Divorce – Page 2 – Vraxx

Physical Signs of a Depressive Episode

In one of my last posts I mentioned feeling the physical onset of a depressive episode and how I’ve tried to stem the tide when that happens. Diet has helped considerably (less sugars, more vegetables and yogurt/oatmeal). Exercise has been a bit harder to come by as it’s been stormy these last few days.

The most difficult part of trying to counteract the early onset of an episode is that you literally want to do exactly the opposite of what your body is telling you. Fighting insomnia for days on end, having nightmares every night, I feel the urge to sleep longer and longer to make up for lost sleep. That doesn’t really fix the problem though, and has it’s own host of side effects.

Several stress factors have weighed on me heavily. April will mark one year since my divorce and while some things have improved for me through therapy the road ahead is still a long one. There are still a few legal matters to tend to which I am worried about, most of which I can’t change at all. Work stress is always there, that’s perhaps the one constant. Fighting to keep my health level from back-sliding and feeling unhappy with my stalling progress. Rationally I understand that I have to find ways to work through each of them in my own way but emotionally the pressures and strain take their toll on a daily basis.

I’ve taken to target shooting more as the focus allows me to step out of my own mind for a bit and focus on the task at hand. Some of it is muscle memory and regimented discipline as safety while at the range is paramount to me. There’s still also a sense of fun that helps me unwind. It isn’t a hobby I’d recommend for everyone struggling with depression or other forms of mental health, but find that thing which let’s you step away from the negative things affecting you when you can.

The Difficulty of Valentine’s as a Divorcee

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and for me it will be a doubly difficult time. Besides being the second Valentine’s since my marriage ended, I recently lost an aunt to cancer. A lot things as a result have weighed on my mind.

Being single and without someone is hard enough on Valentine’s Day for anyone, for me it’s a painful shot back to a different time of my life. I’ve tried my best to keep busy, reading, the gun range, anything to keep myself engaged in other matters. In many ways I suppose I gravitated immediately towards anti-Valentine’s things such as catching a very non-romantic movie (John Wick 2), reading various sci-fi novels such as Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse) and Netflix binge watching with shows I hadn’t considered before such as Canadian mystery/drama series Murdoch Mysteries.

http://www.refinery29.com/2017/02/139949/single-on-valentines-day-depression

A lot has been written upon the subject and admittedly most of the suggestions tend towards treating the day as just any other and letting it go past. My first Valentine’s post-marriage occurred in the midst of my divorce. She had moved on and was with someone, making the whole prospect of Valentine’s day that much more unpleasant for me. I buried myself in work and the tasks I needed to address. This time around work isn’t the best option in terms of distraction and so I endeavor to find other releases. Each person has to find something to anchor themselves with. The one thing I can speak upon is that the activity should be something beneficial and not something of a more vice like nature (no drinking to excess etc).

If you find yourself having a difficult time, speak to your health care provider or mental health professional, find something that can engage you and remember to care about yourself as best you can. Hang in there and remember it is a day, one that will pass in due course.

Article – Break Up Pain Felt Differently By Men/Women

http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/breaking-up-feels-different-for-men-and-women

I happened upon this article and thought it an interesting read. For myself breakups have always been pretty painful and lingering in nature. Most of my relationships have always been for longer than a year, even just dating. I can attest that be it an issue with putting aside emotional pain or similar, that some of the points of the article may have some merit.

My divorce has definitely hit me unlike anything else, it finds ways to creep into my consciousness more often than any relationship in the past. As noted in the article, sometimes the end of a relationship stews in men. Unhealthy as it may be, I sometimes wonder if it’s due in part to how critical repetition is with men and learning things.

The article gave me pause to think of my own coping tools and the ways that I’ve tried to put the failure of my marriage behind me. Moving forward, particularly while battling back depression has often felt like the emotional equivalent of a mud bog. You charge through but sometimes you get stuck and it takes a while to extricate yourself from the muck.

It was a sobering reminder that recovery can be a drawn out process and that there aren’t really shortcuts. So hang in there if you’re working your way from the fallout of a breakup or divorce.

Cleaning out the Old — Divorce/Moving

One of the hardest things I experienced through the process of divorce was having to pack up all my memories. We moved into my ex-wife’s home so the transition was easier for her. Having to reverse that process in my case was a difficult memory trigger.

As I find myself again moving (of a short) I realize that I have to get rid of a lot of things. It hasn’t been the most pleasant thing having to retread through my memories. Seven years of being a couple permeated through a lot of my life. Among the most stressful things in life are moving, an audit and divorce. Hopefully I never have to make it three for three.

There is a silver lining I suppose. As you get rid of things that you no longer need or use there is a catharsis in it. The bitterness of having to decide to memories to keep isn’t easy, progress rarely is. If you find yourself having a hard time with it, you can always have a friend along to help wade through the things and provide you a sense of perspective. Take it a bit at a time. It isn’t easy but it helps.

Divorce and the Death of Art — By the Numbers

A lot changed for me from 2015 to 2016. My marriage was over, my ex-wife and I filed for divorce and any drive I had to pick up my camera died off. In part because I met my ex through art and because in some ways I lost her to it too.

Most of my footage was to help others, rarely for myself in the last few years of my marriage. I went from capturing anywhere from 500GBs of data through 2015 to less than 8GB for all of 2016.

I don’t photograph people anymore, it’s a little hard to get people to smile when you don’t. This isn’t the first time I’ve sunken this far and I doubt it will be the last time. Though my photography has been a source of decompression and therapy, it is done with a laser focus and purpose. Gone are the days of photographing for happiness’ sake. There are small projects in my head, darker ones that I want to express but haven’t found the full extent of what I want to say. In some ways the death of one art can be the birth of another. The journey to get there however isn’t always a pleasant one.

