QVPCasual Contributor
Trauma from Divorce
I used to be a good man. A responsible father with 2 sons and a loving husband to the love of my life, a Christian that loves God and actively served in my church. Divorce has utterly destroyed my spirit, my self confidence, my will fight on, my I feel abandoned by God.
I have walked down the path of self destruction since separation in 2020, I lost my job, live alone, lost control of myself in chronic anger that I still carry, and lost confidence in my ability to pick myself up. My finances are in ruins after the divorce settlement, I have not worked for three years as I can’t see myself working for fear that I will not be able to handle the stress that would lead me to further cave in on myself. Everyday I wake up feeling anxious over money, though the truth is more like begging my sister for handouts.
One son hates me and I have not seen since separation, the other visits me though he is now a teenager, and at the age where he starts to discern a lot more and I can see the disillusionment in his eyes that dad is just a deadbeat, a shadow of the man that used to be strong for the family, and not the hero he once loved and adored. It feels like he sees me as the lonely old man withering away, alone and pathetic figure just fading away. He does not know the extent of my financial stress, but I know I have made promises of gifts, birthday presents that I can’t keep and it tears me up inside while I put on a confident facade in front of him.
My health is bad, I suffer from back pains, eczema outbreaks in my hands that make it difficult to work with them or it swells to a point that is unsightly and difficult for me to feed myself. When my son visits, I’ll have enough to cook meals for both of us, though standing for too long is a challenge for me, with the additional risk that my chronic hemorrhoids would rupture occasionally, stream down my leg that I will be unaware of until it is too late. My son has seen it once and it frightened him.
Carrying that sense of betrayal from my ex has made my social life a shambles too it had made me a person with a temper that is easily triggered, even in social settings, and harbour thoughts of “getting even” over things that seemed to trivial years before. My mind races to the worst conclusion at times even before I hear people out, an it just makes me want to explode at them, and the time I do, I regret and it just makes me become even more disheartened and withdrawn.
My anger is triggered by any sense that I am being lied to or betrayed, and it doesn’t take much to trigger it. I used to be able to listen to a person and conversations calmly and patiently. Now, if I am triggered, I jump to the nth conclusion and get very defensive and am quite impossible to calm down until I reach a point where I can catch myself enough to bottle it up and seethe quietly in anger.
I did not use to be in such a state, but all this is making me lose myself and i am now practically a recluse, finding it near impossible to leave the house everyday, I’m scared to meet people on account of offending more and hating myself for it. The only time i am grounded is when i see my son and have a chance to fuss over him, reminding myself of that little self worth I have left to someone.
