraculously, within days of my joining the online dating site eHarmony, Dean's profile was sent my way. When you consider the emotional hell I had just been through, finding Dean, meeting him, dating him and marrying him was easy. I never questioned the process. I never questioned if he was right for me. I just knew. Call it a gift from the Universe, and I was due something good for once. We have experienced quite a bit in six years. Coming together as a family and adding three more children. Travel. Funerals. Health scares. Job loss. I have never been happier with who I have had by my side through it all. The trouble is this cloud of fear and sadness that won't go away. It permeates everything. It taints every memory. I live in fear that the other shoe is always hovering above me, waiting to drop. That is no way to live - and it's not fair to those I love.
I have felt like a shell of my former self for quite some time. I set out to reassess myself, after the divorce. I sort of did. I wrote a list about what I wanted. I decided the kind of life I wanted to live, and the type of person I wanted in my life. Most of it has happened. I just know that something is 'off' - a piece of 'me' is still missing.
That is what the therapy is for. It is time for outside help, and one should never be afraid to ask for it.
