You Can Deal With ACOD Depression


As your parents divorce you may recognize that you are depressed and need to do something about it.  Realizing your losses and seeing your own need are the first steps to getting healthy.  The other sources of help may be determined by your own situation and what assistance seems most needed first.  The effects of your parents divorce will be felt emotionally,spiritually, mentally and physically.  So the help you get may need to address each of these components as well.

In my case,  I seemed to address my emotional and spiritual struggles first. I went to books(which I have listed in the margins of my blog) ,  my pastor,  a support group called Divorce Care, and a counselor.  This provided amazing relief and clarity for me.   But I also realized that I needed to work on giving myself new mental stimuli, so I took a pottery class, just for fun!    I found that physically I needed to take walks to help balance my anxious energy at times.  Medication gave my brain the ability to retain some chemicals I had lost during the stress.   After about three years ( I know..it sounds like such a long time, but just take one day at a time)  I realized that all the parts of my life seemed more healthy and in balance than when I first began to process my parents divorce and I had moved in and out of finding help for each aspect of my life as the need presented itself.  It is something I am still aware of and providing for even today!

Tips for dealing with your parents divorce:

Emotionally:    *Find a support group, a counselor, various friends or a pastor
                               *Give yourself some slack. Lessen demands on yourself and others
                               *Find something to laugh about and get your mind off of the pain

Spiritually:        *Explore your beliefs and values
                                *Pray alone and with others
                                *Help others with a completely different need
                                *Learn about forgiveness

Mentally:            *Try to encourage positive thoughts
                                *Make a plan or a list for your day so you can accomplish something
                                *Think through challenging conversations ahead of time
                                *Try a new hobby or activity for fun

Physically:         *Exercise
                                *Eat healthy
                                *Pay attention to sleep patterns and try to get good sleep
                                *Talk to your doctor about your depression
                                       Your doctor may ask how long and severe it has been occurring
                                       and you may be referred to a specialist or psychologist who may
                                       suggest medication.  Be open to this , while trying other things!


When an adult child of divorcing parents is dealing with depression, the goal is not to necessarily fix the problem or eliminate issues of conflict within the family.  The object is instead to begin healing at a soul-level.   We can not be responsible for others, but we can take our own thoughts and behaviors and modify them, one step at a time.  Just do what you can do for now, and in time, your depression will feel and look different in your life!

( Highly recommended book :   Happiness Is A Choice   by Frank Minirth and Paul Meier )

Next post will be another On A Lighter Note page - to help us laugh, smile  and lighten up emotionally!!  :)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adult Children of Divorce Sometimes Choose Estrangement

Image
I have been avoiding writing this post in my blog because I realize that many acods maintain a relationship with their parents or even the “offending” parent after a late life divorce occurs.   I want to encourage that and hope and pray that many grey divorces do not end with estrangement of parent and child.   But in my own experience and in the lives of other acods who have written to me, or whom I have met, that is not always the case. Often the adult child or the parent chooses estrangement for many reasons. “Offense”, “sin”, “hurt” …call it what you will, but when an adult child has one parent who has made a conscious decision for months or years to betray the other parent,   the adult child learning of the situation is often in disbelief.    Hoping to understand, they talk to the “offending” parent, only to receive defensive language and behavior and the acknowledgment of hurt and pain caused is denied.   Often a lack of personal responsibility and lack of feeling fami
Read more

Adult Children Of Divorce and Grief

Image
When I first became aware of the stages of grief, I assumed that I would experience it firsthand when someone close to me died,  not when my parents divorced in my adulthood.  As I cried my way through the first days and months of the shock of what was about to happen to my family of orgin, the pain was deep and unbearable at times.  Before the tears came readily and daily I seemed to walk around from task to task while hours ticked away in my day, as I functioned on auto-pilot, but my thoughts were consumed with the surprise and disbelief that my father had another love and would leave my mother and what we knew and loved of family to be with her. I reasoned that he would reconsider, that the affair wasn't as serious as it seemed, and that all would eventually be OK.  Little did I realize that I was experiencing the Stages of Grief due to the great pain and loss that I was experiencing.  The Stages of Grief are expressed by various words in different grief literature.  I wil
Read more

ACODs and Affairs

Many of us ACODs have witnessed the burning down of our families due to the fuel of an affair on the part of one or both of our parents. Affairs can sometimes be "explained away" to a child.  Reasons of friendship, having grown apart, or a new chance at love may seem reasonable to a child, although hurtful. As adults, we are familiar with the concept of affairs and we often observe it from afar in the lives of others, but when the many levels of deception, betrayal and destruction are experienced first or second-hand, there is a deeper clarity and pain. Since the discovery of my father's affair, and subsequent choices of his ended family as we all knew it, I have heard many people refer to affairs in common terms. They may call it a "mistake" or "just an affair".  Some say things like "all sin is the same in God's eyes" or they minimize the personal responsibility by claiming that sometimes people can't "help it". 
Read more