Divorce and Birthdays/Anniversaries

December has always been a difficult time for me, moreso now post divorce. Today (12/2) is my ex-wife’s birthday. It’s weird thinking that in my head. That it is a date that in some ways it’s better if I forget it.

I can only hope that she’s found happiness where she is now with her new boyfriend. Me, I can’t say that I’ve found happiness but I know the direction I have to work towards and that’s something at least. My family never really celebrated the holidays much. Perhaps because i’m part Vietnamese and the holidays were mostly about church and simple meals with family, not about the presents etc.

Around this time last year my ex and I had our worst fight and the decision that divorce was the only option more or less agreed upon. If I had a Christmas wish it’s that this time next year I won’t remember as much. It seems a bit cruel to think it, but I know each day I drive memories further down so that I can take those painful steps forward and away.

Divorce, Perspective and Spin

Divorce is difficult by itself but one of the hardest aspects is that the story changes based upon who you ask. I’ve generally tried to remain neutral in how I explain my divorce. I don’t like to contend that either of us was the root cause, we both made bad choices and in the end the marriage was over.

The thing is, depending on which side you view it there’s always some degree of spin. Some framing to try and put the one telling the story in the best light. Dealing with depression and the divorce I’ve had to stare a lot of things dead on and find ways to cope and acknowledge the problems I found in myself. It doesn’t make it easier but I’ve tried to state my perspective of it without painting myself in necessarily a positive light.

The hardest thing to admit is that when it’s over, it’s over and what things didn’t work. I’ve had to sit down, jot them down and they are things that I now try to work on a little bit each day. Didn’t save my marriage but hopefully will save me heartache down the road.

Depression, Holidays and Anniversaries

Today would have marked five years of marriage. This year however it just marks the 25th of September for me. I woke up at around 430AM to nightmares, tried to force myself asleep to no avail. Insomnia is a painful reminder of the road to recovery still ahead of me.

My ex-wife usually made holidays and key dates feel special. Without her they are just days. Halloween, one of her favorite holidays is coming up. This year though; for me at least; it’s very empty and something I’m trying to avoid. This isn’t an uncommon thing for me this year. Just about every holiday has had a sensation of not being ‘right’ but a lot of that is just in my head and an adjustment I’ll have to get used to. It’s harder to organize friends, what few I have left. Then again a whole part of me feels averse to socializing with even my limited group of friends.

My biggest hope is that the years that follow become easier. That the memories of holidays past don’t trap me in a painful loop. It gets easier, so my friends tell me. Painful is the path however and after a while you have to just work your way through it. I’ve tried to read and keep myself stimulated with things to keep myself occupied.

Reading and Other Distractions — When SciFi Hits You in the Feels

I’ve been trying to find better distractions besides the usual media/TV thing, though I admit every now and then an innocuous episode hits you when you least expect it. If you haven’t watched DS9 and don’t want spoilers just stop here.

Besides trying to make use of my Kindle Cloud Reader I started going back and watching episodes of Star Trek and it’s respective spin offs. Maybe because of the 50th anniversary. An episode hit close to home, and it will sound silly but I saw a lot of interesting themes in it, themes that as a teen I obviously was oblivious to. Deep Space 9, Season 2 Episode 9, Second Sight. Questions about recovering from the loss of a spouse (Sisko) and finding love again as a widower. A husband whose wife is a species that ‘mates for life’ and is so miserable she starts to project a telepathic version of herself that falls in love outside of the marriage. In my youth I just thought it was a romance episode, seeing it through the eyes of a divorcee gave it new life. In the end the husband, realizing his wife’s unhappiness chooses the only option he has left, he fulfills a crowning achievement and in the process dies. The only way to set his unhappy wife free.

Anyone who has gone through a divorce or a break up can probably relate. It’s a difficult thing to feel that in a marriage you have gone from a source of happiness to one of unhappiness. Thankfully humans don’t mate for life, and there is no need to die to set one’s unhappy spouse free. Social commentary has always been a hallmark of scifi but every now and then it blindsides you. The tone and theme of the episode raised some very important things I have to think about.

Self Help Books and Perspective

As my therapy sessions are now more spread out I’ve continued to try to find books and other resources to help me maintain perspective and find ways to cope with my depression, divorce and all the small nuances in between.

One of the small aspects that I’ve found somewhat vexing lies in the approaches of both types of texts at times. Here’s the thing that I feel a lot of text misses. There’s depression and clinical depression. Everyone’s felt depressed, usually that’s situational with very specific events that trigger it. Divorce obviously being a big one. Clinical depression however isn’t simply triggered by any one thing at times. I find a lot of divorce books sort of gloss this over and the tone and approaches they maintain sometimes just feed into the negative loop of depression. On the other hand most texts about battling clinical depression don’t overlap with coping with major trigger events like divorce. So you’re sort of left with one book in your right hand, and another in your left.

Most texts about coping with depression share common tools with those that talk about recovering from divorce. Therapy, communication, meditation, exercise are all common tools. Most books on divorce don’t discuss neurochemistry or other dietary changes to help cope they just gloss over avoiding “bad foods”.

I’m not trying to say that self-help books are useless. There’s valuable wisdom and insight now and then but you have to take it with a grain of salt. Books can’t pin point anything specific to you, it’s broad strokes. I try to remind myself of for everything I read. Much like those books, I feel my blog may verbalize my own pain and my own trials and I hope that if anyone chances upon it that they understand that there are people out there struggling too. Hopefully some of the tools I’ve listed help others.