ACOD Times To Remember

Adult Children of Divorce can't decide if they like calendars or not!

You flip the page on your calendar and see May 9th and the ache deepens once again. That was the day you got the call that your mother was leaving your father for another man. This is a date you don't want to think about.

You see pumpkins , smell leaves burning, and feel a cool autumn breeze . Later as you turn the calendar from September to October you no longer have warm, nostalgic feelings the way you normally do.  Instead, you feel a lump in your throat.  Last Fall you attended your parents divorce , and nothing has ever been the same again.

Plans for Easter are made, but the whole time you feel unsettled and can't quite figure out why.  Then you remember that was the time you usually celebrated mom's birthday and now you hardly keep in contact with her.  This is a time you don't like to remember anymore.

Remembering negative times and bad memories is common. Our bodies are wired to remember trauma or pain , as to avoid the trigger in the future.  This is important, but equally helpful is training ourselves to remember good things, thus balancing our memories and providing positive thinking during a difficult situation.

What if we ACODs decided to also focus on remembering that it was June 22nd last year when we saw mom laugh and smile after months of observing her anguish of divorcing late in life?    

Or remember that last Spring we began our counseling and when we see tulips and smell the spring rain, we will always think of our growth and how far we have come in healing?

And the first time you felt an epiphany when you realized "I can't fix this" and it is o.k?

As well as the time last week in the Hallmark store when you  looked for a birthday card for your mother and didn't cry or become angry, as you realized your feelings for your mother had changed since your parents' divorce? What if we remembered that!

Or remember the party, where when asked how your parents were doing, you could explain the divorce to an unknowing person, with a sense of strength and clarity, instead of crying.

As an Adult Child of Divorce, you can learn to like your calendar again. Begin this week. When you turn the pages this month, think about progress,  joy,  healing, and milestones you are making in your journey. Those are the times ACODs should remember!!


A Time for Everything  :  Ecclesiastes 3 : 1-8  ( read the whole chapter too!)

1 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.




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

The Serenity Prayer Worksheet

Image
Serenity Prayer Worksheet God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen. --Reinhold Niebuhr of ACT                                                  ACCEPT What I can influence                                                What I cannot influence                               ABDICATE                                What only God can influence         The Serenity prayer causes us to seek the wisdom of discernment in circumstances and time…we have today…and the future….Today we plan activity a
Read more