Ahhhhh...the joys of teaching. One of my students got suspended and taken away in handcuffs the second day of school for threatening to blow up school. I think he may have been teasing with the teacher, but remarks like that can't be taken lightly anymore, sadly.
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are. -- Bernice Johnson Reagon
Ahhhhh...the joys of teaching. One of my students got suspended and taken away in handcuffs the second day of school for threatening to blow up school. I think he may have been teasing with the teacher, but remarks like that can't be taken lightly anymore, sadly.
I'm the school nurse!! in an elementary school!
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
For about 16 months now I have lived one day at a time, sometimes an hour at a time, just plodding ahead, just putting one foot in front of the other. I have survived an incredibly difficult time. But when does it begin to feel like I'm alive again? When?
Just a year and a half ago I was so connected with community, church, family, friends. My marriage wasn't great, but I couldn't figure out anything more to do to make it better--so I simply prayed for wisdom, for healing for the relationship. But really, it hadn't been good for many years. I couldn't get past my resentment of his profound selfishness, and I really had a sense that if I sacrificed any more of my needs that I would just disappear. It truly was best that it end--however, I guess I would have preferred some honesty and integrity in that instead of just suddenly being left for someone else. Especially since that was never acknowledged, either by xH, family, or most of our friends. I think it would have been easier to grieve if there were some real feelings there, some sense of mutual responsibility instead of a whole different reality being presented which included that I was entirely to blame. It kind of makes it difficult to dissect and figure out how I contributed to the death of the marriage, and to my daughter being a child of divorce. Because I can't really move forward until I've figured all that out. I'm getting there.
It seems almost surreal that I am this isolated from my former life. Not just that my marriage is over and my family is completely different, but that I no longer have virtually any of the connections I so valued just a year and a half ago. Because I lost my job just days before xH dropped the bomb--and my job was in my church--I have lost that community. Most of my friends were there, and while most of them understand all that happened, our lives are just very different now and we no longer have all that we had in common. It hurts to go to church anywhere else, altho I have tried; this is simply what happens to most people who do church work and have it end badly. It just takes awhile to recover from the betrayal and feel comfortable in community again.
Friends from outside church have, amazingly, mostly sided with xH and cut me off--altho I don't understand why it was so necessary to take sides. I guess that's just what happens--you take sides or you feel too awkward and just withdraw. Who knows what he told them about the breakup; it couldn't have been the truth, because wouldn't they have been more sympathetic if they knew and believed it? The little that I hear involves their happiness for him to have found his soulmate--again--after all these years. Okay, leaving me out of it--what about the effect of all of that on his daughter? I cannot understand this coming from people I've shared my life with. I'm trying to find the reality in all of this--because it doesn't seem to be the one I've been living.
I have no family, except of course for D13. I was so happy to have nieces and nephews and relatives by marriage--but they no longer want any connection with me, don't even want to hear from me. I don't understand that. I didn't do anything wrong--but now I'll never see my daughter's cousins again. Except perhaps at Major Life Events involving D13--graduation, wedding, etc. But then, how do you respond to them? I don't have a clue; at the moment I feel a sense of shame when I think about it, and I don't even know why.
This is the part of the grief over the end of the marriage that will take the longest. It didn't take all that long--a year, perhaps?--to realize I'm better off without xH. (well, not ocunting financially.) But I lost so much more than my marriage. When I read on these boards the posts from those considering taking that final, irrevocable step, it makes me so sad because I wonder if they realize the vastness of the ripples flowing out from that decision. It is so difficult to begin again at 53--relationally, financially it is very much like being 23 and beginning my life right out of college. But it's much more difficult to reinvent myself this time around.
I'm tired. D13 is gone for the weekend at a family reunion. I need to get out of the house and out of my head, but there's so much to do here chore-wise (I just don't have the energy after work during the week) and I don't have any money until next weekend. I will find something to do, because I need to recharge and vacuuming and laundry are not going to accomplish that for myself.
I realize this is mostly journalling, but it's helpful to process outside my head. Interesting that my experience on these boards has so mirrored the rest of my life--lots of onlookers and readers, very few responses. But having a life that looks like a train wreck isn't all that attractive, I suppose. Just wish I knew when I will feel like I am living again and not just going through the motions. It feels somewhat pathetic that most of my friends are online, and I never see them in person or talk with them--but I am grateful for that connection just the same.
Last edited by hoosiermama; 08/29/0904:31 PM.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
I have successfully slept away most of Saturday. Way too much to do around the house and I don't have the energy, even if I knew where to begin.
I'm numb, and wondering what I'm trying not to feel. When the woman was screaming at me and took a punch earlier in the week, I thought it was interesting that I never flinched. I was just a little shaky after it was over, but I felt nothing. No anger, no fear. Nothing. When my principal told me the resolution of the incident was that I should not be alone in a room with her, I thought--well, yeah, that's inappropriate, how am I going to manage that?--and I should have been angry. But I felt nothing. On Friday I saw a dog get hit by a car on the way to work. But I couldn't cry. The picture replayed over and over in my head, but it didn't connect emotionally. When D drove off with xH yesterday for the weekend, I watched them drive away and probably stayed at the window for 5 minutes. But I didn't feel anything at all. This is rather concerning. It's as if I am as invisible to myself as I am to everyone else.
But I still check about a hundred times a day for email from ... someone, anyone. No, not xH. Just replies to notes I've sent, news from friends. And I hate that I am that pathetic, that I can't seem to find something to occupy my time that is more productive. Or at least less pathetic. And I'm wondering how the hell I got to this point, and how long I will be here. What is the lesson to be learned from all of this? I'm very very anxious to "get it" so that I can move on.
M60 H52 D20 M14 yrs OW-old gf from 1986 bomb-5/18/08 H filed for D-9/10/08 D final 4/24/09 xH remarried (not OW) 2012
I have felt the same way. I've let Saturdays when I am without my kids go unproductive -- I've let the serious reorganization, consolidation and cleaning effort I began earlier in the Summer to languish. My apartment is a wreck, a never ending reminder of the entropy I struggle against. I suffer paralysis at the magnitude of what lies before me. It's all I can do sometimes to get myself up to face the day.
I have suffered deep depression for more than five years. Oddly, I think I began to turn the corner on that right after the bomb struck -- I had to get myself out of that or else I would not be here now. I discovered that God was waiting for me, ready to pick me up and lead me. I am more truly joyful now than I can remember, but that does not mean that I still don't suffer the recurring pain of depression from time to time. Given how much each of we LBS' go through, how could we not feel these lead weights.
No, the dark cloud is always there, ready to consume me if I let it. And with God's help, it won't, I won't. I can recognize it now, much more easily, and seeing it for what it is, I can deal with it better.
You're not alone here. You have lots of company -- although that very thought brings both comfort and its own sadness at the same time.
Do you have an IC? Just talking to my IC, who has been a spiritual as well as psychological counselor, has helped me tremendously over these last two years. I haven't seen my IC since April, and I think it is way past time to speak with him again (maybe when I get past this financial drought.)
The main thing to remember is that your first course of action is to talk to God. Prayer is so important to your entire well-being. It should always be our first course of action, not our last. It really helps and does give me the strength I need to carry on.
